Padmajav’s Weblog

There was this security guard in my office (not the one in Valentine’s Day story, but same office though) who looked like a caricature.

A tall wiry chap with a big mustache twirling upwards, he made us laugh by just being there. But he had some fantastic logics in life. If at all an award was being handed out to the most innovative thinking in interpreting things you didn’t understand, he’ll win hands down.

Just a sample. We officially closed office at 6 pm. And once the receptionist was off, the security guard took over her desk and answered the phone.

Most of us worked well past 6 and invariably got a little peckish. We usually ordered short-eats from a restaurant opposite or sent out the office boy to get us something like spicy molaga bajjis or bondas from a cart-wala down the road.

Once a colleague who didn’t know a word of Tamil, sent the boy to get her some peanuts. After waiting for half an hour, she called the reception to check if the boy had left to buy the groundnuts at all. The Security answered the phone. Another colleague was sitting at the reception, talking to a friend who’d come to visit him. The following conversation was narrated by him.

Phone rings.

Security: “Hello., Gooood eeevning madam’

……..

“Yes madam, he’s here”

……….

“Ok madam, I’ll send him right away”

Hangs up. Urges the boy who’d been gossiping with him all the while to go to the shops.

Turns around and tells another chap who cleans the office.

” She wanted some internet oil urgently”

What’s that?” Asked the cleaning chap.

“Its for the computers. If you grease it using the internet oil, the computers will run fast & smooth”

My colleague fell backwards laughing….

I’d meant to write this on Valentine’s Day, but was too swamped with things to write a coherent piece then…

Anyway here goes.

This has nothing to do with romance or the V day itself.

Just something that happened to me years ago, just before Valentine’s Day.

I was working late one evening. Bid my colleagues farewell albeit distractedly, as they made their way out of the office one by one.

Suddenly looked up from my comp to see the office deserted. Most of the lights were off, except for my cubicle.

I sat almost at the far end of the office and the main door seemed far away.

Suddenly a nameless fear seized me and I wanted to make a quick exit from the suddenly spooky place.

Of course, we had 24/7 security, but the guard sat outside, in the reception area.

The shadows loomed large from all the empty cubicles and I broke into cold sweat.

I shut my machine off and hastily gathered my things and raced towards the door.

Here, let me talk a little about the layout of the office.

Like I said, My cubicle was at the far end. To come to the door that leads to the reception, I had to go past a lot of cubicles, and the pantry and the restrooms. Then comes the conference room and the door to the reception.

As I shot past the restroom doors, a light caught my eye. The Ladies’ washroom door was fully open with the stopper on. The ladies’ toilet door inside was also fully open and there sat the portly security on the pot, with his pants down.

I screamed as I raced past the reception, only to find the main door firmly locked.

Panicking, I desperately searched for the key. It was in place on the top-side of the glass door. How I managed to open the door, ran to the car park & started my car is still a huge blur in my mind.

But as I reversed down the sloping drive way (I had just started driving then & was yet to master this without the hand-brake), “Madam!” A voice called in the darkness.

I braked sharply and turned around to face the shame-faced security guard. ” I am so sorry madam” he said. “I thought no one was in the office. I’m really sorry madam” He rattled on.

Still shaken, I waved him off. “Its ok,” I croaked and zoomed out.

Needless to say, I never saw him again. Somebody else had replaced his shift from the next day.

When I narrated this to my colleagues the next day, there was a laugh-riot. People were laughing about it for days. Someone even made up a story that the guard had had a major crush on me and that was his Valentine’s gift to me…

But one female colleague was totally miffed with me.

Why?

“He came all the way down to apologise. Why the hell didn’t you blast him for using the ladies’?” She demanded. “I don’t even feel like going in there now”

Each unto his own… oops.. her own..

I work from home. Which has its perks. Especially with a small child.

When I was young, working moms were rare. Most of my pals from school had moms waiting at home with a snack for the evening. After which they supervised their homeworks.

I think I was the only one with a working mom in my class.

My brother & I opened the lock and entered an empty house, made some jam sandwiches or simply changed out of our uniforms and walked to a nearby bakery to have Gold spot, cake & Fivestar. After which we went on to play & came home only when we saw our mom walking home from the bus stop.

Most of my friends envied us for our freedom.

But sometimes I used to nag my mom to resign, so she could be home when we get back from school.

She always reasoned softly that she was in a government job (which was difficult to come by those days) and she just cannot throw it away…

Later on, when I was a trainee, I saw a senior colleague give up her full-time job to be with her kids. Since I stayed close to her, I was entrusted the job of dropping off work at her place on my way home and picking it up on my way to office. (This was the pre-email era) We had strict instructions never to call her between 2 and 4.30 pm, because it was nap time for her kids.

All this put together, I decided to be a work-at-home mom too when it was my turn.

Fortunately for me its much easier with the world wide web.

But I soon realised working from home is not for the faint-hearted.

The boundaries between work and home are so blurred…

Its pretty stressful to hear a client briefing you on a new job, while your baby’s howling away in the crib.

I’m terrified of sounding unprofessional, so I once spoke to a client in a full-fledged business-like tone, pretending to take notes while I was in fact wiping my son’s derriere!

I try not to ignore him while I’m working, so often I work after he sleeps at night. Sometimes from 12 at night to the wee hours in the morning!

And as Murphy’s law will have it, the child always falls sick when there’s a short deadline.

Sometimes the child choses to be most difficult when all you need is ten minutes of peace to finish some work which was actually needed yesterday.

Of course, there are some understanding colleagues & clients who’ll ask “Is this a good time to talk?” the minute they hear a whimper in the background.

But I don’t miss working in an office.

No mad rush to beat the traffic to reach office on time…

No attendance register to give me a red line when I arrive 10 minutes late for work…

No layers of hierarchy for anything…

No twiddling of thumbs and getting bored when there’s no work…

No guilt trips if I check personal mail during working hours…

The list is endless.

But I do miss the general camaraderie and of course the lunchtime gossip-sessions.

But they seem a small price to pay for the freedom otherwise!

For starters, I can blog as and when I please!

Chivalrous Chidambaram:

There was this guy once who didn’t know the meaning of chivalry. Being a hardcore feminist during my school days, I really believe in women being the superior species, but we do lack the muscle-power and I’m glad if a person with a bit more muscle steps in when I really need a bit of a help. Chivalrous Chidambaram used to work with me in the same office as I’d mentioned earlier with Paranoid Padmanabhan & Masala Madhavan.

Since we had no office-boys in those early days, we took turns to buy our morning cuppa and run whatever errands were needed then.

Once it was my turn and I was walking back with a heavy flask of tea and a pack of biscuits in one hand and clutched my purse, a sheaf of xerox-ed papers in the other.

I was struggling to open the gate with all the stuff in my hands when I noticed Chivalrous Chidambaram walking towards me from office. With great relief, I waited for him to open the gate and help me with my stuff. He opened the gate and said, “There you are! I’m so hungry!” Carefully pried the pack of biscuits from my fingers, opened and took three or four and ran away towards the road saying, “Thanks!! I’m late for a meeting. If you’d come earlier, I could’ve had the tea too!”

Left me speechless, really.

I ‘ve had the pleasure of working with a lot of people who are really funny. Some without meaning to be.

This post chronicles the most oft remembered characters.

* Names have been changed to protect their identity.

Masala Madhavan*:

We once had this dude boy working with us. He was fresh from college and was intent on making an impression on any new female recruits. He was good-looking, athletic and spoke with a yankee accent and was very good in his work. Very sweet, but he always had to add some masala to anything he said.

A sample: He once told us that while riding his bike in a storm in a Chennai road, he actually saw a coconut tree bend, touch the ground and went back to standing straight.

Paranoid Paranthaman*:

He is more of an alter-ego of a colleague. He’d manifest himself at the most unexpected moments. The usual happy-go-lucky guy who played practical jokes on all of us with enthusiasm would suddenly vanish and in his place would be Paranoid Paranthaman. He’ll then start resembling Kamalhaasan in that Jayaram movie.

Two guys from office had gone over to his place late one saturday. Finding the place locked, they decided to play a joke on him. Left a note under the door which said, ‘Be careful. You don’t know whom you’re dealing with…’

On monday morning we saw PP at his worst. He’d already called an uncle who’s in the police force to check if he needed their protection, listed out possible enemies with his wife, actually slept with a cricket bat under his pillow and had also got his parents in law involved.

The whole office was buzzing with excitement and each time the doorbell rang, all of us jumped. (Our office was in a residential building, part of a bigger house)

The monkeys who’d actually written the note had conveniently forgotten the whole thing. It was done on an impulse after a few beers. That particular day, both had gone for meetings straight from home and came back to office at the end of the day. And were soon caught up with the excitement. But as soon as they knew what started the whole thing, they fell strangely silent. Looking at each other, after few minutes of guilty silence, they confessed…

All hell broke loose! And after giving them an earful we broke into a fit of giggles…