~Office Dares~

Got this in a forwarded e-mail back when I was with CTS, and thought it was funny enough to share (though I can only assume about everyone has seen it already) - In fact though I've read everything, each time I read it I am foolishly cracking up sitting in a cube surrounded by people. Lol. I have highlighted my favorite ones in blue.

ONE-POINT OFFICE DARES
1) Run one lap around the office at top speed.
2) Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you.
3) Phone someone in the office you barely know, leave your name and say, "Just called to say I can't talk right now. Bye."
4) To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears and grimace.
5) Leave your zipper open for one hour. If anyone points it out, say, "Sorry, I really prefer it this way."
6) Walk sideways to the photocopier.
7) While riding in an elevator, gasp dramatically every time the doors open.

THREE-POINT DARES
1) Say to your boss, "I like your style" and shoot him with double-barreled fingers.
2) Babble incoherently at a fellow employee, and then ask, "Did you get all that, I don't want to have to repeat it."
3) Page yourself over the intercom (do not disguise your voice).
4) Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle (there must be a 'non-player' within sight).
5) Shout random numbers while someone is counting.

FIVE POINT DARES
1) At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the national anthem (5 extra points if you actually launch into it yourself).
2) Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times.
3) For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as "Bob."
4) Announce to everyone in a meeting that you "really have to go do a number two."
5) After every sentence, say 'Mon' in a really bad Jamaican accent. As in "The report's on your desk, Mon." Keep this up for 1 hour.
6) While an office mate is out, move their chair into the elevator.
7) In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter, "Shut up, all of you just shut up!"
8) At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce, "As God as my witness, I'll never go hungry again."
9) In a colleague's DAY PLANNER, write in the 10am slot: "See how I look in tights."(5 Extra points if it is a male, 5 more if he is your boss)
10) Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask, "You wanna trade?"
11) Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person: "Do you hear that?" "What?" "Never mind, it's gone now."
12) Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, "I can't talk about it."
13) Posing as a maitre d', call a colleague and tell him he's won a lunch for four at a local restaurant. Let him go.
14) Speak with an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very important conference call.
15) Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk.
16) Hang a 2' long piece of toilet roll from the back of your pants and act genuinely surprised when someone points it out.
17) Present meeting attendees with a cup of coffee and biscuits, smashing each biscuit with your fist.
18) During the course of a meeting, slowly edge your chair towards the door.
19) Arrange toy figures on the table to represent each meeting attendee, move them according to the movements of their real-life counterparts.

And if that wasn't enough for you... How to keep a healthy level of insanity:
1) At lunchtime, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
2) Tell your children over dinner. "Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."
3) Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
4) Put your wastebasket on your desk and label it "IN".
5) Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over his or her caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
6) Finish all your sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy."
7) Dont use any punctuation
8) Use, too...much; punctuation!
9) As often as possible, skip rather than walk.
10) Ask people what sex they are. Laugh hysterically after they answer.
11) Specify that your drive-through order is "to go."
12) Sing along at the opera.
13) Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.
14) Put mosquito netting around your work area. Play a tape of jungle sounds all day.
15) Five days in advance tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.
16) Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name, "Rock Hard."
17) When the money comes out of the ATM, scream "I Won! I Won! 3rd time this week!!!"
18) When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot yelling, "Run for your lives, they're loose!"
And the final way to keep a healthy level of insanity....
19) Send this to everyone in your address book, even if they sent it to you or have asked you not to send them stuff like this.

Of drinking water and leaking faucets

When I joined Bioforce, one of the first things I bought for my desk was a tall water bottle. As a habit, I drink very less water through the day and for the past years of my existence, I've barely done any sort if justice to the 8 glasses a day funda. I convinced myself now, that the best way to keep a clean digestive system and hopefully clear skin was to drink bottles of water. And all of it worked. But you knew there had to be a downside, or else why would I be writing about it?

Drinking 12-16 (roughly 3-4 liters) glasses of water in a span of 8 hours at work has its downside. Add to that 2-3 cups of water-brewed tea. The restroom breaks increase of course! Sometimes, I feel the need to pee three times in two hours. And this wouldn't be so much a problem if the restrooms were located in a secluded corner of the office. They are located right off the kitchenette, where you can bet your day's pay that at any given moment, someone or the other is having coffee, or checking out the snack cupboard or the refrigerator or the back office room for supply. So what - You may ask. What it is that its embarrassing to visit the restroom sooo many times per day inviting people to believe you have a congenital defect or a leaky faucet!! And whats worse is that the chatty receptionist's desk is right there too. And she feels the irresistable need to say hi to you each time. Hmph.

So whats the solutions? The excuses, but of course. Timing is crucial. Each tea break is an excuse. Each time you rummage the snack cupboard is an excuse. As is lunch.

Moral of the story? My kidneys are fine.. Yoo hoo!!

Funny Google

I randomly tried getting directions from Ames, IA to Europe. Look what Google thought I should do to get there. Its funny. :)

Why me?

Many of you must be familar with this scenario.. You've just completed your degree (in the US) and you are looking for jobs. Ofcourse you have uploaded your resume on Monster, Careerbuilder and the many other job portals in the hope of flagging the one dream job you want. No matter what your degree, I bet you have a million consultants call you everyday the first few days. I have no problems with the genuine guys who are just out there doing their job and trying to offer you one.. Many don't get that you are an Electrical Engineer simply not willing to settle for a "software consultancy job". Thats also fine.

But what about some genuine freaks? I got this one call for example, about a month ago and I still can't believe it happened. And that was it for my patience. This dude called himself Vijay and started out by saying hi.. hello. When I asked him for what company he worked for, believe me when I say it took him 4 whole minutes to concoct a 'John Grunther Solutions' which doesnt exist ofcourse. He claimed the reason for his delay in answering to be his debating between the 3 groups that owned different companies. All that was okay. This was the part I couldn't take. I had just finished narrating my rehearsed speech of how I wasn't interested in software job.

Him: So what kind of jobs are you looking for, Jayalakshmi? (I hate the fact that every consultant seems to be Desi. I hate it even more that every sentence each one uses on me ends with Jayalakshmi. How are you Jayalakshmi? We have a job to offer, Jayalakshmi... I mean.. I understand you can pronounce it.. but give it a rest, will you?!!?)

Me: I am interested in MEMS.

Him: Oh you are interested in MEN (I capitalize it to emphasize it) And his tone, believe me wasnt confused, wasnt embarrassed or any of that. It was as casual as 'Oh you are interested in Visual Basic'. Who the ^@%*$!&$P)!*{$!($# canvasses candidates like that?

Me (in pure rage now): NOT MEN!!! MEMS - Its an expansion of Microelectro Mechanical Systems!

Him: Oh ok. So where are you from in India?

I hang up.

And I have all rights to be saddened.

And you are sentenced to 2 months of cabbage cutting...

And sooo last night was my cooking turn and I innocently turned to my wily roommate and ask her, "So what shall I make for dinner?" After a pretense of loads of thought she came up with the masterplan.. "Cabbage... Make it our South-Indian Style.. and we can have it with rasam." I looked at her in disbelief... Cabbage? Is that the worst thing she could come up with? For those of you who think I am exaggerating, I suggest you try and cut one yourself.

I have this habit of either standing at the kitchen counter and cutting the veggies or sitting on the sofa and watching TV and doing the chore. This time the choice was obviously the latter considering I was going to be taking forever.. and spot on I was... 35 minutes later, I was still left with 1/8th the stupid cabbage and 2 overflowing bowls of already cut ones, not to mention the circle of mess at my feet from the strewn pieces. I shot daggers at my roommate. She was responsible for all of this. And then I knew it was her revenge to my requesting her to make rasam the other day! Hmph.

And then I realized that our government back in India or anywhere else dont realize that they have a gold mine sitting on them. Imagine sentencing someone like this - "You are sentenced to 2 months of cutting 600 cabbages with a blunt knife." I know what you are thinking. Why blunt knife. Come on.. you are 'sentencing' someone.. you might as well make it hard. I promise you.. once you enforce such a sentence on someone, in a week you will see remorse, in a month even suicidal tendencies (they do have a knife!!) and if they last the 2 months, they are never ever gonna commit any crime remotely big enough to land them a sentence! I am yet to meet someone who "likes" cutting cabbage. And someday, when people are hatching plans to rob a bank, they will discuss - "Pakde jayenge to muhjse gobhi katvayenge.. nahi baba!!" roughly translated as "Should I be caught, they'll have me cut cabbage.. Oh no!" Think about it.. the crime rate dips, the cabbages from the cutting can go into making good food for the jail inmates themselves (or to the neighboring village or something), the frozen cabbage industry can flourish, the economy improves and on and on and on... Ok ok... I know somethings are best left as fantasy. Stew the cabbage!

~Toll-free calls~

Ever haggled with the CSRs of any organization? Most likely, it took you an hour to get through to a human voice after making the multiple choices to a computer and listening to umpteen music notes and promotions that they keep running you through. I have dealt with a whole bunch of CSRs and most of the electronic companies route your call, right to guess where? Good Old India... the flourishing BPOs.. The Padmanabhans become Paddys, the Thirunavukarasis - Tinys, the Margabandhus - Marks (ok- u get the point!)

So when I spoke to the HP guys, it was an Indian dude who promptly started with "Hi I am John" and the second he realized I was an Indian (and a southie at that), said"Actually Janardhanan.." and started flirting! Gosh! But well, he did help me out.. The reason all this came to me was my tryst with T-Mobile yesterday. I wanted to switch the whole account from Ali's name to mine and so I haggled on and on and on (I also wanted a phone upgrade) and was put on multiple holds which disconnected twice! And each time I called back I had to explain everything again. On the third occasion I really snapped. Spelling 'Jayalakshmi Parasuraman' is no cup of tea! And not a holiday for certain!! I couldnt blame the new CSR who picked up and however, an hour after I started, I was done! Whooooooooooooooooooosh! Actually that reminded me of the funny time I called the "No more offers" number to stop the whole lot oof junk credit card offers I was getting. After painstakingly spelling out my 22 letter name, and my address, the computer said, "Please say your name and spell out any words that could be difficult." I was dumbfounded. One attempt later, it said "Please confirm, you address is: 5-0-6, 112363597503, Wrightman Road." I hung up.

But then I remembered the time Time-Warner had overcharged me and I rang them up on a weekend thankfully and from my cell-phone thankfuller-ly (for those who don't know, we can make free calls from our cell phones on weekends). So, I tapped it on Speaker and did my work as I kept hearing the buzz of advertisements, and music for precisely 47 minutes before the call dropped! My roommate was telling me recently that she had called the Reliance people recently for some problem and had ended up spending an hour with a rude woman who refused to understand ehr problem or help her out and transferred her to multiple people with no avail! Whats with these people? I mean, why are they in the business if they don't wanna help? And why have these toll-free numbers at all if they are going to spew their domestic temper on us? From the customer's point of view, he's first been cheated (or overcharged or some thing) and then he has to put up with some random person's vile temper! (I must accept that many people are sweet.. it just rattles your brains when some aren't!!)

In retrospect, we all have troubles with something or the other and at some point will resort to calling these guys for some help. It just makes sense to not have wait times of more than 10 minutes or atleast have a queue information system that tells you you would have to hold for another 6 minutes (like out phone information system in Chennai) and keep up its electronic word! Most times like this, I wanna be in a wizarding world, where a Reparo or something would probably accomplish in ridding my woes!

PS: All you Harry Potter fans, await my post on the latest book/movie or both.. Coming sooN!

The Ring

No no.. This is not one of those horror movie reviews or a praise of the Lord of the Rings or anything like that! This is something that really happened and drove my cousin nuts and indirectly, well controlled my own life for the possible 3 hour obsession.

So it happened that I used to have an amethyst studded sterling silver ring which I used to wear on my right middle finger (no intentions though I have fantasized showing the finger in the process of showing people my beautiful ring - wicked me! :)) It turned out to be pretty lucky - don't ask me why I think all this jewelry stuff has a lot of luck attached to it. I have been told by preachers that diamonds are real luck deciders - either they are reaaaaaal lucky or they aren't. Luckily the one(s) I have ended up with have been good for me. Ok to cut the long story short, this ring over the couple of years that I have worn it lost each amethyst steadily and soon was barren and poverty-stricken so much so that people asked me alll the time - "What happened to the ring?" I also have another funda that if you dropped the used ring into a river (not lake, not sea, not well, you get it, not any other waterbody), a wish made alongside would come true. So you must be thinking Ohio River was the lucky one - nope, not that murky river! Some river did get the blessing and I sure hope my dreams come true!

Anyways, so while I was at New Orleans, we got into Claire's (sure every woman in America knows of it) and saw this sterling silver ring ( a li'l thicker than I wanted.. but the right color and with very few stones likely to fall). I tried it on my left hand, same finger and with the tie-wrap around it it was a snug fit. I asked for my cousin's opinion and got the green signal and bought it! I was excited!! I had been missing playing with this ring ever since I foolishly threw it away and no sooner was I out the store, I ripped the tie-wrap off and tried it on my right hand. Imagine my horror when it just wouldn't go through! Frantically, I took off the ring from my left middle finger and tried it. It was a snug fit. Thats when the biological mess struck me. The right hand, being my primary hand was a fraction larger than the left. I had never noticed it till I got this horrendous confirmation now.. Sob sob..

So we got home... me midly heartbroken and my cousin unaware of what was going to hit her. We'd rented a bunch of movies to watch over dinner and I played "Beyond Borders". All along, I didnt realize I was doing it, but apparently I was subconsciously fiddling my three rings amongst the 6 fingers (leave out the thumb n pinkie) I could. And also I was slowly dawning into the realization that this was bugging my cousin and she was throwing me these intermittent doleful glances. But I couldn't stop it! It was almost like I was possessed and I kept trying them in combinations that made me unhappy that my ring finger of my left hand remained occupied. (It indicates engagement, you know?!?) And I uttered the dialogue that she is unlikely to forget.

"I understand how Frodo must've felt..."

The look of exasperation on her face left me in peals of laughter and was worth every cent I paid for the ring. When I told her that I was dissatisfied with the arrangement the rings were finding on my fingers without me feeling like tearing it out and that I was thus going to leave it behind for her, I got the paisa vasool factor from her 'Are-you-really-now?' face. And when I told her my ring and river theory, I gauged that if I left the poor ring behind, it would probably feel itself flushed down the potty.

I herded it back. It is now sitting somewhere on our front room divan. Soon, I am going to have to decide its future... Maybe it will just hang around my neck as a weird locket on my gold chain... who knows!

PS: That pic is not really The Ring. I shall put up its own pretty pic soon!