8 Ways To Ensure Your Colleagues Hate You.

This post is the result of pure exasperation and helplessness of having to deal with weirdos life has to offer.
I have been working in a corporate environment for the better part of my adult life. From the time I was eighteen, to be precise. Yes, friggin eighteen. That means I have also spent a good part of my life avoiding people because of the creepy vibes they give off, and that, ladies and germs, brings me to the first point.

1) Skunked!
Since we're talking about giving off vibes, here is something that You can give off too - odour. Nothing will make your colleague hate you more than body odour will. If you want to be left well alone or even better completely detoured around, don't shower. Of if you're one of those people that have to, since you sweat excessively, say goodbye to your deo.

2) The Blah.
If you're one of those people that can kind of feel themselves stinking and would rather shower each day, try the jabber mouth approach. Yes, be THAT person. Talk all day, everyday. You don't even have to make any sense. Infact, talk all about yourself, like how you got that brand new car, again. Or how your mom thinks you're the most adorable person or how girls cannot stop swooning over you, or how you kill that workout at the gym. Come on, your life is so exciting, every one deserves to hear all about it.

3) The-I'm-too-good-for-your-face approach.
If you find talking that exhausting, try the opposite approach. Don't talk at all, like each word out of your mouth is worth a dollar. If someone talks to you, give them a stiff smile, if you're feeling too generous, you could also nod. If you're a guy, this will ensure that you're left alone till kingdom come. If you're a girl, a few guys are gonna try twice or thrice. But nothing an icy stare can't fix, right?

4) Muckraker magic
Ensuring someone hates you is a tough job. You need to have a strategy carefully worked out. It might take a little effort initially, but sure is worth the effort. How about this? Find someone, possibly a chick, and get her talking, the more scandalous the information, the better. Best done in the ladies washroom, if you're a girl or a chat at the office pantry if you're a guy. Then, go to his/ her arch rival and leak this bit of information to him/ her. Get this person talking, since you've given them a juicy tidbit already and pass the new information around. Now sit back and watch your handiwork come to a full circle. Oh yeah, you're the office plague now.

5) Suck ups will rule the world!
Every office, every single one, has that one idiot that tries to be the boss's favorite person. While your boss might not really give a shit about you, pretending to be his/her little elf goes a long way. Carry her bag, or bring him home-cooked lunch. Pass on little nuggets about your co-workers. Betty-big-nose attended a job interview? The boss's gotta know. Mr.Goody-two-shoes was out drinking when he was supposed to be home sick, how about a picture of his drunk face on the boss's desk? You will be hated so much, the devil will sympathize with you.

6) I see you. No, I dont.
Try this - Establish eye contact. Now, slowly look away. Do not smile, do not nod, do not acknowledge. It's human to smile on eye contact and the poor bloke that you look at, will. You're messing with human expectations, gettit? This method requires the least effort, with maximum benefit. You are now the official corporate creep.

7) 'Cos you're feeling good
Intrude everyone's personal space. Be the touchy-feely slime bag. Pat women lightly on their hands, feel men up their back and shoulders. Make people want to back away when they see you coming. Be careful though, there's a good chance you might be thrown out for sexual harassment first.

8) Broke is my middle name
It's never good to pay for your food, right? The right time to get someone to pay for you is when they're ordering the food. Go "Hey, watchu ordering? I'm starving." or "Man, I haven't eaten all day". Make their obligation to order for you quite clear. Or simply join their table and start picking out their food while they eat. Nothing will make them hate you more.

If none of the above ideas work, admit it. You're an extremely likable person and you are doomed for life.

I have at some point met each of these characters in my professional life and have learnt excellent maneuvering skills. And believe me, these people in all reality do exist.

Making the world a better place, one weirdo at a time.


<< /end rant >>

Bloody, Sparkling Confetti - Part 3

This post has been looong pending.
I've somehow kept up over the last two years with updating what I did/ didn't do for the New Year's eve. I gotta say, the welcoming of New Year 2014 has been the best yet. Why, you ask? Lets go over a quick check list.

Partied away from my home city? - Check
Partied all night? - Check
Kick-ass fireworks when the clock stuck 12? - Check
Hugged the love of your life at 12? - Check
Danced till 6 am? - Check

There were a few side affects to all this of course. Hubby had to fend off all the men and ladies *gasp* hitting on me the whole time. But considering that we were in Goa, everything that happens there is the new 'normal'. Then, there was this horrible aching in my feet the whole of that week, and returning to work was a terrible ordeal in itself.

When I look back at the Part 2 of this post, I am not very surprised at how morbid I sounded a year ago. Miserable that I felt, I did move on. The world is a bad place and there is little space for the honest to live in. But that does not mean we give up. We fight the good fight and hope for the best. There are still days where I feel I've hit rock bottom but I look around and see the ones I love. That is reason enough to wake up everyday and give it another shot.

2013 has been a year of successes and let downs, just like every year. And so, that is exactly what I am prepared for this year as well. After all, what is life without some sugar and spice? Though, as an after thought - more of sugar, less of spice please, thanks very much.

P.S. - I still can't get over how grown-up I sound!

I Am A Big Girl Now. I Think.

I've been gone so long. There is no excuse. Well there is - Life.
Life is my excuse.

That being said, I'm back. For the time being at least..

So much has happened over the last few months. I settled nicely into the new job. I even finished a whole year here. Looking at this post, I was pretty sure I'd have another job on my resume within weeks, no matter how optimistic that post sounded. But I stayed, so hooray!

But the point of this post is to note how far I've come. Besides, it's the end of another year, what else is there to do? The difference dawned on me when my organisation hired a bunch of trainees right out of college. I realized I was looking down my nose on them and was super annoyed by their enthusiasm. Yes, annoyed because they had so much energy. Maturity, not so much.

So I've decided to make a list of things that prove that I'm no longer the-little-girl-trying-to-act-grown-up but am rather quickly on my way to turning into an old hag.

1) I've gotten used to being comfortable. There was a time when I used to get fidgety in about 5 seconds, but now the boredom is just replaced with comfort in routine. Scary, I know.

2) Loud music hurts my head sometimes. My younger self would dance all day, everyday to any kind of music. But now, your's truly needs the following for enjoy herself at a night out - right kind of drinks, the right crowd, the right ambiance, the right lighting, the right music, the right company, the right DJ..you get the point right?

3) The ideal way to spend my evening would be with a ...hold your breath - A book.

You may now exhale.

4) I have absolutely NO time for anything. A massage, a sudden meeting with a friend, or any activity that is not planned a few weeks in advance. It's a straight up, simple 'no'. Any free time I have is spent as per point # 3 mentioned above.

5) I am perfectly alright spending the night in my jammies and a sweatshirt, cuddled up on the sofa, on a Saturday! There was a time when that horrified me. I would worry about my Saturday night plans starting right from Monday morning. Now I don't make my Saturday night plans, even on a Saturday. That being said, I am still dragged to parties and I'm constantly looking at my phone for an excuse to cop out of them.

6) Movies bore me. I've seen them all. Movie plots seem to repeat themselves in an endless loop and I couldn't be bothered to see if this one's any different.

7) Every time I see an early-20-something-somebody act cocky, I don't react. I just wait for them to trip on their own laces 'cos I know exactly what's coming at them next. I also realize this is how the world felt when I was an early-20-something-somebody. *insert smug look here*

8) I am excellent at make-up. Enough said.

9) 'Fun' is replaced by just being happy. I truly value the feeling of 'peace'. It's hard to come by and if it does, it doesn't last long.

10) And lastly, I have only a handful of people I call friends and family. Everyone else has simply been eliminated by vices.

All this boils down to one thing - I am happy. Not satisfed, but happy.

I'm still not okay with little girls calling me 'aunty'.Thankfully, no one has started to. Yet.

P.S. I still love shopping till I'm broke. I said I've grown up, not transitioned into a man. Lets not get carried away.

To Stay On Or To Stick It.

I am a drifter.

I'm not a quitter, mind you. But a drifter.
I remember changing at least five schools as a kid. My sense of not 'belonging' anywhere started as a kid. So, I don't have that lifelong kin-ship you would have with your school mates, because you spent all your formative years together. I mean, you would know when J pooped his pants and H would eat nose-boogers. And yet, you see them now, doing what they are as grown-ups, no matter how much they changed, they would still be your chaddi-buddies in its true sense.

I think, I carried that feeling of being an alien all my life. My friends would be sharing an inside joke, that everyone knew and I would have no idea what it meant, and I wouldn't mind either. I don't think anyone intended to alienate me, but it just happened. So now, I am prepared to not 'belong'. I carried that attitude through college, through my first job, my second job, my third..you see the trend.

I did make lasting relationships along the way, I pick the people I am around very carefully. But maybe, that's the exact habit I need to let go.
The first decision I make when I start new at someplace is, "I'm gonna stick around for so-and-so months. And then, I'm gonna move there". And because that has been my intention the whole while, it ends up happening anyway.

So now, here, though the work is crazy and people are hard to reason with, I'm going to try and stay on. I've quit jobs for the silliest of reasons. So imagine when the going gets tough. I actually get going, just that it's out the door.

I've already planned on giving interviews, pulling a few connections etc. etc. This morning, I was woken up by a call for an interview I would have attended just for kicks. But I told them I already had a job, not looking for a 'change'. Instead of walking out on drama, like someone said - I'm just going to wait for the jerks to quit.

I think this post is a reality check. I have no need to belong, but I think I should. Everyone should know what it is like to 'belong'. It isn't a need, it is a luxury. With the kind of lives we live, where no one is anybody, it's only right that you know somebody. That you know the people in the place where you live, where you work and where you eat.



P.S. I'm still miles away from getting pally with my neighbors next door. That's just asking for trouble.

Hell's Chicken.

There are three kinds of people in this world.

The ones that see you're in shit and help you.
The ones that say 'fuck you' to your face.
And the ones make you think they're helping you but in reality just sitting on their plush behinds.

I had the immense privilege of experiencing the third kind recently. They hold the carrot right under your nose. They assure you in all ways that the job IS getting done. Some even go to the extent to asking you not to do anything that might jeopardize their efforts. Sneaky they are. The third kind.

Since I have had the pleasure of dealing with such a person recently, I found an effective way to deal with them. Gentle reminders don't work. Harsh reminders don't work. Following up doesn't work. Pretending to be pissed with them doesn't work either. Trust me, pretending to be pissed part works beautifully for me otherwise.
You either pull out a bigger carrot to hang it under their nose. Or you light a fire under their ass and let it burn. Carrots, brinjals and all.

Me being me, couldn't bother with the bigger carrot. So I went with the fire instead. Ah! The sight of burning balls...err...brinjals..err..carrots..I seem to have lost focus but you get the point.

Of course part of the lesson is that you don't go back to the same person for help again, no matter how much they want to pretend to be helping you.

Like they say, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you better pray for an extinguisher and run.




P.S. This post has nothing to do with it's title.

In Retrospect.

I've made quite a few drastic changes in my life. That includes, but is not limited to my job.

As I sat at my desk, pondering over yet another client's network that took the plunge, I thought to myself, "This job is no fun", when infact I spent the better part of last year, trying to get this job.

Of course, this job is no fun. It's 2 in the am and there's barely a soul at work.

People, I realized  are what mattered. You could be a deckhand for all you care, but the job is more fun if you had some nasty sailors to whom you can bitch about it.

Also, I realized belatedly, people are not easy to find if you change your job every year or so. And therein lies my problem.
Now that I've got that out, I'm going back to figure out why a perfectly good network decided to purge in a live production environment.

The incongruity of it all.

Retail Therapy *exclamation mark*

The whole of 2012, for me, went in a struggle. I got married, which you probably knew and is probably the only good thing that happened. But then, I also quit working, since I wanted to do something better. "Acquire a skillset", were my exact words. Pleebhhhh.

I was always a compulsive shopper. I shopped half my income, though I did manage to save quite a bit. I'm still not sure how I achieved that. But yes, I shopped a LOT!

So when I quit working, being the independent psychopath that I always was, I completely cut down on my expenses. No compulsive shopping, no shopping. Period. My logic was simple. If you don't earn, you don't get to spend.

Seriously, this independence thing is gonna kill me some day,I should learn how to leech off from people more. It wasn't just about buying things, I ended up making very serious lifestyle changes. I almost didn't think I would survive.

So, now that I finished my courses and found a better job and everything, it took me a while to get into the groove. The first couple of months were recovery months. Trying to clear the dues I had, and then some. And then, for the first time, I had the guts to spend on myself again.

I tell you, what shopping is to a woman, is like what sex is to a man. Or close enough.

I felt like I downed some good quality, really awesome shrooms. I bought like a whoole bunch of clothes. Then I went nuts in The Body Shop. I bought this, though I already have one of these. And this and this. And a ton of their make up brushes. Oh and this as well. There were more, but blahh.

So, anyways, I realized what I had forgotten all these months. 

As a favor to mankind, to all the guys reading, I say this -  No matter what your woman says, if you want her to be happy and lay off your hide, retail therapy is mandatory. Once a month, at least.

And that's the truth my friend.

P.S. - I used 'exclamation mark' in the title instead of '!', 'cos the real thing is too peppy for me. Yeah, like that makes sense.