The earnest lover, talkative girl, the crazy cab driver and me (just can't think of an adjective for myself)....

It's Saturday... I was done with my work. A couple more monitorings than required to make up the weekly accomplishment. Spent a few minutes at Ashu's desk and then started off after signing off from the comp at my desk. As only 5 minutes were left to catch the cab went by lift to the parking lot. Little amazed to see my name in the route list of Bannerghatta. Though one can go through Garvebhavi palya to Bannerghatta, it's still unusual routing plan. By the time I found the cab for my place, the earnest lover(Romeo) was at the front seat and the talkative girl was at the back seat. I sat at the right side of the back seat. The cab driver didn't seem happy to see me boarding the cab. Once the cab left company premises the driver increased the FM volume. Some Kannada song was playing. That didn't discourage the girl's enthusiasm to ask questions and keep the conversation live with the Romeo. She asked about Romeo's girl friend and as if he was expecting the question started speaking out all the details, how they proposed, how's she. Though this girl was shouting to make the questions clear to Romeo, the cab driver didn't seem to care. He didn't reduce the volume. I was trying hard not to listen to their conversation. What does a blank SMS mean to you.... For people like Romeo it does mean a lot. Honestly, yaar, I was impressed by the explanation. Blank SMS was to indicate that without Romeo his Juliet was feeling the world to be empty. Damn good, isn't it. Girl asked about the valentine day. Romeo said everyday is valentine day for them and they do exchange some sort of gifts every day. On way to my place we noticed a procession going. That seemed to be something religious and regional the girl asked me. What's it. I explained it's Vishu, malayali people's festival. By hearing this Romeo started explaining about Vishu, because Juliet is a Malayali. After that I got at my place and guided the cab driver the way to reach the next point in order to reach the next drop point. Driver was not very sure of the route and I was also not very sure of the route. I asked him to check with transport and left the cab. Not very interesting... yeah I know. Anyway, if you are my colleague don't ask for the trip sheet in transport.

Fun @work

Those were the days we’re struggling with huge volume of email queries by customers and we’re forced to do OT(overtime). While our Team leader Justus was sharing the plan, Nivedita asked him “Justus, what if we fall sick doing OT?” Justus replied “not a problem we’ll provide you laptops to work on way to hospital.” No more questions rose after that.

I was with Shesh in cafeteria. Though, he don’t drink tea or coffee he used to accompany me in every break. Tea is one thing without which I can’t live (Ravi, my colleague sometimes teases me ‘go yaar have tea it will be over soon and you will die if tea is not available’). I asked him casually “why da Shesh you don’t drink tea?”

Shesh replied “no one in our home drinks tea?”

I said “great yaar, you people are so health conscious!”

Shesh then said “damn, they drink coffee every half an hour.”

Ravi and I were working as agents on floor. I overheard the conversation between Ravi and his TL. Ravi’s TL suggested him “There’s an IJP (Internal Job Posting) out for the post of trainer. Prepare a presentation on the product and apply for it, you’ll surely be selected.”

Ravi replied “ Please prepare the presentation for me, I will think of applying.”

His TL said “Damn, go to hell.” That was the last time he suggested Ravi to apply for any IJP.

Jagannath our colleague do not understand Hindi. Ravi, I and he were in cafeteria. Ravi who used to help Jagannath with tips for jim exercises commented on Jagannath “Abbe thu tho Fauladi (Iron man) dikh raha hai.”

I knew that Jagannath don’t understand Hindi. I replied seriously to Ravi’s comment “Dey, what are you saying? How can you say Jagannath Fauladi. Jagannath, Ravi is using such offensive word and you are keeping quiet.” Noticing the seriousness in my tone, Jagannath really got confused whether Ravi’s comment was compliment for him or humiliation. Ravi was full of laughter. Ravi now started choosing people who don’t know Hindi and calls them Fauladi.

This happened while I was working in another company earlier. We used to provide support through chat. The product we were supporting was a security program. Once a customer (I assume it's a lady) contacted and reported that they were not able to use a photo editing program after they installed our security program. This was known issue, our security program often identified genuine programs as threat and won't let customers use them. I thought it could be one such case. I took remote access of customer's computer. As part of troubleshooting I launched the program and myself being somewhat expert with image editing prgorams, did work little image editing and found it to be working fine. I informed the customer that everything is fine. She asked me to open an image from a particular folder and import images from that folder. I followed her instructrions and everything was still working fine. She kept on insisting me to open few more and in between she was asking my comments on the photos. My manager that was sitting right behind me. I can't say no to customer and there were good chances that our Manager misinterpret it as I sneaking into customer's personal stuff. This went on for a while. This chat interaction was affecting my AHT(Average Handling Time) and on top... giving all the options to think my Manager I'm a threat to the company. She had loads of images and was showing all kinds of photos. Finally my Manager noticed and I had to convince him that the customer was insisting me to check the images. I'm not sure if the customer was drunk or just feeling lonely.

I was sitting at my desk. Though the team assigned to me was changed, I was still sitting at the same place. I overheard the conversation between Rajesh's team members. James was telling that he wen to Delhi. Imran was enquiring.. "Kaun se train se gaya? Kingfisher, Jet airways, indigo..?" No one was ready to believe it.

Imran asked James "Thu kabhi Mumbai gaya hai?"

James said "Nahi"

Imran then said in agitated voice "Kabhi jaana bhi math. Tera haath pair kaat ke bheekh maangne bitadenge".... God, that's so funny. I just forgot my checklist of life's problems. I loved being their team's QE.

We were discussing about employee absenteeism and my fellow Team leader told our Manager, but sir, they bring the medical certificates and there is no choice but to accept they being ill for that day. Our Manager replied, if I bring your death certificate tomorrow, would you agree that you are dead?. Can anybody think of an answer....!