Sick (on) Saturday

I know I hailed "casual Saturdays" as a day to... well, wear jeans. But I'm against the practice now. I strongly believe that the only acceptable garment for Saturdays is pyjamas and the only valid reason for asking you to turn up at work on a Saturday is if your firm is showing cartoons on a giant screen and offering you a non-stop supply of milk and cookies all day. 

I don't really believe in doing anything that may seem useful on Saturdays. I never bothered showing up in school or college on Saturdays if I was required to. I would hate to betray my own belief system, and so I'm trying to model the likelihood of falling sick each month so that I can use the rest of the sick leaves on Saturdays. On the non-academic side, I will probably need to learn to exercise some restraint to hide my boundless joy and triumph on Friday evenings right before I "fall sick." 

Last Saturday had the office looking more uniform than they do when they are conforming to some dress code. Almost everyone wore black T-shirts with blue jeans. One guy even wore the same T-shirt as I did in a slightly different colour, thereby making the gender divide meaningless too. The inference from all this is that there's really no need for standardisation. We all follow self-imposed dress codes and uniformity is assured by the retailers. Or perhaps my firm's HR department is exceedingly good at assessing the compatibility of new recruits - we even have the same taste in clothes. 

Little Joys

I wrote earlier about wanting to simulate exams so that I could enjoy doing nothing. I think the argument also applies to work. I don't see the point of reading comics when I have nothing else to do. I need some work so that I can feel happy about not doing it. It's a fairly simple concept but people seem to misunderstand. The interns offered to send me their college assignments. Others counselled me and told me to enjoy my breaks because they wouldn’t last long. Standard office talk.

Not having work when you're at work is oxymoronic. You can’t go home so you're basically forced to sit at your desk and do nothing all day. It's like summer vacations with a nightmarish babysitter. But I had my first truly busy week and I must say it was more interesting than the less busy ones so far. I got a real kick out of discreetly reading rubbish online. Getting a job means transitioning from a 24 hour feeling of guilt for not studying to 9 hours of feeling like you’re doing the world such a favour just by existing.

On average, most of the people in positions of authority lie on a downward sloping curve on the busyness-coolness plane; where busyness refers to the number of times one is called away from one’s desk and coolness is the general lack of interest in what you’re doing. The good news is that any boss who doesn’t understand your quest to accumulate completely useless information won’t be around all the time, and the ones who are around a lot will be somewhat sympathetic. This model doesn’t, however, preclude the possibility of anomalies.

I’ve found yet another unexpected payoff to being a girl. Last week, I stood holding a door open for a colleague insisting that he should go first and he did the same. My gender identity allowed me to end this comical, socially mandated exchange of courtesy. Imagine how long I would have been stuck there otherwise. 

I get by with a little help...

It's nice to write after a long time, mostly because I'm assuming that I'm at that ideal place where I'm not overly concerned with language but haven't lost the will to write altogether. In a single week I have acquired many years of wisdom that I’m eager to share.

I moved to a new city. My "hometown” and I must call it that after the many years of stereotyping. It wouldn't be fair to all the people who stereotyped me otherwise. The people here aren't quite as colourful as the characters one encounters in my other hometown. But it's always a pleasure to have more to crib about. 

I have officially lost my never-been-employed status and have become a non-parasitic human being, which is very upsetting. I've already understood the need for corporate guidelines for reports and other "corporate communication". It's because they use a lot of words that are not real words. So they constantly try to standardise it so that it doesn't become patently obvious that they're making it up as they go along. 

I’ve also stopped liking pictures accompanying the text. As a child, I loved books with pictures in them because it takes less mental engagement than reading does, so it was a bit like being able to take a break between reads without having to put the book down. The “corporate world” manipulates this subconscious preference for pictures by throwing in figures and exhibits all over the reports, which are often more tedious to go through than the actual text. And they're not even pretty. 

Other problems include being unable to let go of the 011 prefix and dialling wrong numbers all the time. However, I did fulfil some childhood aspirations by getting to open my office shutters – I don't know why I've always wanted to do that, but this must be what they call "living the dream". 

I have finally understood the point of “casual Saturdays”. I didn’t think it would really make a difference considering the fact that I insist on calling my flip flops ‘formal footwear’ and wearing them to work every day. But even if you’re upset about your Saturday mornings being spent deciding whether or not something looks “too casual” or “too formal”, a pair of jeans can solve half your problems in life. The world is beautiful again when you’re reminded that it’s possible for you to be so comfortable and look presentable at the same time.

The Hell with Airtel

Airtel has crossed the not-so-fine line between being friendly and being creepy. Their new scheme that “takes care of customer needs” without being asked to do so is nearly as stupid as its advertisement, which has a creepy guy asking a sweet shop to mix a lot of sweets together to match his friend’s revolting taste. In order to customise services to match customer needs, Airtel has decided to take it upon itself to activate Value Added Services automatically if a subscriber uses a facility frequently enough.

This scheme is the anti-Robin Hood: stealing from the poor to distribute to the rich. The epiphany came to me when my domestic help told me that she always runs out of balance within days of a recharge even though she never calls anybody. Someone called Airtel on her behalf and found out that they had “automatically” activated services that she didn’t want and her balance was being eaten away.

A large number of mobile phone owners in India don’t know how to use a phone beyond making and receiving calls. My domestic help is illiterate so she can’t even understand the messages that tell her that a service has been activated. It’s also quite unethical to levy the same rate for a service when the charge is deducted from the talk time as opposed to a cash payment. Not every recharge gives you full talk time so by automatically activating services, Airtel is actually overcharging customers.

Tut tut, Airtel. Shame on you. You’ve become a stalker. A creep. And a thief. Oo you.

13

If there’s one thing we all absolutely adore, it’s superstition; even if it isn’t our own creation. If a lot of people seem to believe it, then it must be true. The lack of logic just gives it some mystique. Everyone could use some mystique, right?

It is courtesy our charming ways and beliefs that many buildings don’t have a 13^th floor. They call it the 14^th floor instead. As if poor counting will negate bad luck. Apparently two wrongs do make a right. The number 13 being unlucky is an old Christian belief but it seems to have found resonance across cultures. My research informs me that there’s actually a word for it: triskaidekaphobia. 

It’s quite interesting to me that an arbitrary set of beliefs can affect outcomes. People believe 13 is unlucky and so very few of them are willing to buy a house or an office on the 13^th floor. This  causes prices and/or the probability of sale to fall, thereby ensuring that the number becomes unlucky for real estate developers merely because enough buyers believe it to be. So people choose to drop poor 13 from the number system altogether. Self-fulfilling prophecies don’t get any stranger than this.

I must consult a numerologist about the importance of lowest common multiples and highest common factors in arriving at decisions about how lucky a number is. Are multiples of 13 also unlucky? Would people be all right with living on the 26^th floor or is that twice as unlucky as 13? The problem with detecting self-fulfilling prophecies that are irrational is that you don’t gain any predictive power from such knowledge. 

This time I'm on Facebook's side

I came across a news report about employers “requesting” prospective employees to provide their Facebook passwords so that they can “predict possible negative behaviours and attitudes.” You’d think after the 2008 recession that companies would be too busy covering their arses to insist that their employees be squeaky clean even in their personal communications. A big ask, you’d think, from a bunch of indicted frauds. Or a swindling of frauds. Isn't that a nice collective noun? 

How bad does the economy have to be for such demands to be acceptable? Are the legal departments getting that bored? Or is this a last ditch attempt by HR managers to find something to live for – other people’s friends?

I think it’s about time we all got a bit cocky too. Let’s ask an interviewer why he chose a life of such mind-numbing drudgery. Ask them about the fraud allegations their company faced the year before last and the funds being channelled to the firm through tax havens. Or better still, let’s ask them for their Facebook passwords and mock them for their sad single-digit friend lists.

Getting in Tune

As much as I love writing, I’m extremely lazy about writing assignments. It’s difficult to feel inspired when someone tells you what to write and sets a deadline for it. The only thing I can do within a deadline is bullshit, and that I do with great reluctance.

Most good writing is whimsical, born of a sudden fit of inspiration, a great idea that struck you out of nowhere and had to be written immediately before it lost its charm and original form. A good idea is a lot like love. It doesn't happen on command. Most people spend their lives looking for it. Everyone's sure it's out there somewhere. Some people devote their lives to one idea while others have a series of idea flings. It is often unexpected. And you're surprised that it was staring you in the face right from the start. Now that's what I call an intellectual romantic comedy. 


Good writing is usually not born from trying to string together averages to make a mildly interesting write-up. Sadly, writing with a purpose can rarely be done at leisure. Nobody's going to wait for you to “get to know your stuff”, “feel inspired”, “get in the mood to write” and finally, “write whatever you feel like writing”. 

Sometimes I feel quite sure that if the world wasn’t in such a hurry to get wherever it is that it is going, we might produce much better work. Douglas Adams was probably working on a deadline when he said he didn't like writing so much as he liked having written. 

Man Up, Wall Street

I can’t say I’ve been following the Occupy Wall Street protests with bated breath. For one, I don’t know what the protest is about and it seems, nor does anybody else – not the protesters, not the reporters, not those who approve or disapprove of the movement – in short, nobody.  A protest that’s not against something definite is not a protest so much as it is a public forum for airing self-pity. I thought the internet was enough for that. 


I'm a bit confused about what they expect to achieve and how they will do so. But I suppose most protesters are and that's really a secondary issue. Personally, I’m a big fan of protests. It gives everyone a few days off work. The media finally has something to report. There’s always something to watch on TV. And it’s indicative of a populace that is trying to think about the state of the world.

Unfortunately, Occupy Wall Street is running out of funds. Apparently, it’s difficult to draw attention to how poor you are unless someone gives you the money to do so. No, no. No irony at all. It’s time for Wall Street to be a man and do the right thing. It must fund the protests, thereby negating the premise of the protest altogether. It’s a win-win. 

Business Communication

 “…for the businessman, the greatest gift is to be able to speak so many words which seem to signify something but don’t, which convey a general attitude but are free from commitment.”

For 3 years I studied business and desperately groped for words to describe the exasperating imprecision of every statement I read. Mr. R.K. Narayan puts it so accurately, succinctly and seemingly effortlessly, that I’m afraid I may have become a business(wo)man myself.  

Much as I lament the English language’s limitations for expressing romanticism, I must praise its pliability for business: the scope for ambiguity is immense.

That said I’m quite scandalised with my English these days. It started when I first discovered online dictionaries that would pronounce words like the Americans and the British do: I realised that I didn’t speak like either of them and to add to it, my pronunciation didn’t even resemble the spelling – I was wrong in every way it was possible to be wrong.

We don’t realise how much of the “good English” we speak is actually very bad English. Being able to string a sentence together is hardly indicative of mastery of the language. If the British ever come back to visit they’ll never guess that we’re speaking their language. We can try to speak in a polished accent or use big words, but speaking correctly is a far cry for most of us, and is unlikely to become a reality unless we decide to spend a lot of time scanning Wren & Martin (oh, you boys) and listening to that stuck up witch on TFD speak “propahly” everyday. 

Stop Writing Already

I can’t help marvelling the amount of completely superfluous writing we all do on a daily basis. We write blogs and text messages but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Think about all the writing that goes into reports, business proposals, university applications, job applications, any application, college projects, official reports – most of this is solicited work, rewarded with grades, admission or money. And yet, most of it goes unread. Nobody wants to read it. We pay money to make people who don’t want to write, write reports that nobody wants to read. Why?

The demand for “writing skills” in almost every job profile is nearly comical. Apparently the need for strong communication skills overshadows any technical or industry-specific skill one would require to get a job done. It’s more important to be able to talk or write about what one plans to do. Is this because the information age has put us out of touch with skills like writing complete sentences or being able to make conversation beyond “suuup?” or is it because jobs must involve useless, joyless activities? I suspect it’s a bit of both. And maybe much else that management never taught me. 

Oh Fudge

How does one fudge an interview? I have no idea. Perhaps I should give it my best shot because the company sulks and leaves without recruiting anybody whenever I do so. When I try to come off dumb, I appear to become irresistibly desirable as an employee. If I was feminist enough, I would probably call it chauvinism. As a placement coordinator who never sat for placements, I wondered why students had so much trouble making a choice. But things are rather different on the other side of the glass door. Especially for me. I doubt that people think as much about getting married to someone as I do about interviewing for a job. Accepting one job means forfeiting the opportunity to apply for all the others. Given that my preferences are not at all aligned with the rest of the batch, are nearly the reverse of the order in which companies were scheduled and that I don’t have complete information about the companies that will turn up in the future, I find it incredibly difficult to make a decision. The process is further complicated by chance variables and sudden changes in factors that were hitherto assumed fixed, and I’m just not equipped with sufficiently sophisticated modelling techniques to solve that sort of problem. I end up tossing more coins than most cricket umpires do in their entire careers.

By turning up for an interview and performing well, you are choosing a job that acts as a safety net over the opportunity to get a job that you really like. If the former choice is more realistic and rational, then I probably should have applied to more companies than I did. Rationality always lands me in knee-deep shit.

Showing up for an interview and “fudging it” amounts to insulting the interviewer’s intelligence. I already have enough issues with all the Catberts without incurring their wrath.

By not showing up for an interview, you’re honest about your intentions. But you risk pissing off your placement cell, your batch mates and the company you applied to. You also maintain your status quo as an unemployed person.

Three roads diverged in a yellow wood, all pointing to certain doom. 

A Social Evil called Super-Specialisation

I’ve never been a big fan of specialisation. I’m far too indecisive to choose what I want to wear. Choosing a field to specialise in for all my life could give me a panic attack; which is why I do something that almost amounts to reversing my choice every time I’m forced to make one. As a student of economics, admitting my inability to choose is going to leave some eyebrows permanently raised. It’s really a question of convenience. Once I’m sure of my choice, I’m stubborn enough to get on my own nerves.

But I ramble. To return to my original point, super-specialisation causes you to see your own field as the only one that matters. At least to you, in any case. That’s why we need managers. Management theories created a bunch of people too focused to care about why they’re doing whatever it is that they do, so that they would need managers who make them take an interest in other smaller joys of life.

I refuse to specialise because I don’t believe in being excessively focused. I also refuse to take an interest in anything else because I don’t believe in management. I will specialise in doing nothing. It makes a strong statement. 

Maternal Instincts and Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs are people who want to have children who will do as they tell them to. Of course, this only happens with some probability, but it would be reasonable to assume that the probability is higher than that of your biological children doing what you expect them to.

Usually, less than 5 years after getting a job, the would-be entrepreneur’s biological clock begins ticking and they can’t see the point of meaningless associations with different employers. They crave something more. So they decide to have their own baby company. Often they look for partners, and unlike marriage, they are allowed to have as many partners as they please without society frowning upon their depravity.

And then it happens. Their company is incorporated. It’s a magical moment. Like most people with children they struggle with their finances. Unlike most people with children they can sell a part of their baby company to a venture capitalist who will give them the money to raise it properly. Often, companies that are not properly nourished at this point with all the love and attention they deserve grow up to be damaged sociopaths who go bankrupt and wreck many careers.

Venture capitalists are often people who have raised their own baby companies and understand the effort that goes into it, which is why they are so willing to share their wealth and experience, much like grandmothers teach the parents how to treat a baby with colic.

And finally, when the child comes of age, he is sold off in an IPO, much like an arranged marriage. Let’s call the subscription process the hunt for a suitable match (a company can have as many owners as it likes without getting into any legal or moral predicaments). Let’s call the IPO proceeds dowry. Some IPOs aren’t successful; others, wildly so. It’s all a game of chance. And the game nearly takes a lifetime to play. I see a bright future for entrepreneurship in India. 

The Kiss of Death

It was an ominous day when I was appointed to the placement cell of my undergraduate college. Within weeks it became patently clear that there would be a financial crisis. Indeed, the following summer saw a global food crisis, uncontrollable oil prices, spiralling inflation and an economic recession looming in the horizon. When the placement season began, I was asked to call all investment banks. The first bank I called was Lehman Brothers. After that, every company I called shut down within weeks. I decided I had done enough damage and quietly bowed out.

During my Master’s, I was careful not to be affiliated in any way with the placement cell. However, when the placement season started, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to apply to a couple of companies. So that’s what I did. I applied to exactly two companies. Both of them decided not to recruit anybody at all from our campus. I’ve decided not to apply to any more firms because it wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the students.

I’m wondering if I can blackmail firms with this unique skill I have. But what good would it do? If my calls can cause firms to shut down and my resume can cause a hiring freeze at every organisation it enters, what would hiring me do to the company?

Oh Shopping, why must you be a Nightmare?

I recently went to Great India Place (GIP) mall. Let’s just say my sisterly concern caused me to be roaming around a part of what isn’t Delhi. I felt more claustrophobic than one would on Blueline buses that ply on what is Delhi.

The said sister was slightly upset with me. I had misled her into believing that I would arrive an hour earlier than I did and I was also dreadfully tardy in responding to her queries about my location because I wasn’t in the mood to put my book down. I wondered why she messaged me with such regularity from a mall. Sure, it’s boring to shop alone but not so much as to have to send messages every 8 minutes? Turned out she was waiting for me at the metro station, hoping against hope that I would indeed arrive at the agreed time.

It wasn’t entirely my fault. All right, it was mostly my fault. I tried to explain to her that I had done everything I could to be on time – skipped the lens routine, reached the metro by car, ran up the stairs and took the train to Vaishali even though I needed to go to Noida because I couldn’t stand to be doing nothing while she waited for me. She pointed out that I should’ve left early, writing all in caps to indicate her displeasure. Unfortunately that idea hadn’t occurred to me. I had already decided to have a lazy morning so it was a bit difficult to change the course of things. She didn’t know it at the time, but I saved her life by making her wait.

You see, GIP isn’t a mall so much as it is a poorly stocked labyrinth of colourful signs with girls who are no longer teenagers humming the tunes of 90s boy bands and short boy-men who wear too much cologne cheap deodorant. It also has more children on a weekend than the average pre-school on weekdays. Most of these children have a delightful way of slamming themselves into passers-by, doing their child-launched-from-a-cannon-at-a-moving-target imitation.

When I did enter the mall, it had so many people that I thought there must be something really wonderful to buy there. Every shop was overflowing with people but nowhere did I find anything that I would be caught dead wearing. They couldn’t possibly all be keen social scientists observing behavioural patterns like me.

Thankfully, I wasn’t shopping for myself. My sister asked me if it isn’t the most wonderful thing to be shopping for someone else, even more so than shopping for oneself. I thought for a minute. She must be making some less obvious point because she most certainly isn’t an altruist. I nodded. “Yes it is,” I said. “When you shop for someone else you get the satisfaction of buying something that you consider worth buying without the guilt of having spent your money.” “Exactly!” she smiled happily.

At one of the shops we wandered into she found a sweater that she considered pretty. I noticed that you could see through it and observed that it probably wasn’t very warm. “Who cares about warmth?” “Well, it’s a sweater, isn’t that what it’s supposed to do?” I asked, somewhat naively. “No! It’s supposed to look good!”I put my finger on my chin thoughtfully and asked her why she didn’t just buy a t-shirt in that case – it would certainly not be bulky, it would be cheaper and probably more stylish. “But then I wouldn’t be dressed for the weather,” she shrewdly pointed out. “Ah! I see it now!” I said. “You want to look like you chose comfort over style but you’re really choosing style over comfort.” “Exactly!” And I always thought it was the reverse.

The best thing about the day, other than all this worldly wisdom, was the plate of golgappas I ate outside the mall. Not just because they were quite good, but because it was a refreshing change to be surrounded by cars instead of people. 

Holy Matrimony

I must be a pretty big fan of matrimony because I keep trying to marry things – like finance and development or business and research. In writing a blog, I tried to marry my expertise in fake news with my desire to make a last ditch attempt at salvaging my interest in economics. The first couple of months passed in absolute wedded bliss. Then fake news started paying more attention to politics. When real news started getting funnier than fake news, the latter had a midlife crisis. Economics, meanwhile, pregnant with the aftermath of the financial crisis started having severe mood swings. The marriage is in shambles now. The financial crisis is a 21^st century bastard. I’ve decided to stop playing matchmaker for a bit.

Exciting day at court today

The 2G scam trial, arguably the most awaited event of the year in India, kicked off yesterday. The who’s who of the business world and the political world are expected to attend the event, which will span several months. Nominations for a life term have been received by 17 stars, and it is expected to be a closely fought battle.

Leading the pack is Reliance – 11 of the 28 witnesses in the first batch are from the Reliance ADAG group, and are spearheading a campaign to renovate Tihar jail to make it a world class prison. Unitech Wireless and Swan Telecom have lent their support to this movement.

All eyes, however, will be on the nation’s sweetheart, Kanimozhi. She is expected to ditch international designers and wear an Indian outfit to this no-carpet event. The ceremony will be hosted by the charismatic Ram Jethmalani. 

Chinese government unhappy with Eric Schmidt

The Chinese government has reacted strongly to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt condemning their censorship policies. In its official response, the Chinese government said, “We have allowed them to make products that don’t require censorship. It is a huge market and we are asking them to operate under a few restrictions. They don’t have to be decadent capitalistic pigs about it.”

Defending the government’s censorship policy, a spokesperson for the government said, “We only censor things that nobody needs to know. We’re just like good parents who protect their children from harsh realities. We want our people to be happy. Sometimes erasing a part of your memory is a good thing. Haven’t you watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?”

On being reminded that the movie actually suggests that the reverse is true, he whispered, “Not in the version that hit Chinese screens.”

CAT candidates to wear electronic tags

Following multiple violations of the Non-Disclosure Agreement that over 2 lakh aspirants across the country sign before taking the Common Admission Test (CAT), the IIMs have decided that all candidates who appear for the test must wear electronic tags similar to those sported by criminals out on parole. In addition to location, the tags will track all electronic communication by the wearer.

“We noticed that a lot of people are not as ethical as we expected them to be. While our ingenious system can’t prevent people from verbally discussing questions since there would be no evidence, we will endeavour to control the speed with which our papers are made public on social networking sites,” said Janaki Raman Moorthy, convener, CAT 2011.

“For someone conducting an entrance exam for a management degree, they sure suck at management,” said a candidate whose electronic tag began beeping wildly when he sent in this comment. 

Zerox it

I love how Xerox, complicated spelling and pronunciation notwithstanding, became a synonym for photocopy. Of course they now regret their own popularity and have been trying to rebrand themselves (mostly just by coming up with a new logo) so that people notice that they also provide “document management solutions”, whatever that is.

A few months ago, I noticed on the Delhi metro (which will soon become a synonym for spit-free public transport in India) that Parle Agro’s Kaccha Mango Bite advertised itself as “Kacche Aam ka Xerox”. My research informs me that they had to change it to “Kacche Aam ki Copy”, and later “Kacche Aam ka Zerox”, which doesn’t quite have the same zing to it. Not that I care; I’m no fan of raw mangoes anyway. My point is how fascinating it is to have an inadvertent advertisement (though it’s more likely to be seen as an infringement) within an advertisement.

I can just see the next toothpaste launch: “Colgate ka Xerox, McDonald’s ke daamon mein”.