Today Yesterday, the 11th of June was a mother of a day. It started like any other day and I was obviously late for work. Not that I cant wake up, but the place I live at, the cars are parked two rows deep and its a herculean task to get your car out of the driveway before 10 in the morning. Sounds stupid but these are the things that make India awesome and Indian life full of fun and excitement. And even though I love these at times, most times I curse and want to get out.
So I was late. On normal days its not a problem because I work at a setup where we dont have HR (or HR policies) and thus we dont have time sheets. This means that you merely need to show up at work before your boss does. And my boss, the hedonist and party animal he is, comes by 2 (in the afternoon). And most days I get away with it and am fine.
Today Yesterday, I apparently had a meeting at 11 that I wasnt aware of. While I was blissfully driving towards work (FYI, drive to work takes 2 hours, each way), for no reason at all, the battery of my phone conked off. And I swear that I had charged it to 100 percent the night before. But like all other humans, I am helpless when technology wants to play funny games. And that is when a regular old boring day translated into a time sink.
I use another phone when I am in Mumbai and a very few people have that number. And since no one could reach me on my regular number, everyone started calling me on the number. Every one from my boss, my admin guy, the client, the neighbor of the client, my team, everyone called me atleast thrice. All for the meeting that I was supposed to be in, that no one had bothered to inform me about, that was supposed to start at 11. The meeting at 11 had some 11 participants in it, I was the 12th. Everyone, including a lot of high ranking officials from one of the largest companies in the world aka client aka God aka the creature that is never wrong, were waiting for me. I reached the meeting room as 12 and when I opened the door, I saw 11 bored faces staring at me. One look and I could tell that at least of 10 of them wanted to be anywhere but in that conference room. And all of them were expecting me to lead the meeting. I obviously did not know what I was doing there or who had called that meeting or what would I talk about in the meeting. Hell, I didn’t even know the names of 9 out of those 11 people.
But, thanks to my MBA, I faffed my way out of the meeting. Funny that most people in that meeting were MBAs themselves and yet they could not figure out my faff. Wonder why. I somehow wriggled my way out of the meeting, only to get stuck in the bureaucratic maze that my workplace is. Bureaucracy, in a company that has just about 100 employees and in a branch that has just about 50. We do take somethings seriously here.
And then after that I dont remember what exactly I did but when I checked the time next, it was 8 PM. Luckily, a very dear friend was nearby and I invited her over for dinner, at the place where I had this meeting. We had our food and Diet Coke over a conversation that had no purpose apart from catching up. Like most of my dinner meetings with friends, I would have spoken for 80% of time, the other 20% spent in eating and drinking. Poor her. Side note: If I could have more days like this where I do a lot of work, I catch up with a friend after work, write something when I am home, I would be sorted for life. Ofcourse I need to add a few things – namely atleast a cuddle with sgMS, lot of money, lot more time to cook up new projects, a shower couple of times a day and a lot of travel to break from the monotony. What else could we ask for from life? No?
So, coming back to the day, I dropped my friend to her car and plunged into work. And then suddenly it was 1130 PM. I was tired out of my wits, not because I had lifted weights or something but because I had a million things on my head. I think exhausted would be a better word. I realized that mental works tires you more than physical labor does – may be a lesson for training, once I get fit again. I also noted that I had walked quite a bit during the day. I need to buy some good walking shoes. Heard that Asics are good but havent tried em. Ok, so I walked at least 9672 steps, as captured by Moves (Side note: amazing app. Must have even if you are not trying to lose weight).
The next day (which is technically today, since I am writing this at 1:33 in the morning) I had an early start. I needed to leave home by 630. And hence I left at 12ish. I reached home, did some bits of work, wrote this (still writing) and finally off to wonder land.
Of course not without dreaming of Nidhi and sgMS.
P.S.: Just realized that I am beginning to talk a lot about work in recent posts. Note to self. Stop doing that. Work rather on creating a brand out of thyself.