Category: Rant

Rant on Mediocrity

Ladies and gentlemen, could you please fasten your seat belts, get that cup mug of coffee, hot chocolate, green tea, coke, lemonade or whatever your poison is, snuggle up in your comfy seats and gear up for the rant that is about to be unleashed in next few words. This one is special because this is against my arch nemesis – Mediocrity.

I define mediocrity as an attempt at doing things without putting any thought or any serious effort. I define it as not being true to the job and merely finishing it for the sake of getting over with it. I define it as a job done without any extra effort to push limits even if it were easy to do so.

Its that simple. All you need is to ensure that you ensure that that brick you are going to put on the wall, is the best brick that you ever put.

So, why the rant, on a lovely Saturday evening? Because, it just dawned on me that despite claiming that I have oodles of talent, I have been mediocre in the way I lead my life. There are a few things where I evaluate myself on. Family, friends, work, leisure, passions. And for some reason, on all the counts, despite hating the very concept of mediocrity, I have been mediocre, if not poor. And if I was poor, I would have let go but I know I am not. And I know I can excel.

Let me elaborate. And no, I would not talk about family or friends on a public forum but I can rant about work, leisure and passions.

Work. I really think that I put in a lot of effort when I am work. But then for some reason, no one appreciates the extra effort. No one seems to see the possibilities that I see. No one is ready to buy into the grand vision that I have. May be I am a big picture guy (like all others who merely faff). To be honest it doesnt matter if people dont  buy into the grandiose plans. But then when, to justify my salary and my position, I am forced to do mediocre bad work to please egos and accountants. There has to be a way to escape the trap, just that I need to figure out. If I was an artist, it could have been easy but I am not even close.

Leisure. I am one of those who are easily excited by that new shiny thing and I thus keep hoping off from one things to another. As a result, I am that proverbial Jack of all trades and master of none. And that means that I know enough about a lot of things and yet I am not an expert. This is a good and a bad thing at the same time. Good because I can do a lot of things to distract myself when I have to. Bad because I never stick to one thing for too long to start adding value to that discipline. Come to think of it, this is yet another curse of mediocrity. I look at something, get excited about it and then leave it when I see the next interesting thing. If I want to lead a full and spectacular life, I need to bring things to closure. I need to be able to bring things to a logical conclusion. Look at rstlf for example. The first three days were great and I have slacked since!

Passion. I dont think I have a passion. Wait, how do I define passion? Its something that could go up on your epitaph. Its something that becomes your identity. So far, if I was to pick that one thing that could go up on my epitaph, it would be what? Writing? Talking? Communicating? Exploring? Poker? sgMS? India? Starting up? What? Finding it tough Mr. Garg? Exactly my point! Though I feel very strongly about a lot of things I am no where close to calling one particular thing my passion. I am no where close to  getting anything etched on my epitaph.

Like I said in a previous post, over the next 90 days, I would reset my life. I am down ten odd days already. Next few days would be hard work but then its one life we have and if not now, its probably never. You, the reader, the voyeur at home, if you are watching reading this, you are in for a roller coaster ride of emotions, ambition, action, drama, fiction… and above all… a fight against mediocrity.

This post is a part of Project rstlf.

Just another Thursday morning

Wrote this on Thursday. Sounded depressing enough and dint publish. That time had decided to wait for a few days, do a review and then publish. 

It’s a Thursday morning. The entire country is celebrating rakhabandhan and I am alone in my office, staring at my screen for at least an hour now. It’s about 11 and I already look like a zombie. Actually there is a higher chance of someone looking like a zombie in the morning than at nights. Took two sleeping pills last night and yet dint get no sleep. Had a hearty breakfast and yet I am hungry. I have had gallons of water since 9 and my tongue and throat is still dry. So dry that I can barely speak. The temperature outside in Delhi is low 40 (Celsius scale) and its humid like Delhi is some equatorial jungle. The ACs in office obviously do not work and yet I have this bad bad cold. The whole respiratory system, starting with the nose, going up to the head, travelling down the throat to the lungs, is choked. I am breathing with my mouth and despite that, I am breathless. The head is throbbing like someone is kicking a football under the skin of my head. Every other muscle, tissue of my body is hurting so much that I can actually count the number of muscles in my body. Reminds me of Vipassana where it took all the effort in the world to gain equanimity and track just one muscle. Here I am, with a tacit awareness about each part, each limb, each muscle, each tissue. And more. My to-do list is miles long and yet I don’t know where to start. There are three exciting ideas that I can work on but I don’t want to. I am chasing greatness and immortality through my work and I have no clue how to go about it. None of my regular methods of distracting my head seems to be working. Poker seems like a game of luck, music sounds repetitive, cant seem to focus while reading, movies are just too long, eating does not give me that contentment any more. I have tried it all and yet I cant seem to get my head sorted. If I was myself, I would have been really excited and would have had a hard time sitting at one place. 

There is also this restlessness in my head and in my thoughts. I am snapping at my parents, friends, coworkers for no reason. Its like 2009 all over again when things really got out of hand. There is some kinda turmoil and I don’t know what is causing it. Everything is going well for me. I mean I make enough money to survive and take care of my responsibilities. My work, despite being bad, is better than what most other people my age are doing. My family is doing good and is thankfully sorted. My friends, though in different cities, are all doing well and I know I can count on them. And yet I am restless and I have no clue why or how. Last time around, in 2009, I left my job, came back to Delhi and then dint bother myself with things for a few weeks. This time, I am in Delhi and there is no place else that I could run to. I dont even have sgMS anymore who always gives me that peace, that contentment that I crave for all the time. 

To add on, its funny that despite all of this bullshit in my head, I am full of hope. Hope that the greatness that I chase is just around the corner. I have started making that extra little effort that is the gap between good and great. I can see the results already. All the lucky coincidences have started happening yet again. I am the new king of rivers (a post on this in a bit) and I have won more games on river in last few days than in my entire life. I somehow know that it’s that time when it’s either now or it is never. The next few months would define how rich would I die. I would obviously either die a pauper or a billionaire. There is no other way. There cant be. Things havent been designed like that. Its in the fucking air. I can feel it. I know its coming. May it is the expectation that is keeping me awake at nights. 

But then, thats not the point of the post on a Thursday. And here is the million dollar question. Is this what clinical depression all about? Frequent mood swings, sleeplessness, tendency to overeat, lack of concentration et al? Do I need to go see a Shrink?

The Angry (and not so) Young Man

Without the formality of an introduction (or a beginning), let me dive straight into the heart of the issue. At this instant, I am a very very angry man. Here is why.

I live in a lower middle class locality of the capital city of a developing nation. And as a result, there are a plenty of problems – high density of population, bad traffic, lawlessness, petty crimes, broken roads, lazy officials etc. But then, I have had the privilege of getting really good education (private schools, bachelors in computer science and a MBA from one of the best colleges in India) and my job takes me to places that I can never afford, even if I was paid a bomb. As a result, I know how amazing life could be. Things could actually be perfect and there could be an Utopian world where everything is in order and you can work on things that are worth investing time in (rather than chasing people to get your Internet connection fixed). This dichotomy, of my aspirations of living in a Utopian world vs the expectations from the Banana Nation where I actually live, is in one word, fucking my head. Note to self: that’s three words Mr. Garg!

Coming back, here is a small list of things that has gone haywire in the last one week or less. And this is not even exhaustive.

  1. Its simply too hot to live in Delhi. I can live in extreme cold but I cant stand heat. Even at 7 in the morning, the heat is that harsh that you cant sit in the open. You have to have air conditioning. 
  2. I crashed my car. Almost got attacked by a bunch of rowdy taxi drivers. And paying through my nose for the repairs. Will get the car back in about 15 days and as a result, I cant move around the city as well. I can take Metro but I am not a woman and men refuse to take bathes or use deodorants. 
  3. The Internet does not work. I have an Airtel connection and they have the most incompetent helpline (or customer care, as they call it) ever. Apparently they always ALWAYS have some “server problem” and they can not even lodge a complaint. And there is no supervisor or an escalation process to expedite resolution. Airtel used to be good, till about two years back, but now, they are worthless. Oh, did I mention that they charged me 50 paisa, per minute, to lodge complaints? I am sure TRAI can do something about it. I will write into them soon. And no, the @airtel_presence on twitter is of no use either. 
  4. There is no current. And no, I am not talking about the city of Delhi but in a block of 20 houses. From my balcony, I can see the shining street lights, the well lit advertising boards, the shining LED board for a gym and the constant hum of the ACs at my neighbors. But its me and some 20 other fortunate neighbors that have been blessed by the power cut. Apparently there is some short circuit somewhere. Despite repeated calls to BSES, no one wants to fix and I am left poking in the electric board with a wooden stick, hoping that I would live another day and actually write a few more of these blogposts. 
  5. I have been thinking of a month long vacation. Nothing important but I think I am stuck at what I do an I need to recharge my batteries. I also want to take it easy, get fit and read. Every place that I have called (have spoken to at least 15 places), everyone is booked till July/August! Imagine, the entire world wants to go to Himachal in the month when I want to go. How fair is that? 
  6. And then, apart from all these things that I cant control, there is that issue of not knowing what I want in life. I am almost 30 and in a few months, I would be on the wrong side of life and I wont know what my epitaph would say! How bad is that! All this while, I have always joked around about me suffering from QLC. Now I know what QLC/MLC actually feels like. There are days when I want to see a shrink but then I wish I could afford one. 
The funny thing is that I have tried everything that I could have. I called up the cops when I got into that accident. I have tried waking up early so that I may avoid traffic and heat while going to office. I have tried complaining against Airtel at all possible forums. I have called BSES multiple times, each time getting assurance about someone fixing the bug. Have called and exhausted all travel portals, agents, Justdials of the world. And have planned and thought about what I want from life. 
I guess my effort hasnt been that great and I need to do more. I dont know! All I know right now, is that, I am a very very angry young man. I now believe that the world indeed is an unfair place. Its definitely not a movie and there are no guaranteed happy endings. Reminds of that line from a song… “…yeah you bleed, just to know you’re alive”. I wish I had realized this while I was 20. 

And end-note, please do not make impressions about me just by reading this. I want to believe that I am far saner than this. If saner is a legitimate word.
I am a mere human, suffering from the curse of mediocrity, wading through life, surrounded by more vegetables and I dont even see a sliver of hope from any corner.

Bittersweet Symphony

In my Chennai office, amongst regular folks there are a couple of North East Indian boys. Nothing wrong with them and nothing against them but the sight of them lifting heavy cables, lights and other equipment under the harsh sun was really saddening. It made me want to cry.

I totally agree to the notion of dignity of work and I dont think any work is below human standard but here are two boys, who would have spent most of their childhood and youth in mountains, next to gentle streams of water, amongst beautiful flowers, in the green misty valleys, running after one another on those twisting and turning mountain paths, climbing up and jumping down in probably the best weather that God has showered upon us humans.

Call it twist of fate, most probably they left home for some Rupees and somehow landed in Chennai. Where the life is totally opposite to what they are used to back home!

If God had planned life and things little better, he would have made each community self sustainable. May be he did and us humans spoiled it all trying to chase material comforts and such things. Whatever it is, if I could play God, I would either not give anyone any emotions or I would ensure that everyone from the same kith and kin stayed together. To end it, a famous line from The Verve.

Cause it’s a bittersweet symphony, this life.
Trying to make ends meet
You’re a slave to money then you die

Project 1000. Day 4.

After a five day hiatus, I am back. Blame it on my travel and general laziness. But I am back nonetheless. And now that I am back, lets get 1000 words rolling. This post is specifically intended for Project 1000. As I am typing this, I have no clue what would I write about but I am sure I would use at least 1000 words. I am sitting at a studio floor and we are in between shifts. Everyone gone for their lunch and I have this entire floor with the set and cameras and everything to me. I am using this time to play my favorite music and typing this text. And no, I am not the director or the producer of the manager or even an extra. I am a silent and meek spectator.

This is the second time I am writing this post (last time I wrote something), I hit the refresh button and the entire thing disappeared. The damned auto save did not work!

So cutting the long story short, last time I wrote this, somehow, the conversation diverted towards difference between a rant and a post. In bullet points, I said that a rant is personal, meant for individual consumption, is short lived as it is a temporary outburst and does not move an iota in the scheme of things in the universe. A post on the other hand needs to go beyond an individual, is meant for consumption for a large audience, can live for long and is aimed at changing things, big or small.

Then I said that most of things that I write about are more in the territory of rants, rather than being posts and thus I am not really improving the craft!

And finally I said that I would write about the upcoming posts on aspirations and dreams of being a travel writer, life of a spot boy, poker and why is India poor. Do watch out for those.

The pursuit of 2K followers on twitter

Lately, I have restarted using twitter, after a brief hiatus. The reasons for the hiatus would be reflected upon in a later post, but for the time being, I have a bigger and more perplexing problem to tackle. The problem of finding those elusive 36 more followers.

You see, at the time of writing this, I am followed by 1964 people on twitter. And I want to reach the magical number of 2000. The chase of 2k as a number looks very scary. A brief brain soul searching tells me that there are a few reasons why I could never get all those followers. Am making a list here…

  • I am not a wedding/event/fashion/animal/amateur/etc photographer. Am dont even talk about my flickr stream and I dont have a Facebook page where people can “fan” or “like” me. And since I have a Blackberry, I cant use Path or Instagram or Pinterest or one of those fancy services and talk about them.
  • I am not an entrepreneur and thus I cant ask all my employees and friends and relatives and neighbors to follow me and help me get more clients. And then once I get those clients, talk about how I made a difference to the life of the goldfish of client’s wife’s sister.
  • I am not funny. Not even remotely. Period.
  • I am not a social media expert. And that means that I have no opinion on anything. And that means that I cant pass fleeting comments encompassing everything from the beginning of time and then relate those to why I should be tweeting this or that. And I cant thus take a jab at folly of brands and businesses.
  • I refuse to engage in various gimmicks that brand manager plan and throw out as bait to the unsuspecting twitter users so that they could report that their brand is followed by a million people etc.   
  • I am not interested in IPL. Its just too much for my peanut sized brain to be honest. There is overload of everything. Information, excitement, jealousy, anger, confusion etc. Name an emotion and IPL has that in abundance. And I cant process that. And that means that since I dont tweet about how IPL is causing a war in my family because everyone supports a different team, I wont be featured by a TV channel and I wont become famous and I wont have new followers.
  • I refuse to participate in trolls. Ofcourse I use a million hashtags but I dont think I have participated in #whenIWasYoung, #itHappensInIndia, #IPL, #kfBeerUp etc. And as a result I dont make friends on twitter and otherwise. (note to self, talk about Kingfisher in a separate post)
  • I am not a journalist. Yet. And as a result I dont have people trying to make friends with me, hoping to get free passes to IPL and other such dos. 
  • I dont booze and thus I dont have my timeline full of drunk tweets abusing everyone for everything. 
  • And finally, I am not a celeb. I am not a film actor (not even an extra), I am not a cricketer (even of yesteryears), I am not a CEO of a large business group (not even a startup), I am not a VC. And as a result I am stuck at 1964!

So if I dont do any of those, why my friend, why am I on twitter? Because I like to post things that I am upto. Irrespective of what people think about them. Irrespective of what opinion or comment they illicit.

And then why would you want to chase 2K followers? Well, its a good number and I want to put that on my CV. And more people who follow you, more opportunities to know new things!  And who knows, I may even get famous some day?

Guess this is it for a Sunday rant! I just hope that this post helps me reach the magic number. And if not that, at least does not make some of those 1964 unfollow me! 

And no, this post is not part of Project 1000. Not yet. 

Untitled – 31st Mar 2012

Today is the last day of the first quarter of the year that is supposed to be a milestone in my history, as and when it is written. Not really happy with how things have gone in this quarter. I had made magnanimous plans and like all my other plans, nothing moved. I even made a huge mindmap of things that I would apparently achieve in this year. So far, if I revisit the mindmap, nothing has moved. Even things that I could control by myself. Things like fitness!

Anyways, the point of writing this post is not really to talk about things that I dint do or couldnt do. The point is to satisfy the urge to write. Any damn thing. Its been some days since I have seriously written things. Not that what I write makes sense but it gives me mental orgasm that is missing from my mundane life. For almost 30 years now, I have been searching for things that would make me think and give me happiness. So far its been illusive. I have been told that patience is a virtue and there are rich rewards at the end of waiting period. I have been waiting for all these years now and I am beginning to lose it.

What else? what else? Ya, last few days I have restarted reading. I started with Godfather. Loved every bit of it. The story is so gripping that rather than reading the details and painting a picture in my head, I skimmed through it and kept moving ahead. And this is when I had read the novel at least twice in the past! Apart from this, I am reading The Price of Ayodhaya and The Polyester Prince. After this, I plan to read the Dexter series.

And then apart from reading, work has been keeping me busy. I cant really get time from all the madness and there is so much to be done! And this is about it for the time being. Too long for a post titled Untitled!

Dear Rich Housewives

Dear Rich Housewives,

On behalf of all the drivers that drive you around the town, the restaurants that host your kitty parties, the high street malls that you frequent to buy groceries, the maids that to help you with cooking, cleaning etc, the beauty parlors where you paste tons of creams and powders on your faces and millions of such micro-economies that you help flourish by your mere existence, including the one I am a part of, a BIG THANK YOU! Thank you so much for your patronage. We have no clue what would we do without you guys. You actually provide for food and shelter for me and my family.

Thank you so very much! 

Regards,
SG

And now that letter is over, lemme come to the reason for this letter. But before other things, let me describe you. A typical rich housewife. For the ease of readability, lemme use bullet points.

  • A typical rich housewife is in her early thirties (because the number that us minions call age, stops increasing for rich housewives after they are 35), has her personal driver chauffeur to ferry her around the beauty parlors, malls, kitty parties and other social gathering that attracts her kinds. 
  • She has a very active social circle of friends, neighbors, few almost page 3 celebrities, people who own fancy restaurants and parlours and the likes. 
  • And of course relatives in-laws that she loves to hate. 
  • The creature called husband is a fast rising star in some large multinational and thus only meets her on Sunday morning brunches at famous five star hotels. 
  • Sex is strictly twice a week, lasting for all of five minutes on each occasion. Not necessarily with the creature that we spoke about two seconds back. Variety, you see, ensures that there’s “spice” in life.
  • Money needless to say, is not a problem. She holds a credit card with an insane credit limit. Thanks to all the hard work that the husband puts in at work.

But you may ask that most women, in Delhi atleast, have at least two things from the list I spoke about above. How are you to spot the real rich housewife? Here’s a checklist…

  • She would be wearing thick framed sunglasses. Even when she is inside a mall. And even if its night. I suspect they dont remove the sunglasses even in the movie halls but I am not too sure. I havent had any rendezvous with any so far.
  • She can be found body hugging wearing track pants in all sorts of “interesting” colors like powder pink, baby pink, parrot green, turquoise, blood red and shimmering black. Shimmering is the keyword here.
  • When she sits in her chauffeur driven cars, she would sit right behind the chauffeur. Men and other mortals sit diagonally behind the chauffeur. But not her. Her throne is right behind the driver. I dont know why. I wish I could know.
  •  She would have a really badly dressed maid in traditional Indian clothes, trialing her. The maid’s hands would be full of large shopping bags. On lat count, she had paper bags from a million and a half trees.

Enough. Now I have to come to the real reason of this letter/post. Its about a friend. She just got married to a guy who is a typical rich housewives’ husband. And she is kinda lost about her purpose in life. She thinks that since she is no longer a girl now and married to a dude, she is now worthless and does not deserve to live etc.

The letter is strictly to give her affirmation her that she is not worthless. She must know that she is as important to our lives as Mamta Didi or BehenJi Mayawati are. She provides livelihood and entertainment to so many people. She is better than those godmen. I mean a typical rich housewife directly employees at least 12 people and indirectly supports 60 mouths. She should be damn proud of her existence. And I am not even talking about all the pseudo
businesses that she runs (just to enter the “me too” list). If I included that, I wouldn’t be surprised if 80% of India’s GDP is somehow touched by the rich housewife!

xxx, just take care of yourself. You are really important. I mean it.

P.S.: I sincerely apologize if I may have hurt any feelings.
And obviously, any similarity with anyone living or dead, is purely
coincidental.

On blogging and the chase

Ever since I started taking my blog seriously (I mean I have always taken my blog seriously but for last few weeks I have been trying to put in more effort than usual in terms of thinking about what to write), I have seen something terible happening to me. Rather than worrying about what to write, I am obsesed with getting more and more readers. I get some 40 odd readers everyday, from Google mostly, and most of these are one off hits. They stumble on to my blog from obscure sources and read posts on Javed Akhtar and Harivashh Rai Bachchan and then move on, never to come back (btw these two were written in 2005 and 2004 respectively). Nothing wrong with it if I was writing to make a quick buck. But I am not. My objective with this blog is to improve my craft and try create a tribe that likes the way I write. And get that tribe to feed me back with their feedback. So I rather want people to read posts that have taken much more time and patience to craft. And the ones that reflect the style that I want my writing to evolve into. For example this post on Mumbai. Or this on Panchgani.

Ofcourse its not an easy task. It takes time and effort to create any tribe. I have already done the homework. I have committed myself to it. I would write and write and hopefully see some traction (a column with a weekly/monthly magazine etc) by the end of 2012. So far, just been 10 odd days, I have lived upto the promise. I have been able to write something or other almost every day. Even if its crap. Of course I need to figure out a genre that makes me want to write. I dont really have a strategy in place apart from writing something or the other regularly.

I would also try and write some stuff for blogs/websites that get far larger audience than this one. I submitted this one on Sachin Tendulkar to cricinfo last week. They chose not to publish it. I sent this one to afaqs in December last year. They said they like it but I dont think they published it. Anyways, rejections are fine. Rejections mean that things are moving. The outcome is not what you intended it to be they are outcomes none the less. Things are moving. I am hoping to send things to 50 publications this year. And keep a track. So if you are an editor, beware ;P

Anyways, for some reason, even I am not sure why am I doing it, I would move all the serious writing to a new blog/domain. Need to think of a name for it. This shall remain a repository of whatever I write but I would have a separate domain for my serious writing efforts. And then I would try and market that domain. Even on facebook/twitter etc.

Only thing that I need to remain careful is that I dont want to be chasing readers and hits. And p.s. if you do read this blog, please please let me know (comments or emails or phone calls) that you do read this blog and I would send you a small questionnaire and see what can I do to improve things.

Curious case of bluetooth headsets

If you read this blog regularly or follow me on twitter (I am @saurabh and @sgSandbox on twitter), you would know that I drive for more than 4 hours and 100 KMs almost everyday. Blame it on the distance between my home and office. And since the drive is such a mundane and boring part of the day, I hate to waste it. Ever since I got onto the productivity drive, I thought if I gathered all the calls that I am supposed make (and return) and made them while driving, I could utilize my time.

But then Delhi Police is super efficient. They have a vision better than the stump vision and the hawk’s eye and they are experts at spotting people who are driving and talking on the phone. And to save on those unnecessary  traffic challans and further waste of time arguing with the cops, I decided to buy a bluetooth headset.

A bluetooth headset is a wonderful device if you ask me. It allows you to speak on the phone and yet let your hands remain free. I could do the same thing if I put my phone on a loudspeaker but then the voice quality is really bad. And then the headset comes for like a thousand bucks.

So using headsets is a no-brainer if you ask me. I bought one and could actually drive and talk and get a lot of thing done. Totally loved it. Till, I realize that these tiny devices need to be charged often. And for the same you need to bring them out of the car. And once they are out of the car, they have the tendency to get lost. As of writing this, I have lost about 5 such devices. The last one, about two hours back when I was out meeting a friend. And it has been bothering me since then. I am the kinds who likes to keep things at their place and I try to be organized. Losing things is something that is just cant tolerate.

And you know the worst part? I would have to buy it once again. I consider it that important a gadget. And I think this time, rather than the bluetooth headset, I would buy a wired headset with a mic. Atleast the wire will stay attached to the phone and hopefully I would not lose it. And since the wired ones are cheaper, I would not lose a lot of money, even if I lost it!

2011. What did I get? What did I lose?

Found on This Isnt Happiness

Its that time of the year when almost everyone, including me, is waiting for the new year to begin. I thought it would be apt to take a stock of things. Lets make simple lists.

What did I lose?

  • Lost
    sgMS.
  • A friend, who has been very close to me for last five years or so (made friends with her, right after MDI I think), who at one point in time was probably closet to me. No she dint die or something. We aren’t talking any more. Hope she is doing well.
  • Steve jobs. Not that he was my best buddy or something but I did look forward to everything that he did. His speeches, interviews, launches, ideas etc. Now that he is gone, I dont really have a role model. In fact I know for a fact that wherever he is, if hes there somewhere, he would be making grandiose plans to make that part better. 
  • Stopped drinking coke. I loved coke so much that it was unthinkable for me to survive without it. I haven’t had it for 6 months! 
  • Respect for Naukri. This is one of the first intangibles. Before 2011, I use to think that working for someone else is really cool. Systems would be in place, people would respect you for your brains and all that but then I realized its a big sham. Not talking about my workplace per se but been talking to a lot of people about work.

What did I get?

  • <tapping fingers on the table, trying to cook up things I may have achieved in this year>
  • <still thinking>
  • <still thinking>
  • <there must be something Mr. Garg>
  • <you cant be that worthless>
  • <tap tap tap>
  • <arrgggh>
  • <I give up>
Now you know why am I looking forward to 2012 so much? 

The Rebel of Mediocrity

Police Line. Do Not Cross. 

If you read my blog yesterday, buried deep amongst the other rant was a comment about my office implementing mandatory frisking while exiting AND entering the building. Yesterday was the first day. I just took a note of it and dismissed it as yet another nuisance I had to encounter on my way to office (other ones being traffic, cops, bad drivers, distance, bad musico n FM etc).

But today, the dude did it again. Twice. While going to office. And now, about two hours back, on my way back. And both the times, he had this irritating stupid what-can-i-do smile on his face. And it pissed the hell out of me.

I mean I understand that frisking is for our safety. I understand that the security guard, who does not really have any qualifications to be called a guard (he is more of a doorman), is merely doing his job. I also understand that even if frisking does not check pilferage, it would be a deterrent to miscreants. I also understand that all hotels, airports, important buildings conduct rigorous checks before they let you in their premises. All that is fine. I am a visitor and they must do their checks, if they want to. But here, I am damn bonafide employee. Its like a marriage. Both the employer and I have agreed to work for each other. Both are in a professional relationship. I render my services to the employer and they reimburse me for my time and effort. But that does not mean that I am disrespect. I understand security and data and other things that are very critical in the la la land but dude, where is my respect?

And despite all this understanding, there are a few things that I fail to understand. The first and foremost being how is frisking of my bag preventing me from stealing things? I also cant understand that why is that employees below a certain level are frisked only? Cant the people at CXO level steal? In fact if I were the CTO, I would have told myself, there is no way the security guard is gonna touch my bag. Let me just pocket that super cool Kohinoor diamond that has been fixed on the level to flush the pot. And in a building that houses 60 odd people and as many visitors a day, there a very high chances that no one would ever point at me. I would be rich beyond my dreams overnight.

You know, its plain, simple stupid. Of course its a free market and I did raise my concerns but then, why would I be heard? Wouldn’t that mean coming up with inconvenient answers about some petty theft that would have happened in the office 20 years back? And if they did check on it, they would realize that more than the thief, it must be someone else who wouldnt have done his job properly and misplaced it.

Dear boss, the admin manager and everyone else who decided to impose the mandatory frisking, of employees below a certain level, if I may add, the rule sucks. So much so that I am actually considering moving out. Please dont be surprised if the guard finds in my bag, a stolen laptop. And when you boot that laptop, the desktop has just one file on. My resignation. How would that be? Neat!

Like Neo says, all of are mere idiotic pawns! We move when we are told to. We sit when we are told to. No one needs us and yet they need us. And no one appreciates the damn opinion that we may have. And like Hugh says, every pawn aspires to be the king some day! I do too.

P.S.: I think this is the mediocre me who is trying to rebel his way out of the mask of extraordinary that I have adorned. I call this the rebel of mediocrity. More on it soon!