Tag! You're IT!

Loyalty at Work

This is not my attempt at starting a comic, though that's been on my mind for long. I never can start a comic because I can write the lines, but I can't draw for peanuts. But hey, if I can Work my ass all day for peanuts, heck I can do anything for peanuts. I have not been writing for a long time. And that's because I was mostly busy being, rightfully put, a Soberman.


I once had this epiphany. I used to live near the beach. So every time I go to the beach, I see the regular hawkers who want to sell their home-made murukku and sundal yelling their hearts out to make a few bucks. Honestly speaking, even the Sundal sellers have a business plan. I call it 'Dwell till you Sell'. It means you dwell long enough around the same person, repeating the same things in the same tone, you disturb their activity, and in turn they will buy something from you just to shoo you off. End result - Product sold! The customers most affected are the poor gaja gaja couples hiding under boats, the oldies who go walking holding the hands of their hot granddaughters, the we-don't-know-if-we're-in-a-relationship-now friends who are arguing over the last 'mistake' they made, and most importantly the sad old husbands who want to take some time off from their nagging wives and come to get some peace. But all they get is 'peas'. Salted and peppered, from the pattani sundal seller.

I digress. Anyway, there was this one time when I was sitting with a bunch of friends and this hawker boy comes by.

'Anna, kadalai vangariya anna? Nalla irukkum na. Please anna, Kadalai vaangunga na. '

You see, that roughly translated means 'Anna, please get some peanuts.  You'll love it. Get some peanuts'.

And I wondered. How much more peanuts can I get? Isn't that all I get at work? Well, I work at this IT company. I don't name it for legal reasons, my scrawny signature on some bond agreements, business relations rules and mostly because my company's name is too long and nodody really gives a damn anyway.

But I should have you know that I don't hate my job. I just want you to understand the following equation clearly.

Employee = Wet Garment.
Work = Water. 
Manager = Dhobi.                                                            

And the job, is to Wring! They wring the work out of you, and as a lucky by product, squeeze the life out of you too. One stone. Two mangoes! Haiya, jolly! What is worse, is that I work at a service company. A 'service company' is just a fancy definition for 'International Slavery'. If you have heard of one those old Persian slave markets in your history books where fat Persian merchants sell poor Asian slaves chained in their necks, imagine the same Persian guy wearing a double breasted suit and a tie instead and the slave wearing an ID card tag for a chain and you're nearly bang on target!

Honestly, I should see them screaming "Brown Indian! Mid 20's! Robust. Twelve hours of code a day. Starting price 3.5 lakhs!", but instead they put it to us in a corporate way by saying 'We have submitted your profile to the client.' That's when it gets worse. It does not require a census and all to conclude that most managers are invariably fat. And their rotten biology teacher must have told them 'Beta, all body parts grow proportionately'. So the manager decides to put it to test, looks down at his belly, then looks up at his brain and thinks 'Tadaa! I must be so brainy!' So he decides to come up with 'ideas' for all round progress.

To put it frankly, he has only one idea in his head - To get his lipstick mark on the client's bum. So he does everything he can to make the client feel at ease. I have no idea how that rotten British accented white man who wants 'resolutions' to his problems, became God. But managers have to worship him, appease his every desire and if not, it gets 'escalated'.

God, how much I hate that word. I have grown to despise that word so much, that if I visit malls these days I mostly take the stairs or the elevator, because the minute I stand on the escalator, the only thought that runs into my head is 'You're being escalated.' and instead of heading to where I'm supposed to, I automatically begin to search for my manager's cabin on the mall floor. And it is not a pleasant sight when you stand outside Pantaloons, push the door open and ask the security inside 'Excuse me Sir. May I come in?'

I've always had half a mind to quit, and just move to the jungle and live on berries and greens. But the problem with the wilderness is, the chicken still clucks and the barley is still barley. For a man who looks at a chicken and imagines the Zinger burger and looks at barley and imagines Carlsberg, I knew it was going to be a torrid time living on berries. So, I let that option fly by.

I decide to move to better horizons soon, but for now, for myself and my fellow IT employees, here's a line of code I wrote for you to ponder over.


IF (Company_type = IT) && (Manager_size = Fat)
{
 DoUntil (Death)
  {
    Work
  }
EndDo
 }
EndIf.