Pins and Needles

When we were children, we'd be so afraid of injections. We'd wonder how anyone could be as horrible as to pierce someone else with a needle; the very sight of one would have us bawling until the entire process was over, even if it didn't hurt as much as all that.

As adults we've become somewhat immune to them; at least we don't feel as afraid as the thought of one. Perhaps it's because with age we've been witness to more horrifying things that can be jabbed into one's body than a mere needle. Or perhaps we've been we've been subjected to worse pain than can be caused by a mere pin prick.

What People In Corporates Do When They're Bored

Bitch about other people. I have a feeling it's happening all over again; I'm being pulled up for having an 'attitude'. For being impatient with incompetents, overbearing colleagues and people who think their job is to make sure everyone else except themselves has work to do. I struggle at this point to remember the lines that one defeated-and-ultimately-reborn-as corporate whore told me. I need to leave the real 'me' outside the shithole, be all nice and smiley when I come in and then I can go back to being bad and bitchy and short-tempered outside the shithole.

There, now that I have my agenda all planned out I can breathe easy again without blowing an overpriced corporate fuse. God help my friends.

Foretelling of Doom

Ok, people, in case you were left in any doubt and are seriously still following the American elections with fervour, let me tell you how it's all going to turn out.

McCain is going to win.

You know why? Because he's the ideal American (at least the one who'll draw the most votes - legally or illegally); he's a bigot, he's white, he's old and he's stupid. Sound familiar? Just like the last several Presidents you say? Oh I wouldn't go far as that but, yeah, pretty much. The majority of Americans really don't have a brain, are quite happy being racially discriminating and are too patriotic for their own good without ever thinking of consequences or sources of problems. Sounds like India? Well, that's why democracies don't work. Of course, there are the intelligent Americans out there - you've read their blogs - the ones who do support properly thought out long-term schemes, who don't think the primary criteria for a running mate selection should be her good hair and the ones who think it's about time they had a president who'd be willing to stop the senseless crimes against humanity still happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. But they're a very small percentage. The dumb shall inherit the earth.

And that's a fact, jack.

Put-Down Lines: For Managers

I hate those lame pick-up lines. People who sms/email them to me, please stop. Instead, read these: my new put-down lines; tailor-made for harassed corporate employees for use against their incompetent and ever-shallow managers. You read them here first. Most of them are lines I've actually used on my managers. Now you know why I never get promoted.

• I knew you were incompetent from the first time I set eyes on you.
• What other aspects of your job can I teach you today?
• Why are you paid more than me, again?
• When I first saw you, I said to myself - here comes another incompetent clown
• Your father must have been dyspeptic; no wonder you're full of gas
• Some days, when I close my eyes, I see you standing before me, crying because you are no longer with me.Those are good days.
• When I look into your eyes, I see the emptiness inside; how I wish you had a brain, too.

One day, our manager comes in and tells us how it's world environment day the next day and so we've to come in wearing something green. So I go, "Yeah good idea; why don't you wear a green shirt and a brown pair of trousers like a tree and we'll try to pot you outside the office or something?". Of course, he didn't hear the latter part of my sentence as he was so happy with my idea and immediately started to wonder if the green shirt and brown trousers he had at home were clean and pressed. I'm so glad I don't get promoted.

Miss Management Strikes Again

I sometimes, I do admit, like to fantasise. You will know when you see me sitting by myself with a distant look in my eyes, staring at nothing in particular and a funny smile on my face. It is then that I like to dream of a hell just for managers. And what this special hell would contain.

I hope that when managers die, the person guarding the gates judges them on various issues ranging from incompetency to callousness, prejudice to inhumanity and idiocy to mediocrity. I like to think that when they are found to fail every one of these tests, as for sure most of them will, they will be banished to the Special Hell for Mis-managers (Regardless of Gender Despite the Name). Here they will be asked to write out, with their finger, a thousand lines every day stating why they think they deserve to go to heaven. Wait. Then they might not have anything to write. No, they will write about what they did with the fat sums they earned and how they managed to climb the corporate ladder. A thousand lines everyday. With their finger. When, at the end of the day, their work is checked, they will be asked where all the lines are. These managers will then point helplessly at their little slates and go - there they are, I wrote them with my finger, don't you see? The evaluator will say - foolish man. How do you expect us to read this if you write it with your finger. I command you to now write two thousand times the same things; and this time you shall use your fingernails. I then hope they will suffer eternal cringing and teeth-grinding as they listen to each other's fingernails screeching across the boards and then suffer eternal weariness doing this exercise and mourn eternally for the fact that they subject their worthier subordinates to senseless assignments of this sort everyday.

For verily I tell to thee - they shall do this for every day of their eternal afterlives.

Song Sung Green

I've just realised that the past two and a half years of my working life were spent mostly waiting for my paycheck. I've practically lived from paycheck to paycheck, having spent my entire salary by the first week of the month and then would desperately count the days to the end of the month. It didn't change matters much once I got a well-paying job. Apparently I've found many more things to do with the extra money.

I've often wondered how people survived on as little as 3000 rupees a month. There are whole families out there who live on that much (little) money. How do they do it? Even if I've managed to spend just under maybe say 5 grand for the first three weeks (and that's not counting my rent and phone bill, etc. Ahem.), in the last week I manage to blow up the rest in a grand display of lights and colours. Hell, why the last week; it could even be the last friggin day of the month before salary day. Sigh. It has been close to impossible for me to maintain a stable savings account. Which is why my dad never ceases to be amazed at why, despite having worked for the last 26 months, I still run to him for money. Hey, at least I only do it when I really have to (like for example during that credit card crisis; sigh, those were the good old days).

Thanks to a boyfriend who likes to save, I have somewhat regulated my spendings (with a stern rap on my knuckles if I happen to reach out for a 33rd pair of shoes) so I don't exactly have nothing to live on by mid month anymore. Still, I can't wait till next month so I can consider buying meself a new phone. Or maybe the iPod Touch. Or then again...

Priloza's Theory #1058: On Editors

All Editors are proud, stuck-up pigs.

Which is probably why I fit the job description so well. They are, more or less all of them, arrogant, snobbish know-it-alls. They are quick to lash back at you when corrected, or when approached for clarification on their edits. They do not like people who know more then they do and hide their lack of knowledge by not approaching these people with questions. However if the person in question happens to be a subordinate, they will not hesitate to unload their queries, workloads or even PMS upon this person.

Editors are a strange lot; they are mostly reclusive, have troubled relationships that see them desperately trying to get away from their respective partners, lead secretive double lives that would shock the bravest of us and cannot pick up a colleague's document without inserting some (at times unnecessary) edits of their own.

Editors should be kept away from, in general, mainly because of their so-short-they're-hardly-even-there tempers. If you have angered an editor, run as soon as you see the first wisps of steam arising from their ears. Wait any longer and you might not have ears left yourself, or a head for that matter (for it will be bitten off, you dodo).

Editors can be found in small, tight groups of threes or fives or sevens. They prefer odd numbers so that they don't have to get too close to the other person (the second person can talk to the third person instead while the first person pretends to be busy, and so on). They suffer from terribly unpredictable mood swings, and more so if male. And there you were thinking only women suffer from PMS. Editors can talk for hours together on the political crisis in America (what? there isn't one? think again), the weather in Chennai or their plunging salaries, but get on the subject of their questionable grammar knowledge, and they clam up in 2 seconds flat. They will also throw pointedly hateful glares at you.

Editors are a dying breed. Editors ought to be preserved. Editors should be locked up. Now, back to my cell.

Priloza's Theory #493: The Reason

People make money because they want to get married.

Young man, A, studies hard to pass through college. He works his way up through college and through several degrees to make for himself a good career. He leaves country for better prospects. He now is a huge asset to women looking out for a single, rich male.

A is from India. A does not even have to have the several degrees, as long as he has one that can take him to wherever he wants to go. A most probably will go to the Gulf or the US of A. A's parents are well aware of A's value, which is why they pushed him overseas in the first place. They will find him a suitable bride; one who need not necessarily match his educational qualifications, but one who will be able to quote a good price for the man she is to purchase for herself.

A may, on the other hand, be interested in finding a girl for himself. This, while rare, is increasingly the phenomenon among people like A. He will use the internet as a medium, physically being too unattractive or not being charming enough to woo girls the old fashioned way. He will flaunt his wealth before the girls he pursues, dropping names like 'Washington D.C.', 'New Jersey' and 'Starbucks'. Before long, he will find a girl who will fall for his lame gimmicks. For such is life.

A is the typical male Indian gulfie/US stereotype. A could be your brother, friend, cousin or even your boyfriend.

For M

For M

Speak dead words
That have rusted with time
The same dusty syllables
All forming the filthy clean talk.

Don't dirty anyone
Keep talking the dry talk
Cobwebbed and old
Just like your thoughts.

An ancient tongue
The same as in every head
Words as old as their thinking
Stored up for eternity
To make sure noone forgets
To think clean thoughts.