Contradictory to what you said….

High-funda corporate language sucks.

—-

The way they abbreviate shit sucks.

“Yes, the TL (team leader) told the PEs (process executives) to…..”

“STFUYSC (Shut the fuck up, you shallow cunt).”

—-

I know nothing about the stock market. Yet, I find myself in a ‘process’ where I’m going to be dealing with something called ‘derivatives’. What the fuck is a derivative, by the way?

—-

Blasphemy is in fashion, I think. Everyone I meet these days is like ‘ah fuck religion’. They’re the same people who have a mini-temple in their rooms and burn incense sticks everyday and mumble incoherent utterrings in praise or prayer.

Kill the hypocrites. Religion would die naturally.

What gives?

Amen.

Lamer than thou…

Ringa Ringa Roses,
Pocket full of poses,
Hushhha…
Bushhha…
We all fall down.

Something tells me this is my lamest post yet.

Well, let’s see…. No, that’s Saddam’s favourite song these days, I hear.

Still lame.

Fuck it.

Amen.

Tags galore.

Two people ‘tagged’ me. A weekend is the best time to be doing nonsensical shit. So, here goes….

The first one’s about movies. Courtesy : Cactusjump

1. Films I own: Okay, technically, none.

2. Five films that mean something to me:

• Rocky. “Both the five of them”, as my brother would put it.
• Lagaan
• Life is Beautiful
• Amelie
• The Matrix trilogy.
• Ooh, one more… Nayak. Very idealistic, but well made.

3. Last film bought: Hm, well, er…. Sholay

4. Five people to tag: Okay, this is tough. Anyways…

• Cory
• Nikhil
• Succubus
• Elixir
• Shadow

—

The next one’s about music…

1. The person who passed the baton to you:
Cory

2. Total volume of music on your computer:
About 15-16 GB of MP3, could be more, not sure.

3. The title and artist of the last CD you bought:
I just realised I’ve never bought an audio CD all my life. Piracy so fuckin’ rules.

4. Song playing at the moment:
Unknown Artist – Untitled.mp3 Awesome number.

5. Five songs you have been listening to of late or all-time favorites, or particularly personally meaningful songs:

• Get Me Through – Ozzy Osbourne
• Two Steps Behind – Deff Leppard
• Invisible Wounds – Fear Factory
• Sweet Child O’ Mine – Guns N’ Roses
• The Scientist – Coldplay

6. The five people to whom you’ll pass the ‘musical baton’:
This one’s simple now, heh.

• Cactusjump
• Nikhil
• Succubus
• Elixir
• Shadow

Ha!

—-

Oh well, my fingers ache.

Amen.

Musings at a dingy cyber cafe.

Two things.

No wait, I think it’s three.

Or is it just two?

Let’s see.

The thing I love about my new job, well, is the fact that I haven’t started ‘working’ yet. I have a month of training after which I’ll be “on the floor”. Well, I kinda already am.

The Infosys campus is bloody huge. And the only thing that’s making me walk at least a couple of kilometers inside the campus to get to my “workplace” is the fact that I get free coffee 24/7 and I get to see the glass pyramid they’ve constructed. Amazing, seriously, amazing.

I love the company sponsored accommodation. I hate the fact that it is not forever.

I still seem to be having problems with “strangers”. I just can’t seem to make conversation with a stranger unless it is over a cup of coffee or a cigarette. Now that I think about it, I can’t make conversation with even a friend unless I have a cup of coffee/cigarette/booze/all of them in various combinations.

People who know me in “real life” I’m sure would agree with me on this. My first impression’s probably the worst impression. Oh well.

Now that I think I about it, all I could have said was “I haven’t made any friends so far.” Why do I get analytical for the wrong reasons? I mean… why?

Okay, I got two days off now. I don’t know what to do.

Oh and by the way, I need (cheap) accommodation. Fast.

Amen.

I’m accepting donations…

http://www.blasphemy.com is for sale.

$11,220. That’s the price.

I want it. And my birthday’s getting closer by the day…

Amen.

Bangalored…. No wait…

Wokay… I’m here and it’s weird.

Weird because I’m alone.

Weird because I have not a lot of money.

Weird because I don’t have a ‘home’.

Weird because I have a job.

Weird because I’m all grown up.

I don’t know why, it’s just weird.

My ‘new room’ is nice, I dare say, it’s cozy. It’s, again, a temporary thing. Will have to move out in about a fortnight. Then to a new ‘new room’.

George Carlin said “Life is a series of dogs.” To me, life is a series of ‘new rooms’. Well, so far, at least.

I’ve been ‘tagged’ by two people, Cory and Cactusjump, no idea why. Oh well… Watch this space (not this space exactly, a little higher, maybe) for more developments on that.

Work starts tomorrow. More on that here, later.

For now, as the goofy drummer-dude Nikhil often says, “Rock on”, fellas!

Amen.

Heh.

Him: I always use my dipper when I ride in the night.

Her: Uh…okay, so do a lot of others…

Him: No, most of them use the high beam! It blinds me!

Her: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

And they lived happily ever after, I think.

Amen.

Before I forget….

Okay, I have been treated like shit by a lot of people a lot of times in the past. But, with time, I guess your resistance to being treated like shit does tend to increase and in some crude way you become “street-smart”.

Now then, in Mumbai when I was told I had gotten a job at E-Serve, I did not know the things I would have to see and hear from them. When I went to their office to collect my offer letter, I was asked to wait. I can wait. Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? Fine by me. To wait for six and a half hours just to get a fucking offer letter was just a bit too much. But I did take that shit from them. For one, I knew I needed this job. Why? It was in Mumbai. My ‘family’ was there. I will definitely be saving money then. Citibank does indeed have a good ‘brand name’ attached to it and it would definitely sparkle in my CV to a certain extent.

I did not get an offer letter. I got a letter. The letter stated I must go to some doctor in Andheri and get a complete medical checkup done. I was (very) quickly told that my pay’s going to be a four figure one and not a five-figure one as I was being told during the interview. I was still okay with that. Then came the last straw.

The HR lady tells me I have to report for work the following Monday with original copies of my marks cards and convocation certificate. It was a Thursday and it was impossible for me to do what she just asked me to do. I tell her the same and she tells me “In that case we will not be able to take you”.

Is it just me or does everyone go through this kind of shit?

I don’t know how, but I’m guessing most BPOs in India are under the impression that

a) Every Indian is desperate to get into a ‘good company’ even if they’re paid chicken-shit and/or being treated like chicken-shit.

b) They’re doing us a favour by giving us jobs.

I have a reply to the BPOs, a personalised reply, to be accurate.

a) I am not desperate. Not for a job. Not for a ‘good company’. I do give a damn about what I’m being paid and how I’m being treated.

b) You are certainly not doing me any favour by giving me a job. The way I see it, BPO ‘executives’ are the ones who’re doing the western companies a favour by doing the same work they do at a much much much lower pay.

So, E-Serve, by not ‘taking me’, you’re the one who’s losing out. Not me. Not by a long shot.

Call it weird luck or whatever, I got a call from the Bangalore-based Progeon that very night. I was selected for employment in their company during a campus interview in college some time in February. Okay, so now I have another option. I don’t have to ’suck it up’ at E-Serve anymore, not that I was planning to anyway.

So, now I’m in Mysore to collect my certificates from my college, meet up with a few friends and generally to make merry. Come Sunday, I will be in Bangalore, with three bags filled with clothes (clothes I hardly wear), my certificates, a few photographs (for memories and stuff), my cell-phone (with a new battery, whee!) and my dreams.

Was it my arrogance that made me throw away the Mumbai job a choose the Bangalore one where I’d live alone and learn things the hard way? Maybe, yes. But I know I’ve been lucky all my life. This time around, luck need not interfere, because I have my sights set. Well, I’m just a dreamer. A practical one.

Amen.

Semi Fiction…..

He couldn’t get himself to ask the question. It was too horrible a question to be asked, considering the circumstances. He was going to be there for not more than five days and he didn’t want to antagonise anyone with this harsh question. But then, his brain-tongue coordination wasn’t very sharp today. He ended up asking the question eventually.

“What happened?”

The man raised his head, looked into the youngster’s eyes. He knew it wasn’t curiosity. He knew it wasn’t concern. He knew it was sympathy. People were always sympathetic now. And he knew sympathy was not what he wanted. He wanted action. He wanted something to be done, fast. He wanted to forget that the incident ever happened. Action was something that didn’t happen in his small, sleepy village. And the arrogance; the arrogance of these people in their silly looking clothes and stupidly shaped hats! How dare they insult his state – his state of misery by asking him what happened? He didn’t care for these rich brats from the town. He knew they didn’t care for him. When cameras rolled, they’d become saints. The moment the camera turned off, they’d be themselves. And now this young brat wanted to know what happened? What sadists!

And yet, he was this simple man with a simple background from a simple village. He couldn’t be rude to someone who he considered to be a guest to his home. Yes, a guest; and he was taught as a child to be nice to them. He didn’t want to upset them. But he couldn’t resist the rage within him. One week passed and nothing happened. All he got was one question. Two words. He hated them. Yet, he had to answer them. Something told him he must.

He simply said, “Idhu puyal illai, idhu oru pisaasi (it wasn’t a storm, it was the devil).”

Amen.

Him: It’s completely stupid. People raise their eyebrows when I tell them my birthday.

Her: So, don’t tell them your birthday.

Him: Uh… that’s a thought.

Her: What happened?

Him: I happened! On the wrong day!

Her: So, your birthday’s on September 11. Big deal.

Him: No it isn’t. Those stupid Americans won’t let me forget it. Ever.

Her: Come on. It can’t be that bad.

Him: What do you know? Your birthday’s comfortably far off from “9/11″!

Her: That is one of the stupidest remarks I’ve ever heard.

Him: Yeah? You should have listened to me when I told this guy off at work.

Her: What did you say?

Him: He was all like “ooh you were born on 9/11… ooh” and I was like “I was born on 11/9 you bald fuck, not 9/11. 9th November is 9/11. Americanised idiot!”

Her: Yeah, well, you showed him, I guess.

Him: I sure did. Now he must be confused which’s which. Ha ha.

Her: Sigh.

—-

Okay, that was another piece of ’semi-fiction’. The conversation “never happened”, by the way.

—-

As mentioned in the previous post, I got a job. It’s at E-Serve and I’m now a Junior Processing Officer or something like that. What it means, I do not know. All I know is that it’s a ‘back office’ job and the pay is not that bad. Not bad for an arts graduate.

I have to report for work on Monday which is going to leave me with little time to enjoy the locales of Mysore where I intended originally to spend the weekend. I am going to Mysore anyway to collect my marks card and other stuff from the college and sort out some bike transportation issues as well. I will have no free time which basically means I will not be spending much time in Kool Corner or the Bakery. Somehow, I hate my job already.

Amen.