take me home kantri road

I am not really a morning person. Definitely not a Monday morning person. I hate the fact I cannot stay in bed and let my dreams take control of life. Monday plays spoil sport every week. Fuck Mondays.

I have gotten used to the traffic here. If one lives and works with the same company with considerable commitment to either of them, one ends up taking the same route day after day, between mostly constant points on the map and surely enough, one soon finds that perfect time of the day to commute with at least a perception that, that time of the day has streets that are least traffic infested (though that may not actually be true). Anyway, now that I don't "commute" to much per say to work(20 mins on my worst day; if I am not working from home ie - beat that suckers!) I don't really mind the traffic after all.

Its the time between entering the office gate and the time I first check my email that I find the most depressing. This involves

1. Parking

2. Elevator ride

3. Machine launch

Offices these days have way too many cars. The previous statement is the highly mellowed down version of the truth. So irrespective of the number of spots of parking available, there are always more cars. This is the case with at least me and a few hundred miserable people like me who work in my building. An average driver would take about 12 minutes from the gate to find a spot and park it satisfactorily between the given yellow lines. This would vary depending on the time of the day of entrance to the parking lot and weather or not you are stuck behind a not so average driver. Two wheelers are a little less unfortunate. I mostly fit into this category these days.

Thank god there are elevators. Taking the stairs from -2 to 6 is not something I would prefer to do any day of the year, certainly not on a Monday morning. But what irritates me about them are the bugged algorithms that run in the ones in my building and the people who use them to climb up or down 1 floor. I usually end up spending as much time waiting for a lift as I spend traveling on one owing to the aforementioned two reasons. This being an average of my combined experience with elevators in general, though a lot of the sample points are taken from my current employers building. My twitter page today reads, #ifihadagun I would shoot people who use the elevator between 1 2 floors. You who use the life between single floors, you are worse than traffic rules offenders. Shame on you.

The world of technology has advanced so much that visiting the moon is no longer a dream. It still is a dream to turn on a computer and not waiting for it to boot. Every computer I have turned on in my life (over a span of 18 years) has been a computer which takes close to 5 minutes before it can start accepting human instructions. These 5 minutes after having walked to ones seat exchanging strange "Monday morning blues" looks with co-employees present and sitting in the seat trying to look like one is making oneself comfortable always seems an eternity. Launch of mail client, chat clients and other necessary software required to progress in one's day takes as much time.

That's a good 30 mins on an average from the gate to my first instruction to my computer. What a waste of time. I will work from home tomorrow

D, Have I told you I love you? D

One of those "pissed at work and got home early" nights. I was watching this movie called "An indecent proposal". Nice movie (read hot chick with hot scenes). Simple bollywood masala style movie. Architect guy with a hot wife. Rich romeo finds her hot and there is this "Indecent proposal". They have sex. She feels bad and comes back. Am sure my friend Mr.Karan will find it interesting. Kabhi tho kuch karenge kushimain... Its all about loving your money.. or something like that

So, this architect guy, David something is pretty passionate about work when he gets time off from keeping off Demi Moore’s body. That’s the only other angle to his character. Architecture! So in one of his scenes where he is not having sex, he is teaching some kids about architecture. So he picks up a brick and asks "What is this?". "A brick" comes the first reply. "A weapon" says this chinese looking guy(violent basturds I say!). So this David guy says...

"A Brick Wants to be something"... (You must be wondering what he meant. Actually, everyone in the class is also wondering. That’s when he says, "Every brick wants to be something" and shows photographs of the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids and the like.

I began to wonder when Ill start getting as passionate about my job. And if I become as passionate as David is towards architecture, I probably will have to say "Every if-else condition wants to be something"

Oh we are mighty sad people - us software engineers. For us, everything eventually fits into a if-else condition or a for-loop or a while-loop or some shit like that. Everything. Even life.

Eg,

if(day == friday || day == saturday)
{
    drink till your balls pop out of your mouth
}

else()
{
    eat like a pig and sleep like a dog
}
or something like that. Very simple

As I was saying, if I were to be as passionate about work, ill probabally have to wonder what SOMETHING has become of my if-else conditions. May be its on the Yahoo messenger, or may be in the latest Windows vista, or may be on the client you are using to read this crap!

But I know for a fact that today, one of the if-else condition I created is pretty fucked. Production problem. Null pointer in my if condition they say.

Software job, Have I told you I love you??

No??

Cos I dont!!

Monday! Green!

Tuesday Morning. I am late. Again! With the arrival of winter, my days have begun to start a little later than usual. It’s like my biological clock has undergone an "automatic day light savings" like in the US. But they haven’t changed the time here have they? So I am late again. It’s not like I SHOULD NOT be late. No one cares when I come in to work. I guess. I hope at least. But then we have this application running in office which kinda logs the in and out times of the day. And this stupid application puts in a "Late mark" smiley next to the date next to your name if you come in after 11. It’s not a big deal I suppose. But it’s something on the lines of, in school, if your shoes weren’t polished, you would be thrown out of the line. It’s not like they would do anything about it. But still, it’s a black mark... you become a dark sheep if you kinda repeat it. Its like that... So I have late marks for 5 continuous days in a row!

I am late today cos yesterday was a fuckall day! A terrible day at work! I hate Mondays. Really really hate.! Of all the mornings I have had to face in life, Monday mornings have been the worst. I've hated Mondays in school, in college and now in my so called professional life. I am yet to come to terms with this concept of 7 day weeks. What kind of a number is Seven! Seven days make one week! My ass

If it were left to me, I would have had 5 day weeks. A 5 day week with two weekends sounds so perfect. Over all I agree that the average number of productive hours in a year would reduce with this system. But now, no one works on Fridays do they? Hardly! So that would probably average out. And 5 is such a nicer number. It’s a round figure. I agree 10 is a rounder figure. But 10 day weeks would be fuckall! And another interesting thing is 365 is perfectly divisible by 5. So 5 day week actually makes so much more sense. No leap year confusions also. (For the mathematically disabled, test of divisibility by 5 is that the number has to end with either 0 or 5)


Anyhoo... he he he... that’s a funny thing to say. Anyhoo.. ANYHOOOO... I kinda picked this up from a blog I hit upon recently. I have been blog hopping these days, and in a process of continuous self improvement, I am trying to pick up interesting things from all the interesting things I get to read. I must say, there are gizillons of people out there with profound creativity and internet at their finger tips. Its crazy the kind of shit one gets to read in the blog space. One bunch of insane psychotic bloggers out there!

Anyhoo, yesterday, ie, the Monday before today... I had a bad baad day at work. I have been sitting on this bug for 3 days now. And this fuckin bug is screwing my behind all the 3 days now. I HATE my job. I HATE being a software engineer. It’s not usual for me to have a bad day at work. I don’t usually have one. Thats cos I am fuckin smart! [And people talk about modesty and all. My ass! (lol.. I picked this "my ass" also from the same blog I mentioned. The same Anyhoo shit..)]. Anyhoo, bad day at work yesterday. Bug fucking me front and back. Who better to show frustration than the boss! I need a pseudo name for the boss. (pseudo name concept again borrowed from the same blog)... Motherfucker!*

I think all bosses, irrespective of the field of work, fit very well into the definition of Motherfucker! *. Any job, if you are the boss to someone, you surely are a Motherfucker! It’s sad I agree. But that’s life. Face it… Someone out there right now, sitting in a bar would probably going “That Mother Fucker is one son of a bitch I tell you!” and he is talking about YOU.

Fuck! I hate my job. And I hate that Motherfucker* at work! Only thing that is keeping me from suicide right now is this mathematically challenged friend of mine. I want to give her a pseudo name too. Something nice. I like her. For now, let’s call her "Best Friend"* for now. Ill think of something NICE as later.

Anyhoo, like I was saying, the only thing that’s keeping me from suicide is this "bestfriend"* person and one more thing. It would be fuckin insane to die after all the dreams I have had about life. In my dream I am always the HERO. A total studd boy! And its a wonderful dream my dream! I definitely don’t want to die. Not suicide at least. But why I talk about suicide you must be wondering. I heard of a friends friend who committed the sin when I was having a "post dinner drink" with the former (the one who told me the story). The later, (friends’ friend.) popped some sleeping pills and hung himself to the ceiling fan at home. Fuckin looser!! Love case it seems. Love case! My ass!

I agree relationships and love and career and jobs and parents and all that jazz are funny and depressing most times! But whatever is the case... Suicide is a farce! It doesn’t matter if it’s your drunk husband beating the shit out of you, or if your girlfriend ditched you for the looser that you are, or your gay teacher feels your willy every day during recess... or its that Motherfucker at work getting on your nerves. Relax! Its not the end of the world!

But bottom-line! I HATE my job.! Especially Mondays. They should fuckin have 5 day weeks!

Never judge a book by its cover

Evolution, if that is how everything works, went on well till about the time India got independence. After that, the population increased at such a rate that even evolution lost it. And suddenly, round about the time of the turn of the 20th century, a new breed called the "Software engineers" needed to be evolved. So now, here we are, sharing space with this new breed of randomly evolved species - The Software engineers from India.

Its funny if you look at the way this breed of humans dress. In that sense, they can be classified into different groups, just based on their dressing styles.

The Indian male, or shall I say an average Indian(this, in an attempt to be NON sexist) is least concerned about how he/she looks. Disgusting man boobs and a pot belly which is the common sight among them apart, we as Indians manage to fill up fat into ever corners of our bodies. Fat in the face, fat in the cheeks, fat in the neck, fat in every corner of the trunk, fat behind the shins, fat behind the biceps, fat fat everywhere. To add to the drama, the "Software engineers from India" have a dressing style that needs review and discussion.

There are these obvious old timers who seem to be in a state of shock with all the change in the socio economic structure of India. The don’t seem to get past a pair of formal trousers and amazingly well pressed but full cuffed shirts without any hint of a color scheme. Black or navy blue seems the obvious choice for this generation for trousers and white based striped full cuffed shirts or checkered shirts crying out loud saying "I don’t belong here. There seems to be a time warp I am stuck in"

Then of course there are the youngsters. They fall into either of the following two major subdivisions. One, the ones who are not born to write code and/or have suicidal tendencies and/or have totally lost it in life and/or have no interest what so ever in what they wear. They just wear what they can find(or at least claim to do so). These are worse then the old timers. These know that they are having an obvious color mismatch in their clothes but they believe that this way they are making out a point. "I don’t care. Piss off!". Then there are these walking billboards. So strange how software has ruined lives of us meager mortals. A pair of jeans costs 3 mother fuckin grand; For a torn mother fuckin pair! And they are willing to pay whopping amounts just cos it has a oh so cuuoooool "Levis" or a "Lee" tag on it. Reebok shoes, Adidas shirt, Ray ban shades, Nike cap, Tag watch, Puma wrist band you name the brand, they would have worn it. Am sure they wear those weird looking mighty expensive undergarments as well. So much for globalization!

Some of these young software engineers fall into the "self proclaimed intellects" catagory. I feel they think the rule the world. They have these "what they think is wacky" t-shirts with slogans. Pathetic ones. Things like "I work for money, if you want loyalty, buy a dog" or even more nerdy ones such as "Dont blame me, its a hardware problem". They are either the nerds who had a oh so forgetful college life, or they are the real Losers(with the capital L), who don’t know what the hell they are doing on this earth, spending money drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, hanging out at the malls and such.

The best of the lot are the in-between software engineers as I like to call them. Not in-between sexually of course... they are the unfortunate set who are neither the old timers nor the youngsters. They have a style which I term as "The project manager" style. Oh god! Fridays are the worst for the "Project manager" type people. A branded jeans, a full cuffed formal shirt and a well polished formal leather shoes. A disgusting sight! Its either that or a Raymond formal black trouser, a red crocodile collared T and a white, almost brand new sparkling white Nike sneakers... add to it a wel kempt hair(of whatever remaining as most of them have a receding/receded hairline) and a couple of pens in the breast pocket - a circus waiting to kick off.

Women software engineers are fewer in number and hence fewer in type as well. Broadly, they can be classified into

1. The slutty ones (who are about 6 7 percent of the women software engineer population)
2. The truly beautiful/cute ones who you can’t do anything but fall in love with (who are very few.. and far between)
3. The ones who are neither sluts, nor goddesses.
[Rest of the discussion on women has been edited one because the women's bill has been passed and second, the author fears his life as he has been getting threat calls from random women threatening to kill him with utensils. Inconvenience is regretted]

Is it life or the journey??

As I looked at him, his tired bloodshot eyes, sweaty forehead, a cigarette between his fingures trying to steer his 10 lac odd car inch my inch to what people call "home" I could hear what he was thinking as he hung up on a call.

"Fuck the manager. Fuck the project. Fuck everybody. I fuckin have to work till 10 in the night, without time to call my pregnent wife, and the fucker calls me to inform that there is a meeting at 9 tomorrow. Dont I have a life? Whats the point of owning that stupid car one of those movie stars advertises for when I have to drive bumper to bumper hoping those cab basturds dont scratch it.... Fuckin traffic jam on top of that.... At fuckin 1045... Awwwww what a life!!!"

Ya exactly!! What has life gotten now? Every person on the road that late in the night looked so sad and deperssed. Not ONE smile. Not one... Beleive me... I counted. This one guy on a faded blue Bajaj Chetak featuring one of those Red Ferrari helmet was probabally thinking...

"The bloody bitch is going to be waiting for me to get home so that she can start her nagging. What do I care if her brother-in-law has decided to run away from his wife? And why not, if he was trading a life for her sister. I wish I could do that too. And the bloody helmet on top of that. Awwwww what a life!!!"

There was this couple in a brand new Tata Indigo, one of those girly blue colours, relatively new, relatively dented. A relatively new husband and wife I could guess. She had all those bangles and all which those panjabi chicks wear. A layer of makeup and a bright salwar I noticed. Goodlooking is how I would define her. Anyway, new "couple" they were, night it was. I thought atleast there, there would be some romance flowing, some smiles flying around. No, there was none of that. The guy was, basically a rookie at driving was struggling to get the car move the inch it was supposed to move and the girl was looking out of the window thinking...

"Where the hell am I stuck. I am stuck all day at home with the bloody TV or cooking for this bloody joker who cant even drive a car for nuts. I ask him to take me out for dinner one day, and this is what I get? Bloody stuck in a car. What is my life coming to? Awwwww what a life!!!"

Its a sad scene in bangalore. There is so much money. So many software engineers. So many families. And some how there seems to be no happiness. All the happiness is gone. Gone far far away.

A smile just passed my lips, thinking of the everydays I am on my way back from work with all the problems of life in my head, probabally thinking to myself "Awwwww what a life!!!"