Me. And, me.

Don’t go so fast for life is short

Stop and stare with a child’s heart

Stop and stare at the greyish – blue sky line

Streaking through the sky scrapers of our time

Why should I have time and patience

To stand and stare at the beauty & brilliance?

For, ain’t I the chosen might

To lead this world from darkness to light?

Don’t feign ignorance, of life’s beauties

A welcome respite, from thy duties

Remember, my child, life is short

Stop and stare with all your heart

Life’s beauty lies in

Being the kingpin

Why should I stand by and ignore

As others race ahead for more and more

Take it from me, oh little one

I who have endured life, lost and won

Small and big, the events are many

Life is short, enjoy the journey

Yes indeed, oh wise one

You enlighten me with your wisdom

But, life is short, the pace is brisk

Let me enjoy the kick and the risk.

Yet again

It is high summer, that time of the year when the sun beats down on Chennai like a mad man out on a rampage to drain our brains out. But, more importantly, it is that time of the year when campus joiners infest our office space or whatever little of it we have at as early as 9 in the morning. 9 in the morning. Not having fixed seats in office does have its problems, doesn’t it?

However, having new people around provides much needed fodder for this blog (that’s my selfish avatar with the evil laughter intact).

Sample this conversation one of them (N) had with our HR Manager soon after joining. “Can you please send us the welcome mail?” Now, get this straight. We, like other normal human beings, do feel a little jolted when bestowed with the presence of new faces in humongous numbers. Nevertheless, we are not evil enough to make someone feel so unwelcome that they start demanding for written proofs of how warmly welcoming the firm feels towards them.

So, I rechecked with N whether I had heard it right. She said, “Yeah, we need to have the welcome mail to finish other joining formalities.”

Processes, processes and more processes. That’s the challenge with huge organizations. We need to get a welcome mail in order to receive the access card. We need to have the access card in order to enter the firm and log in to the network. We need to log in to the network to receive the welcome mail in the first place. Quite a vicious cycle, ain’t it?

But, I am no one to crib about huge organizations. I like them so – large, widely spread over the place and hyper networked. The plethora of choices, the might of the fun, the number of faces one meets day in and day out.. it’s bliss.

Then again, small organizations sound exciting too. The comfort in knowing everyone, almost like family, is hard to pass off as non beneficial.

Ok, you can see that am ‘see-sawing’, or rather, what is that word, yet again? Oh yeah, I am swinging (thanks Shift+F7) like a see-saw! ‘Cos it is Sayonara time yet again.

And, unlike last time, this once, I am quite apprehensive, senti and majorly excited, all at the same time!

P.S. I know it is quite an irony, me cribbing about new joiners, when I am going to be one really soon. As an aside, I heard there are fixed seats over there.

P.P.S. One more label joins the list of city labels with this post.

Spare me the details

There was a time when I did not know that Microsoft has an office in Seattle and Google operates out of Mountainview (or Mountain View or Mountain-View).

For that matter, even now, I have absolutely no clue about which visas mean what to Indians in the US. H1 reminds me only of the H1N1 influenza.

Don’t drop down dead yet. I do not know whether Texas is on the East or the West (of the US that is) or how many hours one might take by road from Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh (or whether they are even connected by road).

I can hear you going “Oooh how could she! Bring on the highest degree of corporal punishment, for this crime deserves nothing short of the IPC 302.”

Meanwhile, as you prepare the noose and related entities, let me flaunt off my limited wisdom on certain things that actually make a difference to my life.

I do know where the companies that I keep track of have their offices in India. It is actually quite straight forward, you know. I can just say ‘Mumbai or Delhi’. 9 out of 10 times I would be right.

Also, I seem to know about the existence of something called the Schengen visa – the only visa that might ever matter to me, as a Euro Trip is there on my ‘Things to do before I die’ list.

Despite my in-depth lack of expertise in geography, I know that NCR stands for National Capital Region and Mumbai is almost an island city. That is because I have traveled to or intend traveling to these places quite often.

In order to set the context for all these self imposed confessionary statements, I need to go back a little in time.

A few months ago, I had a slightly amusing conversation with an acquaintance of mine who had wanted to connect with me over some social networking site. I, out of courtesy, asked her the customary “Where are you working?” question. She said, “Of course I work for Microsoft, why else would I be in Seattle.” I was not aware then that it is such an obvious thing to know. Incidentally, those were the days when none of the people who matter to me had yet started working for the mighty Microsoft or the great Google.

That conversation set me thinking. My friends who are currently in the US have always spared me the painstaking operational details about life there, except for vague mentions of “I need to get something something stamped by some some time.” I retain only the dates in memory and follow up on whether they have been successful with doing the ‘something’ that they have wanted to do, nothing more. For my part, I too spare them of unnecessary details like how there is always a long line of flights waiting for take-off at the Mumbai domestic terminal.

So, there! It might not be that big a crime for me to not know about how certain things work in the US, except as part of a “Learning how things work for Indians in the US” course. Fortunately for me, that is not going to be part of my to-do list any time in the near future. When I am faced with such a dire need, I solemnly promise that I shall place a call to all those people who are dying to share their two pence on those nitty gritties and why I should be living my life there rather than anywhere else on Earth (or maybe the Universe). I also promise that I shall not Google up for such information as that and thereby deprive those well meaning people of the honor, pride and what-not they might derive out of providing it to me themselves.

Till then, spare me the horror of it all. There is enough information over load in my life already.