Thursday, August 25, 2005

Work Perils

I am sitting in a cubicle surrounded by gently flowing water, landscaped gardens, chirping birds and typing a very important letter to the Big Boss. However MS Word is giving problems and certain features have become unavailable. I do not have the time to get it re-installed as the network may be disconnected due to some work going on around me. I typed the letter without the help of “some features”. My letter is an example in ‘organizational efficiency with limited resources’. Any way, here is the mail I sent to Big Boss.


Mr. Big Boss
Dot Bust Corporation
Bungler ( read ‘Bangalore’, my spelling sucks and spell check is not working, but the cleaning lady Muniyamma from housekeeping has kindly consented to proof check)

Dear Big Boss (delete ‘Dear”. Delete function doesn’t work)

Sir,

I hate this internship! (Delete the entire sentence).
I hate you ! (delete this line too)
I hate my cubicle ( and this too)
I hate cafeteria food ( yup this one too)
I need a whopping big raise (and... this one too)

This is to bring to your kind notice (delete ‘kind’) that I am slogging my arse off in this corner from time immemorial ( ‘arse’ is underlined in red. I dunno what to do and neither does Muniyamma).

In case you haven’t noticed, the building around me has been pulled down and they plan to make a swimming pool where I sit. I have complained to the Facelift Manager (read 'Facility') and he has very kindly consented to dig around my carbuncle ( read cubicle) so that it remains as an island in the swimming pool. However due to lack of funds he will not be able to provide a bridge to my cubicle. I will apparently have to swim to my cubicle every morning, but HR says that a swimsuit will not be appropriate for office wear. I am in a tizzy now and plan to learn walking on stilts. However the good news is that during winter I will be able to walk through the pool to my cubicle.

The Netwreck Madman( read 'Network Admin' ) met me during lunch break and informed me that he will have to remove me from the network soon. However he has promised to network me witlessly (read ‘wirelessly’).

Since my access card is not accepted in the other buildings, I am forced to eat my food at the road side food cart and drink the piped water used for watering the plants. I am unable to attend meetings and my salary is dumped on my desk in fifty paisa coins. I am still counting last month’s salary, which HR says will keep me gainfully employed this month. While counting and recounting the coins (as the noise of the bulldozer is quite distracting) I have realized how lucky I am to have a job. Therefore I will not ask for a raise. (I can only count so many coins in one month and Muniyamma agrees.)

Gratingly yours (delete and replace with ‘Gratefully Yours’)

Silverine

The Big Boss never replied, even after three months of counting 25 paise coins (since my mail they have been paying me in 25 paisa coins and I have become very thin). Last evening I heard the Facilities Manager remark to the contractor that as soon as my cubicle vacates he will convert it into a floating bar. I am hopeful now, as this could mean that I will shift into the other buildings with the rest of the employees. The BMTC bus conductors do not accept 25 paise coins so I am forced to stay back in the cubicle in the night. But the frogs are friendly.

I am afraid this Internship is turning out to be lot more difficult than I thought. Perhaps I should try the Housekeeping Department as HR had suggested when he interviewed me for this post in the first place. I’ve heard that mopping the floor and cleaning toilets does not require MS Word or even a computer!!! Wow!

(This post is a result of a boring afternoon when MS Word wouldn’t function and I was covered in dust and grime due to some redecorating work going on around me. Those of you, who think I have been benched, may please wipe the smirk off your faces. But... if my HR gets hold of this post, then you may reapply that smirk again)

45 comments:

crossblade said...

wowow....thats a great post.....
most of my frens who are in s/w firms in Bangalore are free most of the time...lol
or atleast they keep junking me with mail...lol
have a great time
thomas

Arun R said...

ha ha ha....

High time we got something frm Mozilla or anyone else to replace Word.....

clash said...

great post, work n things related i never get the crux behind it! coz i ve never done any kinda work in ma life!

Unknown said...

Somebody once said to me'I am able to work better with MS word'. I replied 'They used to tell the same thing about drugs'. Nice post

Geo said...

Bill Gates, full of grace
Microsoft is with you.
Blessed are you amongst the CEOs and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Word.

-Poison- said...

this was murderously funny...poor 'Bog' Boss, and ur frogs, having to put up with u...do they ever stop laughing?

silverine said...

@Crossblade: Which sofware firm? I would like some free time too LOL
@Pratish: Neevu yaavaaga Bengaluru barthiri? ( Figure it out lol)
@Arun R: Lemme know when you know of an alternative to Word :)
@clash: enjoy the state of no work while it lasts.
@Madan: Thank you :)
@Geo: Amen :))
@Poison: You said it, poor big boss.Hope he finds this funny or else next months salary maybe 10 paise coins LOL

Sushil said...

Very funny post and loved reading it. I hate MS Word and have lost several years of my life on formatting documents in word this not counting the grey hair caused. I have only one suggestion to replace it: use OpenOffice from OpenOffice.org . It is a very workable Word compatible text editor and is available for free and works on almost all platforms.

zimblymallu said...

do you by any chance have a big red shiny stapler?

Jake said...

i got one.lol.

silverine said...

@Sushil: Thanks for the tip.I will definitley try openOffice. And great pics of Hyderabad on your Blog.

silverine said...

@Zimbly: Why you wanna shut the prank caller up? lol
@jake:Lend it to him for chrissake!

Sreekesh Menon said...

perils indeed.

Vinod/Kakka said...

Too good a post to write a comment on.
If this did not make sense, I rarely do :-)

Jiby said...

All in a days work!! This should by syndicated on the Reader's Digest peice by the same name...hilarious and too good, especially the new-age office jargon for network admins and facility managers!

Riot said...

:)

Post reminded me of an unrelated dilbert cartoon. A member of the audience is shown collapsing from powerpoint poisoning. The reason... too many bullets!

Me said...

Love it!

silverine said...

@sreekesh menon:Perilous indeed
@puthiya viplavam: Thank you and thanks for dropping by my blog too. Saw your blog, very interesting.
@Jiby: Thank you so much.My Netwreck Madman always lives up to his name and the Facelift Manager too LOL
@onemorereason:That was a good one, too many bullests LOL
@starving artist: Thank you

SNM said...

Hilarious! Reminds me of an old post by sidin about an MBA guy's first job wherein his MS word 'correcting' the name of his boss from Madame Le Bian to Madame Lesbian :)

Matter of Choice said...

ahem...whats the email id of your HR again?

nibujohn said...

luved this one :)

chupru said...

Some imagination at work, I see. Let them run wild like this and trust me, some day you will make a fortune out of all this. Praying that you remain bored all the time and that MSword never works on your machine. Keep on dreaming.

aks said...

hey....lifes like tat....trust me

Sinfully Pinstripe said...

Lady! How do you come up with these utterly hilarious ones every single time?

Leon said...

Inspite of being a computer science student, Word foxes me all the time.. :D

Very imaginative post.. what with frogs and swimming pools and all. :p

Imagine having so much work that you can't check your own blog. That's my current position and YOU are complaining... grrr.. ;-)

monu said...

Its time to migrate to open office :)

Praveen said...

One doubt, how long have you been working in this office of yours? :)

MS Word not working does definitely show us how good or bad we are at spellings and grammer dosen't it? :)

Dr. Pissed said...

Goto be honest and with the risk sounding cliched, your one mull (should you be one) that deserves to survive with those 4 cockroaches when the next big bang thingy happens..
Atleast you'll keep those cockroaches entertained.

crossblade said...

yea!!! quite a lot of them...lol,
esp this guy in Kanbay hyd
either they got free time or they are cheating their employers....lol
just kidding!!!

Sujith said...

hilarious as usual.. may microsoft wont come to know abt this blog of urs ;-)

bt its always targeted towards poor managers... :-(

Anonymous said...

what the hell is a bog boss? God.

Anonymous said...

(Wot a coincidence;the spell check function is not workin in my home PC either. And as Muniyamma was busy with YOUR letter; i couldnt use her here. so here goes...)

My dear Slytherin (a bit of Potter Overdose)

Like always, ur past really made me laugh my head off.Ur sense of humidity always floors me !!Would love to wreck with ur company. Hope ur Humayun Restores dept would condescend my supplication

Would not like to receive my slavery in coins though...
(I mean currently i receive peanuts which i usually have with beer; but coins will not be usable unless i stack it up and start a casino )

promise to visit ur floating bar n restaurant when it is up. Maybe u can work as the bartender and thus still keep ur carbuncle

Keep flogging
flaask

crossblade said...

hey..
thanx for the kind words...I guess I´m feeling better :)
thomas

Anonymous said...

well ms-word is owned by the vole.. alongwith google the vole is also evil...

as someone suggested openoffice is a good alternative.

silverine said...

@flaash: This is the wittiest comment I have ever come across ROFL :))

pDd said...

LOL!! that was hilarious...your posts remind me of adrian mole...no i'm not charging u with plaguarism(however that is spelt!) mole is a favourite...so by all means, take that as a compliment.

The elderly camel said...

Fabulous imagination! Nice post :)

hope and love said...

adorable..!!
:))
but then iv already told that..

MinCat said...

oh BRILLIANT! do you work in publishing too?

Jagan said...

your boss should read this ...and mine too.
nice post .

monu said...

ohhh when told me only i noticed that u r blogname is silverine ...i thought i was silverline [:D]

BTW is this u r name means

monu said...

http://www.houseleeks.freeserve.co.uk/semps/sc/silvrin.htm

Domesticated Bachelor said...

loved this post. and you shoud see some of the proposals that are sent to me for final checking... they use spell check and then send it to me... i must start collecting it and make a post.

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed reading this.

Since I graduated to using Word after WordStar and WordPerfect (I am that ancient), I am pretty happy with Word. I think I don’t get into trouble much with Word because I’m pretty predictable – use Times New Roman, font size 14 and justify the text. I don’t go in for too much fancy formatting – which gets me into all kinds of trouble. If there is anything like that involved, I sub-delegate it.

I never use the spell check feature. It can be absolutely misleading. So I do my own spelling check and thank God, I am pretty ok with spellings and grammar. I like the Thesaurus feature (Shift F7) though. My only grouse is that Word doesn’t know about 25% of the words I like to use – and end up double-checking with my trusty Oxford English Dictionary when I am in doubt. I think it is about time Word got a higher education or an upgrade or whatever they call it. And hope they don’t spruce up the icons only but also improve the language features.

Lost in trance... said...

"and my salary is dumped on my desk in fifty paisa coins."

u r quite something :)