Let's Have A Meeting To Brainstrom

Alarm. Wake up. Brush your sorrows. Shave off your sleep. Prepare yourself for the commute. Run, scamper and reach on time.

So you reached on time, that is like half the brownie points scored. Is it similar to half the battle won? Hell no. Absolutely not. The battle only begins after after you feel like clearing a big milestone, punching in on time that is. Then begins the real stuff. Some folks literally live for it, they just love the drama that unfolds, by them or because of them. Because that is all that they have, that is all that they know. The social and family life is non-existent for them, for there is no room for antics there. No friend of yours would like to see your artificial self after office hours. No one has time or patience for that. We meet people who can be honest with after a day of putting a mask on.

Okay, let us move on from the morning punch, you know how it sounds. It actually is a punch on all our faces. We now enter our desks, that is our little go-to place whenever we plan to do something new, extraordinary or the same old nonsense. It is the very place where we share so many stories with people around us. Some to carry with us forward and many to forget. We put those motivational crap on the soft boards that neither inspire or elevate us. We change them, the moment we find some better wordplay which would attract some eyeballs. Our softboards are like our wardrobe, new idiocy on the outside, same nonsense inside.

We gradually hit the lunch time, after the punch time. After all, munching is a much better job after number-crunching. And oh boy, what relaxing time it is after the facade we all put on in the morning hours. While you assemble for lunch, there would be folks intentionally delaying theirs so that they keep scoring more brownie points. You eat and go for a walk. A walk to unwind, contrary to the belief of criminal wastage of office hours. But then how long shall you entertain baloney?

Then the second half starts and much like most of the Bollywood movies, it also runs out of steam. Because the script you are working on does not have any story left in it by now. The morning facade, the meaningless meetings and the hullabaloo is over by now. It is time to reinvent new topics to have meetings on. How else will you get rid of your slumber? So folks send calendar requests to meet at far off conference rooms. Dare you survive those meetings without struggling to fight your drooping eyes. Because surviving those meetings will make you a devoted attendee and refusing to be part of those saying they make no sense will make you no less than an anti-national.

And then an evening tea break comes as a life support when you feel you are inside an ICU (meeting/conference rooms). Given a choice, most of the folks would opt for euthanasia than go through the meetings on topics that do no good to the organization. You ping your colleagues to check whether they are still alive. You swear to stand by each other. And enter the last phase of the day.

The last hour. On paper, the least critical hour. The hour where you should ideally look at your tasks at hand and start concluding them. This is when the big twist happens, because the Bollywood thing is still not over. You get called in to the cabins of some random folk who represents the senior management. Most of them are seniors because of a stroke of luck or a leadership training at Khandala or just because they are old enough. You enter the cabin and boom. Over the next few minutes, you are told how much work is pending, what is our vision, what should we deliver the next day and much more such drivel. You look at your watch once and realize that your evening punch out is inversely proportional to your morning punch in. Aah, the Corporate dynamics and the pleasure we seek out of it. You go back to your desk, message your friends that you would be late for the conversation and whiskey. You can procrastinate, but then values of your Dad that you imbibed and the fear of upcoming review which is any which ways screwed in favor of someone who is way ahead of you in brownie point competition.

The evening is long done and dusted. You pack up and leave without even seeing your face. Because even embarrassment has a better face at that moment. You look upwards before getting into your regular transport and ask whether there is a parallel universe where all the ideal things are rewarded. Suddenly, someone shoves you inside. Maybe that is the answer the universe gave back. You put on your headphones, switch on the music and (try to) forget everything. Because your next acting class will start in sometime. The one you do at home, every evening. For your family, you are into some rocket science, you are a person of repute in your organization and someone they value because of what you do. So you put your chin up, bring in that smile back and whoa, that is Al Pacino level stuff of acting.

You press the doorbell, gather yourself and get ready. Sign of any fatigue will be considered your failure at work. You are greeted by your family. You freshen up and grab your dinner. Fool around for some time and then hit the bed. You are on your bed, but you are also thinking about tomorrow's meeting in that far off conference room. You look upwards and ask if there lies a parallel world where one can be just the honest self of him or her and not pretend. Before you get the answer, you sleep. Maybe that the answer the universe gave.

Alarm. Wake up. Brush your sorrows. Shave off your sleep. Prepare yourself for the commute. Run, scamper and reach on time.

------Cycle Continues------

The biggest epidemic in the Corporate world today is not lack of skills or automation of jobs, because these can be controlled. It is the incessant personal and organization propaganda that is peddled in the name of growth.