I am back to work finally!

There is some positive news from my end. I got the internship finally. And that too the at the broadcasting company I was very interested in working. I joined last Tuesday and I am enjoying every bit of the new work environment. It is so different from the previous company I worked for and I am already finding this job an enriching experience. I have to take a 45 minute subway ride and then a 10 minute walk to reach the office as opposed to the short 15 minute walk in my previous job. Although the travel time is kind of exhausting, I try and engage myself playing Sudoku or reading the newspaper. Sometimes, I just observe people. There is so much you can observe in terms of new fashion clothes, accessories, shoes and even people. :)

At around 3pm everyday, I feel sleepy at office. :) Looks like I am yet to get adjusted to working again! I never imagined this would happen. Partly the reason could be my current routine of waking up at 6.15a.m, which is very early compared to my previous timings. I hope I get used to it soon enough.

Hmm, I am feeling sleepy now. Well you see, I am trying to get into the routine of sleeping early too. So, I am off for my sweet slumber.

Till next time, take care and have fun.

Way to cheer!!

This post is the continuation of the previous one.

The broadcast read somewhat like this:

Hi All,

The much awaited Sports Day is being held on 21st April 2007.

The venue remains the same, Nehru Stadium.

Venue: Nehru Stadium
Periyamedu
Behind Rippon building, adjacent to Chennai Central, Chennai - 600 003

There are certain changes to the schedule and timing of the sports day.

In order to compensate for the bandh on 31st March 2007, we will be working on Saturday, 21st April 2007, from 9 am to 1 pm.

In order to escape the heat and save you all from getting sun tanned, the sports day has been scheduled under flood lights. We will commence at 3.00 pm and will go on till 8.30 pm. Those of you who do not attend either work or the sports event will be marked off for the day.

In order to add to the Spirit of the Game, we cordially invite your spouse and children to join the first ever sports day of ( ).

Note: Parents/friends/siblings not allowed.

The house keeping staff will come around with a new list. Please sign against your names and also confirm the number of people accompanying you for this wonderful event.

The house keeping staff did come with a list and I obviously signed none in the column which asked for the number of people accompanying me. I felt that the whole sports day thing would end up like a flop show and didn’t really wish to get embarrassed by asking anyone to join me. One look at the mail and yes I had decided to go for the sports day. Of course I couldn’t take off and needed to save every leave of mine for obvious reasons which I will explain later in the forth coming posts. Actually I wouldn’t blame my company for making a rule that if an employee misses the sports day attendance, he/she will be marked absent for the whole day. After all the HR dept knows how much the ( ) ‘ties would like to escape and enjoy the afternoon after attending office in the morning. For instance, I would never even have thought of attending if not for that stupid clause.

The D day soon followed with me cribbing to my own glory about how much I hated the whole sports day idea and the fact that I have to attend it. Anyway, the morning passed after which I hoped out with my colleagues for lunch trying to ease our minds of the sports day function. I made sure we went to my favorite Chinese restaurant in the town. After all, I needed some incentive to feel ready for real sports. :P

We enjoyed the scrumptious lunch and drove to the so called stadium. Now when I first read about the stadium in the mail, I never realized how big it could be. I was wonderstruck when I entered the Nehru Stadium.

Thats the view from where I was sitting

I could see a lot of red tee shirt audience....

All preps for the 100 metres race!

Isn't that snacks he's carrying? Thats me wondering what could be inside the cartons. :P

Its getting dark, time for the flood lights!

The stadium looked rocking with the lights on...

All I could say is WOW!

Here are some videos to get a hold of the fun I had....



Women's Backwalking


Women's 100 metres-heats


Women's 100 metres-Final

There was this girl (K) sitting near me, who was very enthusiastic about 400 metres race. She went on talking about how she could have done well if that item also was included for the day. Finally when the time came for the 4x100 metres relay, one team was in shortage of a girl. Seeing the opportunity, D (another friend) and me persuaded K to participate and pushed her so hard onto getting into the track. Finally, when she told us that she was wearing floaters and she couldn’t run, I chuckled to myself. I really thought she was just making excuses. I soon offered her my running shoes saying that I will wear her floaters. After a while she agreed and she really did prove me wrong. Her team won the relay and whoever saw her running that day would have agreed to all her boasting. Just take a look.


Relay 1st Part


Relay Last Part

The winning relay team

So what if I did not participate I cheered for everybody. Also, didn’t K win wearing my shoes? :P

So all in all it wasn’t a bad sports day, don’t you think so?

After all it was the office sports day…..

Its been a while since I updated my blog, and blah blah and more blah. I can give 100 reasons for not having done it. Let me save my reader’s time from all that, since I firmly believe on the blog update being more important than the reasons. :D

So last Saturday was my office sports day. Now one month ago, when the HR sent this whole sports day broadcast, I got really irritated. I was getting stock information from Yahoo finance(Thanks to Yahoo for having such a informative website, I don’t know what I would have done without it.) for some Chinese company, when the mail reached my inbox. Finding information on a Chinese company is one difficult task to accomplish even with the help of Yahoo. I wish they had an option to translate the contents to English. Anyway, before the mail could reach me, I was busy translating with the help of Google translator. It is a very tedious process wherein I end up putting each and every word into the translator, to finally arrive at the company’s financials. I knew I was close to my goal when a dialogue box jumped onto my computer screen and announced that I have received a new mail. I don’t remember what I was thinking but I ended up clicking on the ‘open inbox’ option of the dialogue box. What follows is a summarized portion of the whole mail of course with the special effects it had. :))












“Hi Chennai ( ) ties,
On 31st March Saturday with clear skies and the warm sun the FIRST EVER







ANNUAL FIELD DAY/SPORTS DAY OF ( )CHENNAI
will be conducted.


As Sports Day is a day to promote sports, physical and mental health, we have a range of physical events ranging from traditional track-and-field events to more uncommon events which are listed below. Some volunteers have come forward to co-ordinate and conduct the games for us. We also welcome atleast 2 more members (please contact the co-ordinators directly) to join the co-ordinators in conducting the game.

Venue: Rajaratnam Stadium
Timing: 10-5 pm

Lunch and refreshments will be provided on the field. So gear up, wear on your caps, spikes, shorts and join us for a day of non-stop excitement and fun.

Note : This is an Outdoor Team Building Event for all employees of Chennai and therefore employees cannot shy away this activity by choosing to work in office.”

I laughed reading the mail, had a discussion with my teammates on the same funny mail and finally got back to the earlier yahoo finance webpage. The break in the flow of work totally made me forget the last line I had translated. Ultimately, I had to repeat (it only took 2 more hours) the whole page to get my work done. That moment itself, I hated the whole sports day idea.

Some of my colleagues did take the sports day seriously and I heard they had begun practicing for the BIG event. I was least bothered, not like I am against sports day or anything. It is just that I was too engrossed in work to think of anything else other than that. And, there was added excitement on the important due diligence consulting project I was engaged with, for a private equity firm (first time!) Anyway, my prayers were answered momentarily. 31st March ended up being a holiday for the whole of Chennai because of the so called Bandh which took place in protest of the Supreme courts stay order for the OBC quota. :D. The previous day, there was a HR broadcast which is again given below:

“Hi All,

On account of the bandh announced by the ruling party tomorrow 31st March 2007, our SPORTS DAY is being postponed, and the new date will be announced later.

Chennai office will remain closed and nobody will be allowed inside office tomorrow.”

At least, the above mail had the usual special effects missing. Maybe, they were just too disappointed. :D The two day weekend was a big relief to my hectic work schedule. Another week followed with mostly work happening. One fine day, there was another broadcast from the HR department.

To be continued…..

Timely sleep saves a lot of trouble!

A portion of my bed where my arm rests, starts vibrating at sharp 7.45 am. It is the alarm from my cell phone. Soon enough, I reach out for the cell phone with one hand coming out of the covers, slowly searching for the snooze button.
Now why do I keep it in vibrate mode? There were times when I had kept some ring tone and while sleeping, the loud ringing alarm sounded like a lullaby and I never got up in time. Not that I enjoyed reaching office late, but the only option back then was to sign the late register. Three times I do that happily and the fourth time I am late, it becomes a half day. I guess those days, every month I had exhausted the three days allowance easily. :D. Once or twice, I even had to go for half day. Now what happens on a day when I am late for office and I am aware of the already exhausted 3 days? Simple, I will continue sleeping knowing that I might as well go to office in the afternoon since anyways I will have to take half day.

Now back to the snooze button. I always end up adjusting the alarm a little early before the actual time for me to rise and shine. Most of the days, it is 7.45am to get up maximum by 8am. I have no words to express the glorious joy with which I sleep after I hit the snooze button. It is like the feeling of total bliss, knowing that you still have some more time for that sweet slumber or for that beautiful dream to continue. Most of the times, it is the latter which I go for even though sometimes I try both of it. Now what happens is that how ever I try to make the dream continue, it does not move from the point I woke up to reality. So as my normal practice goes, I start making up the dream. I try to imagine that whatever I fantasize while sleeping is actually a part of the dream. Wicked, isn’t it? There is some happiness in that too.

Once I get off the bed and if the time is 8.00, I have enough time to do all the stuff I normally do along with some exercise and roommate bonding. Exercise would include a bit of yoga plus stretching and bonding would normally be talking with my roomies. I know talking is not really what bonding is all about, but I would be glad even if that happens. Three of us stay in the same house but seldom gets to meet the other person. One girl works in a call centre as a team leader so it calls for night shift. In essence, when she comes back from work in the morning, I leave for work. The other girl (again team leader) works in a BPO and enjoys the benefits of day shift but again both of us don’t get to talk that much. The so called reason being, the fact that she is always on her phone talking to some or the other person.

Now, if I get off the bed even a minute after 8.30am, the whole exercise and bonding process goes for a toss. I will have to rush and go to the bath room. By the time I finish all the activities inside, it takes totally 40 minutes (no compromise with the time I spent inside the bathroom even if I am late). I rush out, get dressed and run to the kitchen for breakfast. The time is 9.15am. The servant lady, who cooks for us break fast and lunch, keeps my cereal ready. I gulp it down in a minute. Sometimes, the cereal can be really hot and then I curse myself for sleeping that extra half hour. Few words would follow like this, “ooh ahh” Also, I would ask her not to keep it so hot. How I wish I could speak proper Tamil to her after that. Obviously she understands a bit of my broken Tamil and would mumble something to herself.

Suddenly, I would realize that there is no time to waste. I would just force some water down my burnt throat, pick up my lunch box, umbrella and handbag and rush outside the flat. Normally it takes exactly 12-15 minutes for me to reach office by auto. A few miles away from the apartment, is the auto stand. I would be praying that there should be an auto waiting for me. My bad luck can sometimes be so bad that there would not be even one auto, which would mean that I will have to walk another extra mile to find one. The problem is not only finding an auto but then I will have to complete the whole bargaining process as soon as I can, if I have to reach office in time.

To be continued....