Of Cat and Mice and a percentage of a billion random thoughts in my head

Ever had a brief point in your life where you wished you could be invisible. Maybe run away so that no one could see you. Hide. Hide from responsibilites, ghosts of past mistakes, and, while at it avoid a few meteors that are being hurled at you by an imaginary being. Yup!!! Deny it as much as you want, but, deep down, we all know that we have been there... Something that we cannot avoid, or rather should not miss... These moments define us... And how one handles such situations defines the integrity of his/her charachter.

Ah well... A lot of big words to describe the cat and mouse games that have been going around in the office fer the last couple of weeks.

DISCLAIMER:This is gonna be one long post. So all you insomaniacs out there, come down here and lets see how much of a help Dr Ro can be. The rest of you, well, read at your own risk.

The story starts almost a couple of weeks ago when the company hires a bunch of software consultants. It was a scary day that one. Long story short, innocent little fresher was asked to interview a bunch of candidates, each 4+ years exp. minimum. And when we say innocent little fresher, we mean the kind you see on the NIIT ads, where any doofus who can spell C-O-M-P-U-T-E-R properly (without hiccupping more than two times b/w consecutive alphabets)* gets kidnapped from the doorstep of his college, is put in a chair and assigned a fancy name like 'Assistant Principal Stress Analyst cum Rejeuvanation Engineer' (which basically means, bring coffee to the boss when he looks drowsy) and is promised a rewarding career with an incentive of taking away a moderately bigger box of peanuts than the neighbourhood sabji-waali, at the end of each month for his contribution to the pockets of google and Orkut Bayyukotten. Hmmmmm!!! Could that sentence be entered in the Guiness Book of World Records for longest sentence ever? You let me know.

Each of these "engineers" can probably remember the day, when their respective companies came to their campus, enticed them with photos of FTV models in their PPT's, saying, "At HiBeeHem, we try to encourage the recruitment of more female engineers, which we believe is necessary for the progress of this country". Man. Those pseudo-messiah's. It would be another 2 months b4 any of these engineers learnt that these companies had lesser females than, Shahid Kapoor - facial hair. And the rare good ones that he would spot, would already have been tagged - Sati Saavitri Pati Vrata Bhaarathiya Naari, which essentially means, "Someone's already bagged this prize bro - go knock at some other door"

Back to story: 5 software consultants, get hired to do a job that a single LKG student, with half the IQ of a retarded mouse could do in 5 days. The team is assigned 45 days and our hero is assigned the task of guiding them in this epic mission. Easy he thought. He he. Looks like the mistress of fate, would not be letting him go that easy. 3 days into work and he soon realizes why these people get paid so much. Simply put, they were excellent naggers who had the uncanny nack of sittin rite under your nose 24 7, till YOU got their job done for them. Apt Managerial candidates these. They even knew how to make something as trivial as a spelling mismatch sound as big as an Earth quake in Timbucktoo that could bring about Tsunami's all over India.

5 minutes of time at his desk is something that would be a hard fought luxury. Rest of the day would have to be spent feeding cerelac to the boss, these consultants referred to as "THE TEAM LEAD" (To achieve the IQ level of a dead DODO was perhaps a distant reality for this chap). U gu gu gu ga... Wat did you say? You dont know the spelling of 'variable' and want me to come to your desk and fix it... Ok duddu baby... I ll jus be there... Dont cry

A cat and mouse game he would have to play. A spot did he find at the far end of the company where he could put his comp and do a remote session to his computer to work. Life would now be an adventure. New routes would he have to adopt to escape the CDB's (Cerelac Duddu Babies). A coffee break would mean sending spies ahead to monitor the premises.

Agent NOT NOT Shaven: Report your status. Is the coast clear for Mamma Mia?
Spy Chai(That means you Pichai): All seems clear. No sign of the CDB's.
Mamma Mia a.k.a. Cerelac Feeder: Are we a go spy-chai?
Spy Chai: We are a go Miss...uh sorry...Mr Mia.

The team quietly baby steps to the pantry. Long jumps across passages would minimize the probability of being spotted. And finally.

Mama Mia: Here we are boyz... The pantry... Job well done.

Spoken too soon... Here come the CDB's... Execute Plan B:Freeze.. Agent NOT NOT Shaven, Spy Chai and Soukara form a barrier round the Mama.
Mama Mia: You know the plan boys... Light rays... Block all light rays trying to reach the contours of my body. You carry this out well, and, we represent india in the Synchronized Swimming competition next year.30 seconds of suspense later, our valiant heroes are a happy bunch. A close call that was to say the least.

The next week was spent in developing more escape strategies. Better and more efficient algorithms. Maps were drawn out. Shortest routes to the nearest loo from any random point 'x' in the company as a function of distance, time and hazards encountered en route were calculated in the unlikely event that there was a fundamental flaw(S1 P1 bug) in perhaps the most robust algorithm that had been penned down by a bunch of lazy engineers.

In the last one year in the company I had never spent lesser time at the pantry or more in the loo. Toilet paper rolls had turned out to be our heroes best friend in these testing times. He would crib endlessly to them.

In the coming days, our hero wud become one with this tribe - TATA (The Available Toilet Accessories). He would share their pains, whether they be torturous songs by fellow McAloreans with the singing capacity of a feverish Himesh Reshammiya or encounters of the fourth kind with amnesiatic McAlorens who had not been taught the purpose of THE FLUSH.

Its been two weeks now since that uneventful day (the day of the hiring).The toilet GODs were not merciful ones he had learnt. They didnt answer prayers. Probably not so soon. Our hero still evades the CDB as Laloo Prasad Yadav his tooth brush.

This journey would not be an easy one, nor would it be a short one. Will our hero get through this alive? Will he be able to visit his parents who have come down to India for their once in a year trip? Or will the toilet GODS continue to heave their wrath on this poor engineer?

I am pretty much sure that right now you think I am escaped journalist from CNN-IBN. "Hi, I am Rajdeep Sardesai and the question we are asking tonight is : Should Sachin Tendulkar be endorsing VIP Frenchie or EURO underwears? To know what India thinks, log onto to www.ibnlive.com As of now 10% are in support of VIP and 8 in support of EURO. The rest have polled for our new category... "i dont give a %$&^$% beep beep beep @#%!@#$%"."

Thank you and do tune into www.yetanotherachievement.blogspot.com for more updates on this story. Join us as we track the story of our hero RGM all week only on, C-Annan-RGM. Gnite and tc yo all :). (Atleast the two of you who do read my posts)