One wedding, a paper presentation, an appraisal and two funerals

I am all torn and overused like a stuffed doll. I was doing a million things, a few are worth mentioning.

Lets start with the wedding – ‘M’ who happens to be a friend and colleague waz getting married, and bcoz I have this additional responsibility of being an event manager in my workplace, I was blessed with the duty of collecting contributions for the combined gift, arranging transport to the venue and buying the gift for M.
Everybody contributed a little amount of money for the gift and a colossal amount of suggestions. Some of them held their contributions in their hands until they were satisfied with their elaborate description of what they considered was the ‘ideal’ gift. The ecstatic ones were performing incredibly with their unfailing frequency of an idea per second. “…Or we could buy her an ipod, u know it’s light and easy to carry…How about a dining set...A wristwatch maybe...”
As the auspicious day approached we were approaching some sort of agreement on what the gift should be. Many agreed on jewelry. The reason for the unanimity was partly because the planets had begun aligning themselves in a good way, and partly because the enthusiasts were dwindling in numbers fearing responsibility. The day before the wedding everybody somehow agreed on a pearl jewelry set, and swoosh!! the very next moment I turned to see everybody back on their desks with noses buried in their monitors. Okay, so I had to buy the gift myself. I bought a pearl set, arranged transport and finally made it on time with the team to the venue. Our team wished the newlyweds, the entire team shook hands with the bride and groom in a giffy and quickly took formation around the bride and groom and smiled into the cameras forever.

Next, the two funerals – last Saturday I lost a very dear friend from my school days. He died of a motorbike accident in Bangalore. My sister’s mother in law expired earlier this week. I was held up at work and I couldn’t leave Hyderabad to attend either of the funerals. May their souls rest in peace.

The appraisals – Our company has a scheme of annual appraisals where once every year the employees rate themselves on a scale of ‘Star’, ‘Meritorious’, ‘Adequate’, ‘Reasonable’ and ‘Trailing’(S.T.A.R) over various hard and soft factors, that’s the easy part. Next the associate’s manager gets his much awaited chance to vent his frustrations by rating the associate against the ratings that the associate had previously entered. Both of these ratings are then sent to the next higher manager who has the privilege of driving the last nail into the coffin.
At each stage the associate is allowed to disagree and discuss the ratings given by his managers. Flattery is to Managers what Diesel is to Trucks. Pea brained colleagues who made good use of their tongues verbally and otherwise, came out successfully with S and M ratings. I was given an A. Luckily a feeling of revolt mushroomed and I called for a discussion. I spent a valuable God given hour letting the jackass know that ratings were supposed to be based on hard work and intelligence. This involved reminding him my track record, drawing charts, keeping him interested in the conversation, comparing brain sizes of the various species in my project, displaying appreciation mails that I received from the client and a whole lot of persuasion. Finally he reluctantly improved my rating to M. Phew!

The paper presentation – We have an annual technical paper presentation event. Ten best papers are selected and then the best three papers are rewarded. About a month ago, A mail announced May 10th as the last day for the final paper submission. I sat long hours into the night combating sleep and drafting a paper. I worked beyond office timings because the last day was quickly approaching. In the early hours of 10th may, as the whole of Hyderabad slept, I submitted the paper and went home. I was back in office at 10 am that morning, and there was this unread mail in my mailbox. On openining the mail it read – “The last day for paper submission has been extended on public demand”. If some lawyer out there thinks I can claim a million bucks if I sued the company for all the strain that this ‘postponement of last date’ decision put me through, contact me, I’m willing to split the moolah in half.

I was living in an insane world the last few weeks…I am happy to be blogging again.