Did you forget someone’s birthday?

Birthdays are a 24-hour event where the spotlight is on you – some like the limelight, some don’t, but no one can escape it. But what all of us like is the spotlight from people close to us. So, when they forget your birthday, you experience multiple emotions at a time. How can someone forget an event of such significance? How dare they?

Then you realise, it is just another day for them, same as yesterday, no different than tomorrow. However, you cannot help but think about these things:

1. But I remembered theirs?
2. I spent days choosing their present, and they just ‘missed’ my birthday. Couldn’t even afford a wish?
3. We’ve been talking for so many hours now and not a sign of a wish.
4. It’s not like there’s so much on their mind. *rolls eyes while checking social media*
5. Should I remind them?
6. Oh, maybe they are doing it on purpose.
7. I’ll wait for one more hour and then I’ll remind them.
8. Why should I remind them? They are better off busy.
9. Should I unfriend them?
10. Okay, fine! I’ll forget their birthday too.

How do I know all these thoughts cross a person’s mind when someone misses their birthday? Because, these crossed my mind.
If you are one of those who keep missing the birthdays of people close to you, make sure you don’t miss it again and put them through this self-disrupting mental chaos.

De-stress with these 3 hiring videos

If your current job or new job hunt is giving you heart palpitations, I feel you. But de-stressing is really important. And in moments like these, all one needs is a good laugh. It’s the only thing that can really help you de-stress. So, here I share a few funny hiring videos you can watch to lighten up your mood. Take a look:

We have heard a lot of recruiters say this to us

When we are made to go through lots of unnecessary assignments

You sure would want to fire someone like that, from a cannon, into the space

Bengaluru Weather Gone Wild

Known to be the city of pleasant weather, Bengaluru sun has gone wild. It is getting hotter by the day.

With people flocking this place for work, and unstoppably reproducing, only to become that red line on the google maps and ending up becoming the reason for hot weather. Those red lines on the google maps comfortably sit in their air-conditioned cars and fancy bikes, emitting heat waves and pollutants.

It is so hot here that the corn is becoming popcorn even after wearing sunscreen, the water from coconut has dried up and had camels been here, they would have considered relocating.

Bathing leaves me confused, if I am wet from the shower or already sweating. If I decide sleeping with window wide open, only the mosquitoes like it.

However, what remains unaffected is the city’s construction. To add on to the metro construction trauma is the abrupt maintenance of city’s roads and cows, always chilling-in-the-middle-of-road. Adding up to the red lines going redder in the Bengaluru sun!

Office: World of Workplace Insanity

Office stress can be distressing, especially when you are working with childish adults, who as well, are extremely insecure about their job. These insecure people create an ambiance of cringe and crib, for they are too alone in their bubble of negativity and want to drag people inside to accompany them. So, these childish adults lack capacity to handle things on their own, and rush to the manager for smallest of concerns.
I fail to understand, why would they not bring their mummy to office, to change their diapers and feed them porridge as well.

But these people are not the only reason why taking that job up seems eyebrow raising.
There are times, when work place becomes a place that gets you worked up.

• You define your office as a place, where you come to cry.
• You contemplate every morning, if you really need this job.
• When it’s not just people, but printers too, that refuse to cooperate.
• When you are excelling only at making excel sheets.
• No coffee, no workee seems to be the only befitting quote.
• When it’s Thursday and you already can’t wait to come back from work tomorrow.
• You show around the office to a new co-worker and end up teary eyed, remembering the time when you were happy and full of life, just like him.
• You consider moving to a new country, changing your identity and start a new life.
  At least that’s better than killing someone on the job.
• When you are still 40 mins away from your logout time and you calculate that you have two twenty minute halves to deal with, which means, you would have to go through ten minutes four times.
• When the laziest colleague complains about working so hard, and you have to bite your tongue so as not to end up with HR department for abusing him.
• The times when ‘let’s sit in meeting’ turns into ‘let’s shit in meeting’.

But you got to stay strong, for it is time for the annual game at workplace that we all look forward to. That period when all the common sense deficient people and the smart asses exhibit an elaborate document with traits of their weird behaviour all through the year. Yes, the appraisals. And all of us know that no matter what the increment numbers are, it is our right to remain dissatisfied and get back to the same place, the next morning, contemplating job change.

Cockroaches feel lonely too

Cockroaches seem to have a vendetta against me. They have terrorised me ever since I was a kid. But recently, when I moved to a new abode, these horrible creatures upped their game and their attacks grew worse.

They are everywhere.

Imagine, you venture into the kitchen in the middle of the night to satisfy your craving. And out of nowhere, a cockroach dashes past you. Caught by surprise, you squish it using your shoe or slipper.

You get into your bed, feeling something under the pillow, praying for it to be a hair tie, but deep down, you know what have you just squished in your hands.

You open cupboard, they are wearing your clothes and sitting like a mannequin right there. You throw your ironed clothes on the floor, holding slipper in one hand and Mortein in another, giving them an insecticide bath.

If only that had put an end to it. These creatures come in various shapes and sizes, and some are winged too!

As if they weren’t creepier already.

Know what’s scarier than a cockroach? A flying cockroach!

And what’s scarier than a flying cockroach? A cockroach going out of sight.
Then you spending the rest of the night lying in terror on my mattress thinking of it crawling around the room awaiting its revenge.

Shit hits the fan when you wake up, walk groggily to the bathroom, only to see cockroaches having a water-cooler conversation. In a matter of seconds you are fully awake, and armed.

A cockroach I saw recently was a Daredevil, sitting on the nozzle of Mortein spray bottle. I gave him an applause with my slipper.

One day, I got to know that cockroaches also get lonely in isolation. I started sympathising with them. It was as if, they wanted to be around me for company. And I was so wrong in calling them terrorising. All they wanted me to do was a little feather poking. It apparently stimulates their physical development.

Since then, whenever I spot a cockroach sitting gloomily in my closet or behind the shoe rack, I walk up to it, and say, “don’t you worry, I’m lonely too. We can be each other’s company in this pigeon hole.”

I gain its confidence and Bam! Squishy gooey cockroach’s carcass sticking to the bottom of my slipper speaks of betrayed trust.

Kinds of friends on social media

Social media is a strange place. Instead of focussing on how to be social, people end up doing social. All of us have a lot of friends on social media. Ones who send Candy Crush requests, some who are always heart broken, others who post annoying statuses – The list is endless. But calling out the various types of friends we have would be considered rude, so we tolerate them, and maybe even like their posts once in a while, out of courtesy. Here are the kinds of friends on social media:

The Selfie-Obsessed – Posting beautiful pictures of yourself that you took yourself is now a thing. But Selfie-Obsessed takes it to a whole new level; from ‘woke up like this’ selfie to ‘coffee with bae’ selfie, they just can’t get enough of it.

The Double Trouble, aka, Couples – At the verge of completing the final stage of symbiosis and merging into one, couples constantly write on each other’s wall and publicly display affection. Had things ended right there, it would have been bearable, but they go one step further. They put statuses stating the achievement of a milestone in their relationship which can be anything from ‘1 month of togetherness’ to ‘6 years of togetherness’. And do you even know how cool their bae is; he cooks the tastiest noodles? You sure can’t unsee the beach pics they made some stranger take.

The Blogger-Reporter – While the wannabe food blogger tempts you with the pictures of beautiful food under carefully chosen filters, the sports blogger enlightens you with their expert opinion and predictions in their series of statuses during a game. The politics reporters on the feed are similar to the sports buffs, but into politics. Equally annoying!

The Mummy-Baby – The social media account held by the mummy is now ruled by the baby, leaving us questioning, who does the facebook/insta belong to, mummy or the baby? From poop posts to first steps, from school awards to kid’s birthday parties, each album with 25+ photos. Maybe this is the legacy mummys want to handover to their kids when they grow up.

The Animal Lover – This animal lover loves non-vegetarian food as much as they love to pet animals. Pretty much similar to mummy-baby kind; they own a cat or a dog instead of a baby, and that animal is their reason of happiness, their best friend, or so they portray!

The Traveller – With every second person owning a DSLR now-a-days, you get to see 67 high resolution photos, or more, per album of places they visit, quite frequently. Woohoo Wanderlust. These photos range from a dog’s to random green trees, or from people walking the roads to sumptuous breakfast they’ve had.

And if by chance, the traveller is someone studying abroad, you will get to see 367 photos over the next few months.

The Fiancé – You have lived their love story through photos holding ring in the hand and longish statuses about the proposal. Just after the engagement happens, there is a flush of awkwardly positioned hand photos which display the rock on their finger.

Did I mention the fitness freaks? The list of kinds of friends on social media is incomplete without it.

They constantly upload pictures of selfies at the gym and make you re-evaluate your life. You like their photos loathingly as you swallow your pizza bite.

Excuse me, your stress is showing

As if the office stress, travel stress, what-to-eat-next stress wasn’t enough, the new kind of stress that is hovering people is the ‘I don’t look good enough’ stress.

No idea, why!

My sister whenever tries a new dress, sits us up in a round table conference, questioning, if she looks fat in the dress she’s trying on? This process is repeated every three minutes, till her shopping bags go empty.

That’s not it, the question is fired at us even for the clothes she regularly wears, and well, the night dress too.

The question ‘do i look fat in this’ is asked with such sincerity as if the changes in the diet plan will be made with immediate effect, however, allow me to bring this to your notice that nothing has been done so far in this regard.

It has become a monthly ritual that is performed to ensure that no mass from the body is lost. Additions to the body mass are more than welcome.

With an affirmative answer to her question, she goes to bed with satisfaction that she is still fat! And there’s nothing to be worried about.

Just because being slimmer brings with it several additional responsibilities of fitting into good old clothes which were purchased on the pretext of wearing them one fine day, and that’s too much of a stress. Not needed, definitely!

But when you are fat, you are just fat. All you got to do is, buy new clothes, and you are sorted.

Anyway, there is no happy answer to this question, ‘Do I look fat?’, when you know you have been hogging left, right and centre, and not exercising.

You ask someone if you are looking fat, and if that person says ‘no’, you will turn around and say, “liar, saying this to make me feel good.” When you know the answer, you are never in a losing situation.

But those who take the stress of not being good enough and let their self-esteem depend on their looks, there’s no connect between the flesh on your waist or tummy to your goodness.

Like my sister, she has made peace with her body, and doesn’t think that shedding those extra 5 or 10 kilos, okay fine, 15 kilos would add on to her happiness.

Summer Vacations are here. Yayie! Well, not.

It’s so depressing. Everyone is flaunting their exotic vacation. Timelines packed with photos from all over the world, minus Mussoorie, Nainital or Shimla. Because summers are here. And so are vacations. Yayie! Well, not.

Fellow depressed people raise your hands. Moral support needed! With these vacation pictures rubbed right in my face, I need someone to share my lack of vacation woes with.

You are a criminal if you aren’t vacationing at exotic places this summer, or so these vacation snobs feel. Don’t they understand, not everyone can go for a vacation? There may be those who can’t afford it or don’t want to travel for some reason, or simply have evil bosses who don’t grant leaves.

Depression hits another low when you are made to realise that even trees have leaves, but you don’t. Or even the pankha in your room, vo bhi ghoomta hai, but you don’t.

I mean seriously yaar, go wherever you want to. But would you not be a check-in maniac? From international airport to hotels to stoppages. Why don’t you check-in from the loo in Scotland? That’s also phoreign, no?

Don’t be a human equivalent of cloud burst, please!

I understand, you derive extreme pleasure by flaunting your pictures, but I (read: We, for I am the voice of all depressed people) really don’t need to see your 486 selfies and pictures with unknown firangs, or international dogs relaxing by the pool. Also, if you plan to do a facebook live, please please, let it be of something I, your Facebook friend, would like to see. I mean, those videos of a duck being a duck and chilling and eating doesn’t excite me. It depresses me. You went on an exotic vacation for this?!

What, do you want me to unfriend and block you? You know what that would mean, do you? That would mean, one friend less to flaunt your fancy vacation to. Hmm hmm.

I am fed up. And the rest of you, can you not ask 10 thousand questions from those vacationers? Do you even realise those questions and the excited replies to those become notifications for all of us? Also, that makes the album “Scotland trip with frnzzz” pop on our timeline again and again.

Most of us, are already feeling low and can do nothing about it, can you please let us live in peace?

Beware of Bad Bosses

Bad bosses won’t just impact your productivity in the office, they will affect your entire life. It’s not me who says that, it’s the survey commissioned by Lynn Taylor Consulting that confirms it. A whopping 19.2 hours are wasted each week worrying about what a boss says or does. What’s more? Out of these, 6.2 hours are spent fretting over the weekend.

While terrible bosses affect you terribly, a good manager can help you bring out the best in you.

The good part is, they show signs of being good or evil early on. Notice, before you get too involved.

Sign 1
If your boss refuses to admit their mistake, it means they’re not willing to go out of their comfort zone for you.
*open resume.docx *

Sign 2
If they expect you to be like them and tends to reflect their style onto everything you do, just say “ok bbdol” to show that you value their suggestions.
*edit resume.docx*

Sign 3
If your boss doesn’t hear your viewpoint and doesn’t like you for being an opinionated person, keep saying the nice things they want to hear, like, “wow, nice underwear, sir!”
*convert resume.docx to resume.pdf*

Sign 4
If they have favourites and are blind to your skills or the value you add to the organisation. Well, then you need to show some passion about your job. Kiss your boss on the neck.
*login to jobs dot com*

Sign 5
If you have to push yourself harder to wake up in the morning and it takes a truckload of courage to face your boss, kidnap them, keep them safe – in the refrigerator.
*apply apply apply*

If the only good thing about your job is the chair that spins, then it’s time to pull out a sock from pocket and shout “DOBBY HAS NO MASTER, DOBBY IS A FREE ELF!”
*resign*

The name game

Nicknames. We Indians have a weird habit of bestowing people around them, with weirder monikers, which mostly, have nothing to do with their real/official/publically-acknowledged names. Some of us have nicknames of our nicknames. That already short nickname is made shorter. Why was that short nickname kept in the first place, if you had to make it even shorter?

My cousin named Vikas, nicknamed Babloo was further nicknamed Bubble. No. Idea. Why.

My friend nicknamed Bulbul, was further nicknamed Bullu. Again, No. Idea. Why.

My father has a cousin named Tomato. Again, No. Idea. Why.

But there’s another category of nicknames that happen because of me. Not accidental. But for the sake of mandatory secret conversations about they-who-must-not-be-named.

In my previous organisation, a colleague was secretly christened Baalushahi, and secretly nicknamed Baalu, by yours truly. An extremely sweet name for an extremely insensitive person. No one could doubt. 😉 Her guy was named Poplu. Just because he looked like one.

Our global marketing head, who was lovingly named Constantin by his parents, could never know he was the Tinu we kept talking about.

Bui. We have been calling Aarushi, bui for about 2 years now. For she has that Bhua-like air. In fact, whenever I call her out, she responds. It’s like she has accepted one of the following conditions or maybe both:

• As per me, she has that bhua-like personality.
• She agrees with my opinion since we are living in a very opinionated world.

Now, it is only fair to call someone Pinku if he is pink-pink all through the day. What if he is your reporting manager? But you are a preacher of truth and absolutely don’t care about being fired.