Office-Office

एक सरकारी - दफ्तर

1. Natural AC (Air-Conditioner)* with the following ingredients to add to the aroma: (What is this * for? Read on to know)

·         40% : fine-grained dust which forms a silky covering on your face that you don't feel like wasting your hard-earned money on a facial because you’re getting it done for free here.

·         25% : CO2 which, if stored, can be used in a crisis situation.

·         10% : smell of tobacco which takes you to a different world altogether.

·         15% : smell of socks which makes you >feel alive, if you feel like a dead body which has been standing in a long queue for hours. >feel dead, if you still feel your respiratory system and other systems of the body are working normally.

·         5% : Leakage, as a result of digestive system, not functioning properly, of some of the people present there.

·         5% : Last but not the least oxygen.

2. People talking to each other in a way that you feel like putting a big sized ‘besan ka ladoo’ in their mouths just to show how much you respect whatever is coming out of their big mouths.

3. The computer operator who is very very patient in performing his duty, irrespective of the count of people standing in the QUEUE to his left. He takes his time to type all the details in a word document, pressing the keyboard keys very gently so that they don’t get hurt, with small breaks in between; chatting with the peon and laughing, having tea after every 5 minutes, caressing his moustache, adjusting his chair after every second for whatever reason, etc .

4. The office area which is a single room 3/4th of which is occupied by heaps of paper bundles all around. Now, just imagine and find a definition for QUEUE.

5. People, who want some legal processing to be done, have to adjust themselves in the remaining 1/4th area. They are also forced to put both their eye retinas to a test. Thanks to the lighting arrangement which ensures all the bulbs are half-hidden by the paper heaps. With due respect, Thomas Alva Edison would be glad to see his invented bulbs still being used but half-hidden like this would really disappoint him.

“I am here to get my documents legally signed but something is wrong boss..What makes me think that I am doing some kind of smuggling here?”

Such is the impact on a person’s mind because the office gives the feel of a godown (the ones shown in bollywood movies) where all the illegal activities are carried out; the only difference being those big iron drums replaced by bundles of paper piled together in heaps.

But, unfortunately, this is all legal.

Conclusions as an IT professional:

Respect/Value given to a software engineer is not even 10% of what a peon gets there.

Income of the peon, however, might be 10% of that of a software engineer.

A person working in a government office will agree to work in an IT company for half of his current salary but a person working in an IT company will not work in a government office even if his current salary is doubled.

*“Awesome Chaos” is what I can think of as a full form for AC now.