The alarm went off at 7:45 AM while
I was sleeping on the sofa cum bed. Why?
Good question. The time of the
alarms is the first available slot after the kids (I stay with my sister and
her teenage daughter and young son) and their mom leave for office and I have
access to bathroom and everything else in the house.
If you noticed and wondered why I
am sleeping on sofa cum bed – I must say you have an eye for detail. Well
thanks to my job and chaos in my life I share with you that I stay with my
sister only when I am in India. And if you are contemplating how sad it is to
sleep on the sofa in the living room let me warn you. Imagine living in hotels
out of a suitcase for extended months – it is zillion times better. You have someone
you can ask favors for unconditionally, who knows what you like and is like
family. Even when you don’t have time to speak on a day to day basis it still
feels like you are at home and with family. Oh I didn’t say why sofa cum bed –
well that is the only place where I can sleep in the house though she keeps
contemplating that with me around we should move to a bigger house but it lasts
only till I move to another assignment.
The first thing I do is pick up
the phone and check three things – office email, gmail and facebook and in that
order. If there is some message then it is an interesting plus from a loved one
J
The morning maddening rush begins
with the realization of the fact that the hot water geyser (yeah we don’t have
running hot water here in this part of the world except in hotels and that too
in some cases is a young chap running with hot water bucket to your room) and
needs to be switched on. I pick up the popular daily “The Times of India” and
by the time am done with the ritual of emptying my bowels the paper is only
worth throwing in the bin. Not because I did something bad with it but because of
the substandard news and the stuff that gets published in the news paper it is
worth only that much of time. And I don’t even touch the “Bangalore Times”
supplement – which probably qualify as the most useless four pages I have ever
noticed in my life.
I move on with the decision to
ride on or drive to office. Usually the bike wins as it means only thirty
minutes of commute versus the minimum one hour thirty minutes of driving.
By the time I park my choice of vehicle
in the basement and if the day is Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday I have the luxury
of attention telephonic conference calls for an hour and on Tuesday until noon.
Imagine two hours of phone next to your ear or on speaker just next to your
mind. It drains you out even before you are ready.
Then comes the lovely part of the
day called Lunch – simply awesome time with pals and friends at the lunch
table. Always something to look forward to especially when you travel a lot the
food feels awesome. We keep on contemplating when the vendor is going to file
for bankruptcy. For the price contributed partly by us and by the company, the
food is awesome.
Follow this up with the calls in
the evening late night and some work in the afternoon with breaks for tea and
smoke – the day curtains slowly to an end any time between 6-9 PM usually.
Again a long ride home and then that is it – kids are asleep by the time I head
home and the only task is to eat and doze off.
Trivial and boring isn’t it?
So what is so interesting about it that I thought I should blog about? A little bit of background here. I work for JDA and I have been working for almost 8 years now. I have worked with startups and Infosys as well.
Imagine that I don’t actually
need to set up a time to wake up. The job requires me to just clock four hours
in office – maybe it is five hours. I don’t really know how many. I have the luxury
in the morning to decide which route to take – what should I eat for breakfast and
even if there is an interesting show on TV watch it. The other day they were showing
Bugati Veyron’s making and I watched it all the way till 10 AM.
Is it great because of flexible
hours? Not really. The best part is I don’t even need to dress up to go to
office. I have the choice of wearing almost anything (not shorts though) –
jeans t-shirts anything any day. No rules at all. I can decide which shoes to
wear to work – leather trekking boots or running even flipflops.
Not impressed no worries but this
is also not the best part. Imagine having breakfast at 10:30 AM not in office
but in an up-market restaurant and being the only customer there. Waffles, sandwiches, crepe or anything and
without anyone asking where are you. Even you can take a day off from work and
head to drink beer at say 11 AM – yeah anyday.
I might not be the best paid guy
in the company but as a consultant with JDA I have the flexibility to roll up
my sleeves and start working or having fun any day.
That is what I call life and if
you want to see a day in my daily life. The breakfast day was today at 11 AM on
Wednesday. The beer day was couple of weeks back. Gloria Jeans is always an
option for awesome evening coffee, the riding pack is waiting for the weekend, there
is a movie lined up for Thursday night and this keeps repeating. And trust me I
am not a popular social guy!
Damn they say college was interesting - I say better this. With disposable income and friends - nothing beats this. All said and done a plain boring
day in everyday life ;)
