My life as an Office...

Today i'm inspired.

I got lost 3 times in the 5 minute route to my office ...

THREE TIMES!!!!

If it hadnt been for my corporate neighbor, who has come to my rescue in directional disaster more times than Superman has saved the world, i would have been gleefully going round and round in circles around the general vicinity of my house til kingdom come.

But thanks to his unerring sense of direction, even when they're being imparted to a hysterical female on the other end of a cellphone, i managed to make it to office twice in the same week :)

I have a whole bunch of great people in office.. its the whole less is more, a few good men (& a girl.. and sometimes we even order Pizza) philosophy... we bring new meaning to the words "lean organization". It dont get no leaner than this... and this i might add in no way refers to the physical attributes of our team..

As they say it takes all kinds to make the world :) so we have a huge variety from the eternally young, to the prematurely :) ahem... mature.. we have lean ones, bear like cuddly ones, tall ones, short ones, and me who is obviously perfect in all respects.. The teams as diverse as any team comprising of such limited number of individuals can be... but the premise is to work hard and then.... play board games... lol

In the space of a month, i've gotten to know most of them relatively well.. first off i think my corporate neighbor rocks... i mean NOTHING can faze him out... If the entire office building suddenly collapses around us, i think his only response would be a ponderous "hmmm... maybe we should get beach umbrellas".. its really cool. He has the ability to bring perspective to chaos and reasoning to my more often than not hysterical reaction to the mounds of work we face on a daily basis.. and considering he's only two years older than me, that leaves me very little time to develop that kind of stability and dead-pan "hmmm" control... sigh... that timeline may have to be revised...
He's very lucky though mashallah.. he's got a wife who's been endowed with immense amounts of patience and understanding... (considering that on her last birthday he was slogging away at his laptop til after 9pm and then caught a flight the same night at 3am).. i was surprised to see him alive after that... and they have a little bundle of joy who is the most adorable creation ever, cheeks that would put apples to shame, eyes that stare at you with uninhibited curiousity.. and oof when that little baby smiles.. your heart stops... he's THAT cute.. mashallah..
Thats my neighbor... :) you wouldnt know it to look at him, but he's also been blessed with (or cursed with in the case of my local FMs viewpoint) an acerbic sense of humor, which is truly brought to the fore when my local FM is anywhere in the vicinity :)

Actually, our local FM brings all our acerbic humors to the fore. I think we should give him a plaque for that :) he's a real good sport and on his recent Office Embarrasment Session (Read: Birthday), we had Happy Bachelorhood written on his cake.. :) lol... apparently the young man (literally... doesnt look a day over 17... lucky bugger) has no intentions of submitting to the marital yoke in a hurry... The singles population in our office is an endangered species according to him and needs as much support as possible to preserve its sanctity... :) But at the end of the day, we love him... He fills our days with joy (the joy of razzing him all the time) ... and allows us to bond as a team (against him :) heheh... But he's a real nice guy(whos never home on the weekends ... hehe)... and always has a plan for lunches on saturday (with non-office people :) ... i think the major reason we love picking on him is because it seems he's the only one out of all of us who remotely has a life :) ... sigh... ahhh how vindictive the deprived can be...
Considering that our local FM is one of the very few true locals in the company, meaning according to the reigning company philosophy of relocating just about everyone, he's managed to evade that and remain at home base, is probably another reason that he's one of the very few who actually have a life... and more reason for us to resent him and his joyful existence... hmmmph ! lol ... oh i almost forgot.. he's nuts about cricket (like everyone else here) and thinks Tendulkar is the greatest batsman that ever walked the earth...

Which brings us to my FD for this region... he's awesome... he's a karachite and hence his nights usually begin after 9pm as opposed to the average Lahori night which is ending about that time:)... he knows all the good bakeries, coffee joints and restaurants... so much so that most coffee places, the guy behind the cash register knows him on a first name basis nearly... Thanks to him i discovered the new love of my life "Coffee, Tea & Co.", got introduced to "Jammin Java" which serves up a mean Caramel Machiato much like the Starbucks version... and experienced "Stevies Golden Kwok" which is Lahore's answer to Baan Thai... awesome food... He was the first person in the company to tell me his lifes history in the first 15 minutes of our orientation introduction and then gave me a chance to do the same.. considering the fact that i like nothing more than yapping about my self (you guyz might have noticed that :) it was perfection at first yap...
When he was younger he wanted to look older... now that he's relatively older, he's happy with himself cause he figures he looks just right... and since my overly youthful local FM is his next door neighbor and exactly in the same age bracket, he figures he has alot to thank our Lord Almighty for...
Me... i'd settle for looking 10 years younger any day of the week.. what can i say... men are bizzarre.. :)

My other FD is adorable.. hes been with the company since the day he graduated.. hes like a big teddy bear person and has the cutest wife and most adorable kids mashallah... a full head of hair (quite surprising for someone whos been in this high stress environment for more than a decade)... he rumbles when he laughs and is totally huggable :).. i'm sure hes a tough taskmaster as my local FM who happens to be his direct reportee might confirm... but to look at him you just want to stand there and go "awwwwww... :)".. he's really cute...

I met my Isloo FM quite briefly, but he seemed to be a jolly enough fellow.. quite happy and rosy cheeked.. and my Multan FM was also quite nice.. since that was the first market visit i had, he kept tutoring me on the tips and tricks of the whole deal :) and took me to Zanzibar where i had the famous Lemon Chicken i mentioned in my other blog..

My boss is quite interesting.... over the last few days we've been working overtime and everytime he's going through some data, he keeps tugging on his hair.. i'm afraid they might fall out one day.. should probably warn him about that.. he's in love with music :) so he's humming ALL the time.. and then since i always end up humming whatever i've heard last, i end up humming the same tune all day long as well.. He has the amazing ability to dish out more work than the total cumulative height of Everest and K2 combined and do it with a smile on his face and an expression which says, "I trust you implicitly and im sure that you'll have this on my desk in the next hour"... lol :) he's amazing that way... it doesnt matter how much work he gives, you just cant say no... and it not because he's da boss.. its just the way he gives it... with the reassuring nod, "you can do it right?" and at that moment you just think you can... he's good!
He's got a pretty understanding wife as well :) considering the amount of time he's out of town and two cute kids who are the inspiration for some of his more wacky ideas:)... nutty about cricket.. he's very good at deriving inspiration from every day life and thinking of the most nutty ideas and then making everyone believe its possible... Prime example : He convinced my dad to let me come to Lahore.. That would make him the world's GREATEST Marketeer in my book!

Usually finance is a dry function. Our Finance function you would be surprised to know is anything but dry... they're downright hilarious... considering the amount of pressure they're always under :) i think its mere hysterics that make them have such a great sense of humor.. Our Fin Contrller is always having a go at our local FM regarding the whole "Tendulker is the King of Cricket" argument... its a neverending debate between both of them :) and will probably never be resolved... He's also always trying to bring order to the chaos surrounding us... hopefully this time round he will succeed... i thwinks we sorely needs it...
Our fin planner is also very local FM focused and cracks really nice one liners on his joyful existence which has the rest of us rolling on the floor and the subject smirking in resignation.. He's also a great one for arranging office lunches... i like him alot just for his propensity to enjoy good food :) lol.. once i asked if we could take the team to a roadside dhabba for lunch and he said.. lol "You're talking about people who'll be cleaning their rotis with tissue papers and asking if the food was cooked using Nestle Pure Life.. " lol... he's a lahori too...
Our Fin D although recently had a Nihari party at his home, prior to which he did a thorough research of all the different types of niharis available, what the key USPs of each were, what the greasiness levels and spice levels were... he's very methodical.. i guess that why he's the boss :) .. He has perfect posture, a very nice wife and 2 adorable kids..

Our ITM was a highly harrassed individual till recently when he got some assistance :) otherwise hes also amazing. You can go to him with any problem, no matter how technical or complicated.. and it'll be done... with a smile.. very nice guy.

Our SD is a very senior gentleman and reminds one of the King of the Jungle.. his entire persona is quite regal.. you have to meet him to see what i mean... He's quite nice, but he'll give it to you straight without any beating about the bush... thats the way it is.. no two ways about it.. whether the news is good or bad.. So you can expect brutal honesty whenever you go to him for advise and thats great for putting things in perspective. The latest birthday session we had was for him.. and he smiled :) i think thats the first time i saw him smile.. He looks quite nice when he does that..

Our OD is soo cute... he's a lovely portly gentleman and he's got mounds of technical information pouring out of his ears.. if you go to him for some technical advise he'll give you alot more value added than you bargained for.. he ends up making things very easy... considering his function :) most of our plans are brought to a halt when he simply shakes his head and says with dead certainty "no can do"... :) its nice to have someone who knows exactly whats going to happen when... :)
and our OM is certifiably the MOST methodical human being in the company. I mean you look at him and you think "Precise". Its the engineer thing :)... he's a real nice guy and was one of the first people to go and buy the OES (Office Embarrassment Session) Birthday Cake and card with me.. considering how little time we all always have, i thought that was very sweet of him. He seems to be very clear headed as a person... and he's always in transit:) He's another local amidst all the out-of-towners. I dont know if he has a life though.. i think thats something unique to our local FM.

Our overall Boss of Bosses is quite an amazing individual as well... he's the only 6ft 4" tall person that i have ever come across who doesnt slouch an inch!... Usually tall people just try to disguise how tall they are by hunching n stuff.. but our big boss is quite a graceful tall person.. he seems supremely comfortable with himself inspite of his height :) and has that quiet dignity about him and fluidity of movement... i've heard that he can make people quaver in their boots and i'm sure thats possible.. he talks in a very well-thought out methodical manner.. in a quietly reflective kind of way... and he's really young for someone at the top.. :) but he's quite nice.. oh and he's so punctual that if you tell him a time for something, be warned he'll be there 5 minutes in advance.. the inside story i got was that his watch is 5 minutes ahead of standard time... my watch is 10 minutes ahead... i still never make it anywhere on time :) thats something i can learn from him.

And that the whole team.. lest i forget the support staff who are also quite nice.. theres ishaq whos the company driver and re-parks my car every day as i park on THIS side of the white line of which we are supposed to park on THAT side of.. theres Akram who does all the outside stuff every day... theres khalid who makes me my tea with extra milk and no sugar.. and theres saleem who when i cough offers to get me joshanda :) Our reception manager is the only other lady in the house and my daily lunchdate... unless i get hungry ahead of schedule which i usually do *embarrassed look... and end up attacking the food ahead of everyone else..

Once i got hungry at 1245 and went and attacked the daily bread and of all people our big boss walked in to grab some water and said smilingly "You got hungry early"... i would have responded had my mouth not been stuffed to the brim... thankfully he walked out before i had to swallow in a rush and think up a coherent response.. lol

:) And thats my life as an office... Mashallah... I dont care how much i have to work as long as i get to make fun of my local FM atleast once a day ;) hehehhe...

cheerios

Princess of the GemWorld


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I dare to dream... so sue me.. :p
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