Category: Thoughts uncut

One hell of a ride

Life’s been giving me a hard time for a while now, but this morning while on the way to an important appointment, life crossed my path and dropped a truckload of lemons right on my head.

Hang on to that thought while I digress before I regress.

When I tell someone I’d be available in a particular place at a specific time, I try my best to keep my word. And this appointment was far bigger than meeting a friend for coffee to discuss the latest fashion fallout. This was an examination, and one that required my entire concentration and my sound sense of time.

I left early. Three hours should be more than enough time to travel 45 km (28 miles). Why, I thought, I might even reach early. That’s always better than rushing in through the doors just as they’re closing. (Although what a dramatic entry that would make.) And so with my perfect plan laid out, I booked a cab and we started the ride.

The first phase was smooth — 45 minutes of near-vacant streets, with mild congestion that cleared up even before I knew it. I kept looking at the time, and was happy to see we were well within our goal. But as we transitioned into the second phase things became a little more crowded. The sun had risen to all its glory and people had begun to drag their feet from their homes and onto their motorcycles and cars. Rush hour or work hour—however you name it, everyone was on the street.

Our vehicle stopped moving right behind a long line of other vehicles. Although Google Maps assured us, “Despite usual traffic you’re still on the fastest route…” somehow, it felt like we were far from it. Of course, the ever-reliable voice of Google Maps was saying the same thing to the driver honking behind us, and to the many others all around us. Two hours later, we were still, still on the fastest route, except now it was “Despite heavier than usual traffic.”

It would’ve turned any rider’s head. And would’ve depressed any driver. Incredible though it seems, neither happened. My Uber driver maintained his composure, and because he didn’t start honking or teetering in his seat irritated, I hung in there as well. While my mind whirled, conceiving the worst case scenarios and wild cover up stories to explain my delay, the congestion on the road had no congestive effect whatsoever on my heart’s pumping. All seemed fine.

Phase three: Panic attack. When the traffic started moving again after what seemed like hours, but what had been only an hour, our mechanic guide opened her throat again. This time, she wasn’t event attempting to assure. She declared that I was going to be late. And she didn’t seem as upset or as concerned as an assistant should. I checked the time, and then my schedule. I had an hour’s grace period to show up before they’d declared me a no-show. I looked at the back of my driver’s head with an urge to urge him, but what would I say, and—even if I did—what could he do? I ate an apple, instead, to calm my nerves.

Phase four brought along a miracle. Just as the clouds cleared way for the sun, the roads cleared up for us. We didn’t pause to think or drop our jaws in wonder. My driver stamped on the accelerator and we shot forward. The cool voice of the guide came again, with good news at last: I would reach just on time.

When my driver pulled up at my destination, it was one minute past my reporting time. I had made it.

Inside, lemonade awaited me.

A letter

Dear Sir,

I’m writing to express my disagreement with your idea of entertainment. I am, of course, referring to a number of programmes telecast in your channel.

First, let’s talk about the reality show you call, Real People, Real Lives. For one, I don’t think there’s anything real about paying celebrities to pretend to live together for a month, and appointing a mediator to solve petty disagreements between them. After all, these celebrities have no reason to live together—except perhaps for the money you pay them, and for the controversial paparazzi that ensues. If you and your children spend your evenings watching this show, I’m sorry, but you all need to get a life.

Second, I came across a programme that your channel’s hosts dub as Share your Feelings. Now, I may have to agree that sharing emotions and deep feelings may have a positive effect on the person doing the sharing. Having said that, however, I do not agree that sharing on national television, a story about how I let my boyfriend down by lying to him, is not a decent way of expressing my feelings. And I don’t think that you or your channel’s hosts should encourage such behaviour, and play irrelevant songs to trigger even more emotional callers. Callers might get some solace — sad though it is — but for a young family watching the show at home over dinner, it’s nothing more than a mindless way to spend the evening.

Now I understand that your choice of programmes doesn’t depend on what your audience wants to or needs to watch. Instead, it depends on what will get them excited to keep on watching. It doesn’t take a master’s degree in Psychology to decode your algorithm: You just give people sensational issues so that they get used to it and keep coming back for more. It’s not unlike training a dog by giving it chocolate treats that you know would only harm it. It’s simple logic, yet a powerful influence.

And that’s the reason I ask—implore(well… no)—you to reconsider your offering. Not only are your shows mind-numbing and disgust-inducing, but they are also a spark of painful-disagreement between husbands and wives all over the country. Well, yes, I haven’t spoken to my wife in a few days, and that’s perhaps why I decided to write to you in the first place, but nevertheless, it’s time for you and your channel’s administrators to call that long over-due meeting and reassess your goals for the new year.

With that I conclude this letter. And although I’m certain—beyond belief—that you would never acknowledge reading this letter, or even the existence of it, I would still like to tell you that your feature programme titled News Around the World in 60 Seconds is the best of all in your agenda.

I don’t look forward to hearing from you,

Not a fan,

n

When copywriters code

I’m a hopeless romantic, if I have to say the least about myself. Robert M. Pirsig, in his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, classifies people into two types: romantics and classics. I’m the romantic. In the bluntest of terms, romantics are creative thinkers and classics are logical thinkers. Of course both types would have interchangeable qualities, but on a macro level, romantics dream up while classics drill down.

Now that I’ve established a basic, arguable nonetheless, definition of the term, let me emphasise. I’m a romantic, and I’m hopeless at that.

Romantics don’t think like machines. We learn to look at nature, to observe what’s around us, and interpret them in the most beautiful way, or in the most natural way. Classics, on the other hand, learn to look at something and analyse why something appears some way. We appreciate how a flower’s stem balances its five petals whereas classics calculate the stem’s ability to bear the petals. It’s a slight difference when you put it that way, but a much more alarming one when you look at it in a real workplace scenario.

I am a copywriter surrounded by software engineers. I’m a romantic in the midst of classics. I write stories, and they write software. We co-exist to help customers do better business. Now that’s a nice picture. But the real problem arises during a conversation, when the programmers talk about parse and encryption and my mind’s thinking about prose and enchantment.

It didn’t take long for me to realise I was out of place, and I had to learn to code to feel in place. I didn’t have to become a developer—I knew I never could—but I had to develop basic knowledge of how programmers use language. And so I began. I sat with a developer while they wrote a piece of program, and I observed in their eyes the frantic whizzing in their mind. They spoke to the screen in front of them, reasoning out the flow of script. The first line of code would run once before moving on to the second. Swapping the order of the lines would disrupt the entire program. Replacing a semicolon, adding an extra colon or an extra space would topple things in the most inconvenient way. (“Yay!” I yelled. “It’s the same with writing,” though the developers weren’t as excited.)

After a few days under development, I concluded that we romantics don’t learn to think the way computers do. Regardless of all technology innovations, computers don’t and won’t think like humans. As a non-developer I could see how I had to alter my way of thinking and approaching a problem to explain it to a computer. For a logical flow that I take for granted, the computer needs a line of script. When I think I’d fetch water, my mind knows I’d drink it. But if I told a computer to fetch water, it’d fetch it and keep it aside until I tell it—again—that it should drink half of it and save the rest.

We romantics don’t condition our minds to think one step at a time. That’s why it’s hard for us to learn programming at a later age. We think in blocks of actions, in phrases, in groups of words, and instructions. We read poetry that distributes one meaning in five lines. We process a poem as a whole to understand its meaning. We’re clustered thinkers because it’s ingrained in our minds. Classics, however, think in a sequence. That’s what a degree in computer science gives them. They take actions one step at a time. They’re more organised thinkers because that’s what’s ingrained in their minds.

My eureka moment: With enough practice, I could start thinking like a programmer, too. It felt like I had opened the door to a whole new world. I could speak to any computer, and tell it what to and when to do. The thought awed me, and terrified me at the same time.

Perhaps classics would feel the same way if they spent a few days reading Shakespeare.

Let’s go a trippin’

For a while now, I’ve been planning a trip. It’s for work so I already have my destination defined for me. That’s not bad, I now realise. In fact, that could be the best thing about the trip itself, because everything else is taking up so much of my energy and time. Boy, I’m glad I didn’t have to pinpoint the destination as well.

Let me backtrack a little and explain. I’m off on a business trip in August and I’ve been working my way all through July preparing myself. It’s kind of a big deal so I have to make sure that business during the trip goes well. Apart from that, I’ve been figuring out how best to enjoy myself during the trip. This one’s longer than all my previous business trips, so I’ll have some leisure to wander around.

Great, I thought. “I’m going to have so much fun.”

Except, planning for the fun part is far more hectic that I expected. I always imagined that when I had to plan a trip like this, I’d just throw some clothes in a backpack and go. That’s what I always told myself: Just go. But now that such a situation is upon me, I realise I can’t just go. I have to think about flights, layovers, immigration, baggage clearance—even water could become an issue. Phew. And if that weren’t enough, there’s the budget.

When I estimated my budget almost a month and a half ago, I had everything laid out in a TextEdit file. The numbers seemed clear, the dates, the time—I had even thought of the cost of food in flights. But then I delayed booking the flights, because I got busy at work. And when I opened the TextEdit file a couple of weeks later, everything seemed irrelevant to current prices. My flight rates has increased by $10. Sure, it didn’t seem like much, but when I saw that I could’ve spent that on a meal, instead, I understood how much of a role time plays in travel—even though time and travel don’t compound in reality.

Doubt creeped in next. Am I perhaps allocating too much from my pocket for a mere bicycle tour? The first time I looked at the tour, it looked wonderful: Good location, great views, and promising reviews. It would be such a great use of my time and money, I thought. My reasoning was sensible, too: I’d see so much of the city, enjoy some great food, meet a bunch of folks, and have a lot of fun—all in one glorious morning. Last night, however, my reasoning started to dwindle. Perhaps it’s better to just walk around the city by myself, I thought half awake. Again, the reason is that I didn’t book the tour right away, waiting two weeks instead. Again, putting too much time between desire and achievement waned my desire.

These are the big stuff. The little stuff should be easy. Or so I thought. But once I mapped out my itinerary, there were no small stuff. Even a commute from the airport to the hotel is a big decision. I can pick between the shortest route and the scenic route. I’d go scenic for sure if I’m alone—but I won’t be alone. Taking the scenic route would mean traversing for an extra 20 minutes at a good time and 45 minutes during traffic. We’d land late in the evening, so traffic is granted.

I’m torn between decisions. I still have a lot to do. Although I have to admit: even though planning for this trip has me pulling out my hair, I’m having one hell of a time figuring it all out. It’s my first experience making all my arrangements myself, and it’s made me a proper grown up. I feel mature. I now know I can take care of myself. I’ve always known I could, but this trip’s given me a chance to prove it—to myself.

Another day at work

It looks like the morning after a campfire. Here and there people lift their heads from the confines of their laptops and hard wood tables. The day had dawned, and they had to all go home, get some sleep, and return later in the evening for another night-long gig as customer support representative. I, however, remain here until my rep returns for work. I remain, his faithful telephone, ready to serve whenever he is.

We’re almost 22 hours ahead of our customers, living in the other corner of the world, picking up calls and answering emails when customers are awake and our families are asleep. It’s all part of the job description and sleepless nights aren’t a problem for us anymore. We even have fun.

As the day wanes and darkness embraces the glass building we live in, the day-shift teams head out eager to spend the night cuddling in their beds. We, on the other hand, wire up, preparing to take on calls that would soon enough rain upon us.

“Hello there!” My neighbour has already received her first call and she sounds like this customer would have their problems solved in a jiffy. While I observe her in silence, I feel a vibration crawling up my wires. It feels like an agitated customer wanting answers. The next second, the vibration reaches my speaker and I blare at my partner. He smiles before picking up my receiver.

“Hello, you’ve reached our company. How may I help you today?” It’s a good start to the night, I realise as I hear a gentleman raising his concerns in a soft voice from other side.
The rep in the cubicle behind us was having a lot less luck, though. He muted his call, and in a tirade, explained to us that his customer was looking for something beyond our scope. Pity we had to turn a customer down, but that wasn’t the most pitiable part. Not only did the customer demand an explanation, but they also swore at our rep. In return, our rep muted the call and began swearing on his own. The whole team laughed out loud, appreciating an inside joke that only the support team understands.

Every day, customers call in to test the nerves of our reps. But despite all that, we laugh and celebrate the end of the week by ordering take out. We’ll do anything for sincere customers, but when rotten customers show up, we know how to handle them. It’s not part of the job description, but it is part of the job.