Tag: friends

Time to manage

She walked to work feeling excited. She had woken up ten minutes earlier than usual and, to her surprise, didn’t feel tired at all. It’s going to be a good Thursday, she thought walking through the glass doors at her workplace. And if turns out lousy, the weekend’s not far away, her mind assured her.

Taking her place, she looked at the empty seats around her. It was 9 in the morning. She had about an hour before people trudged in.

Taking a deep breath, she fired Safari up. It opened all the tabs she had been working on before shutting down the previous evening. And the first one that looked back at her: Facebook. Instagram was just nearby.

She glanced at her phone. It was 9.05 am. Perfect. She had plenty of time to get some work done early—before the distractions walked in. Perhaps she could leave office early, too, and read that book she had been putting off for more than a while now.

Excited, she was about to turn back to her laptop when she noticed that the wallpaper on her phone seemed boring. Of course, she hadn’t changed it in over a two months. Well, how long could it take?

She flipped through the photos on her phone, and finding nothing worthy of a wallpaper, turned back to her laptop and opened a new tab: mobile wallpapers.

It took a while but she managed to find a perfect fit. Having set the new wallpaper, she was ready to go back to her work email. Facebook was still open, and so was Instagram. She flipped through her feed in record speed, just to catch the latest news from friends. Masha was getting married, Dave Jones had a baby boy (“Name him Davey!”), Trisha was pregnant again, and Joanna had got a new job in Paris. Wow, she wondered scrolling down. It was nice to see the gang succeed.

She kept scrolling until a video made her stop. “How to make the world’s best chocolate chip cookies—as told by Monica.” She smiled to herself. That’s a clever headline, her marketing brain whispered. Good tactic, recalling the beloved Friends character. The title worked on her too; she watched the ten-minute video even though she doesn’t bake. Sighing and craving chocolate, she scrolled further before pausing again. A social-worker friend had posted a video of a non-profit organisation that trained speech-impaired children. Feeling like she owed it to the kids, she played the video. It was short—just a minute and a half. At the end of it, she wanted to bake chocolate chip cookies and share with those kids.

She looked at the phone again. The wallpaper was fine, but would become dull in a month. Perhaps she should try themed wallpapers each month, something fun, she thought—it was 9.45 am.

Now she panicked. The stragglers straggled in one by one. “Hey Bob,” she waved as he passed. “Morning,” she nodded at Priya. And seeing the boss right behind Priya, she looked down in a hurry. She didn’t want him to see her cheery face, for he’d call attention to it at the end-of-quarter meeting later in the day.

She sighed (9.49 am). It was almost time to prepare herself for the tasks of the day. But she didn’t want to. Looking back at the browser, she saw her Instagram full of notifications. Then she remembered she had posted a photo the previous night, and hadn’t seen the responses yet. It was 9.51 am but she still had time. She clicked on the heart.

“Hey. What’s up?”

Her teammate stood behind her cradling a cup in his hand. It was 10.33 am—his coffee time. “Hey,” she replied, her eyes drooping. “I was just reading this article—about successful time management.”

Simple Matters

“I forgot, it was a simple oversight.”

“It’s not simple, Jason.” Karla was livid. “You should’ve paid attention.” She put her hands on her hips heaving in exasperation. “Look how much your stupidity cost us.”

She slumped on the couch and Jason rushed to her. “I’m sorry, Karl.” He crooned. “I’ll straighten things out, I promise.” He kissed her on the forehead and she smiled at his warm breath.

“Oh, okay. Now go,” she nudged him. “And don’t let the cookies burn again.” She called after him as he entered the kitchen of the bakery they had opened together.

Wordplay

“I’m going to Marathon.”

She exhaled. Mark never respected proper spelling and punctuation. And now, he wanted to run a marathon with the upper body strength of a rat. She snorted, cast her phone aside, and picked up her fork again. He wasn’t worth her time or her appetite.

Back in high school, Mark had taken up cross-country biking with zero practice. His parents were too rich to douse his sudden flashes of passion. This time, he had taken it too far.

“Sure.” she texted back. “Hope you can run 42 kilometres.”

He replied: “:) I’m going to Marathon, the Greek city.”

Save Our Souls

save-our-souls

When I realised I had to go into the city — about 50 kilometres — to get a document signed at the local government office, I groaned. That’s neither a fun nor a cheap ride.

I booked a cab. As soon as I got into the vehicle, I sent the vehicle number, the driver’s name, phone number, and my destination to a close friend of mine. And then I called my friend and enquired — loud enough so that the driver heard me — if she had received my text.

It’s the safest way (until proven otherwise) to travel in India. And to cope with the local needs, cab companies have now introduced various options for riders to call for help with just a tap. As soon as you book a cab, you’ll get a message prompting you to share details of your ride to at least three people. During the ride, you’ll see a flashy red banner that’ll call your emergency contacts in seconds.

It’s protocol.

—

Having wound up a rough week at work, I was home texting a friend of mine. He had just moved abroad and had been busy unpacking and settling down. It was the first time we got to chatting in weeks.

We were discussing work when my friend said he was considering a job as a cab driver. He mentioned Uber, but anything similar would do too. Plus, this friend of mine loves driving, and the street plan in his area is great for that.

We were still talking about Uber when he informed me that cabs in that country don’t have the SOS option.

It took me a while to register that. I thought back to the previous day when I had hailed a cab and realised — with shame — that I live in a country where caution is ingrained so deep into our brains that we want them even in our apps. We don’t trust our society and we’re proud to showcase SOS as a marketable feature.

People halfway across the world, however, don’t even see the need for it.

It seems insignificant, but it says a lot about our lifestyle. We’re so obsessed with being careful that if a cab company doesn’t have the emergency feature, we look down on it just because it doesn’t have the emergency feature.

Well, that says a lot more about us than it does about the cab company’s morality and ethics.

Our conversation lasted a good 40 minutes. But every minute after that, I’ve been thinking about the SOS. So we’ve become a nation that deprives the assurance of basic safety to our citizens. Who’s to save our souls now?

—|—

And with that question, I’ll wind up this year. It’s been great publishing a post a day, every day through 2016. It’s made me realise a lot about myself, all of which I’ll cover next year.

Have a happy new year, folks.