Kilimanjaro

All characters/properties mentioned in this post are NOT fictional; they live and breed among us. If you raise your hand and yell “I know!” while reading this post, then you, my friend, are a victim of corporate drudgery; you have no place but your workspace/desk/2X2 cubicle to rot.

1. Receptionists/front office ladies:
Re-cep-tion-ist
noun

Traits- Age: 23-ish
Appearance: Maroon lipstick. Dark blue eyeliner. Straight hair. Purple lens. Sits next to another receptionist. Traits-30-ish. Appearance: Maroon lipstick. Dark blue eyeliner. Straight hair. Purple lens.

The spinal cord of any organization.
Nah! They are the ‘acting’ owners of your organization. They ‘act’ as though they own the whole dam(n) place. They also own the employees who work there and so naturally own their time as well.
Scene 1: Unfortunately you are in a situation where you need to contact your HR *tut tut*. Say, for example, the company’s internal attendance tool was *cough* under maintenance *cough* and now you don’t have the stipulated number of working hours in your kitty *giggle* Oh alright sorry. No giggling. But it is funny ha ha ha..

For reasons known only to the HR folks, mortals like us are not allowed to enter their workplace. You have no choice but to seek help from the kind reception lady. You say -“Hi. I need to see the HR-chick-who-wears-the-shortest-of-the-short-skirts-and-is-seen-posing-for-pictures-on- Family-Day-next-to-the-COO”. And the reception lady gives you a “can’t you see I’m busy playing solitaire” look and says ‘please wait’ with a sigh. But then she forgets to inform the HR-chick-who-wears-the-shortest-of-the-short skirts-and-is-seen-posing-for-pictures-on- Family-Day-next-to-the-COO or so you think. Big mistake. You wait for 5-6 minutes. Remind her. She nods or just stares at you. You read Economic Times (spot errors and silently laugh at their editorial team). You remind her, again. She ignores you. You read Bangalore Mirror. 25 minutes and you have had it. You say “I have been waiting for 25 minutes!”. Receptionist lady replies - “I told you no, she is on leave today” and spits (I added the last bit. Too crass no? teehee). And you just look back at her mika-mika blinking your eyes. Well I have a theory, you probably fell asleep while waiting and she came and whispered in your ears or something.
“After all a noun in the English dictionary” you might say, but the noun rules your life my friend.

2. Stationery folks:
Sta-tion-er-y
noun
Not to be confused with stationary (adj): Not capable of being moved
It’s a tad ironical. Really. These folks are perpetually on the move. You don’t find them at the stationery counter when you need them. Yes yes I’m talking about the Chitraguptas’ of our organizations. They keep a tab on our every move. In short they know our life history. We cannot run away without signing that little book of theirs. If we do forget to sign *evil laughter*remember, he/she is THE Chitragupta. We’ll be sent to hell, mark.my.words.

Sample this-
Employee number 007 –12th August - 1 Notepad (signed-by 007)
Employee number 007 - 12th August - 1 red marker (signed-by 007)
Employee number 007 - 1st September – 1 Notepad (signed by 007)

Look look, in less than a month you have already taken two notepads *gasp*. The stationery bhaiyya will scowl if you go past the counter. Of course you can hardly blame the guy if YOU scribble so much on those flimsy notepads. Scrawl on post-its and stick it on your forehead. DO NOT take another notepad for rest of the fiscal year.

3. Room Fresheners:
Freshen-er
noun
Side effects: Claustrophobia. Migraine attack. Slight drowsiness

Now, what’s the deal, do tell me housekeeping ladies? Do you and the makers of the awful smelling fresheners (normally rose or jasmine scented) get combined sadistic pleasure by spraying the fragrance all around the floor? Can you imagine the amount of stress we go through while you spray the dreadful substance *shudder*. The thought itself makes my migraine crawl all over my head.

4. Jargon:
Jar-gon
noun
Speech or writing having unusual or pretentious vocabulary
(I so agree with the ‘pretentious’ bit)

Jargon is the key to your survival in any organisation. Years ago, as an innocent fresher, even before I could say ‘sodexo coupon’, I was thrown into a meeting room full of people who looked extremely angry and worried about some client feedback. 40 people kept throwing jargons at each other and all I could think was – “so, err..come again? What was that? Touch base-aa?” *giggle* “Why is it so cold inside this room?” “Why isn’t anyone sitting on the chair?” “And the guy in blue shirt isn’t all that cute, is he?”

5. Tea/Coffee at office:
Enough said!

All you experienced corporate slaves go ahead and add to this list I say.