Part 1 – Just Another day at the Empty Men Office!
It was another ‘eventful’ day at Empty Men Telecom. Tecnoplant (Empty Men Telecom’s largest strategic partner organisation) had an ambitious plan of migrating one of their systems into Empty Men Telecom’s new premises on Sunday night and it had gone awfully wrong.
On Sunday night, a dozen Lungi and Bermuda clad men with laptop bags flung over their back walked in with an air of determination to the 2nd Floor of the towering Empty Men’s IT headquarters after three rounds of security checks to sit down and start on their stuff; some of them took a break for only the occasional puff.
On Monday afternoon, the Lungi and Bermuda clad ‘IT specialists’ from the land of curry were still sitting at their desks on the 2nd floor sweating it out. Lungis next to Louis Philippe, they were all working on what had gone wrong.
Baccha was worried that morning.
He huffed and puffed his way between the 5th Floor and the 2nd thrice (using the staircase of course: in Empty Men, elevators work only on Tuesdays and Thursdays).He came across his pal, Tecnoplant’s project manager Guddu, who was busy toggling between various emails answering to every manager, Snr. Manager, General Manager and what-not-manager on why the migration had not completed successfully. Guddu then sent a special email to Baccha who sent it across to another set of managers who were incessantly calling him to know why the ‘crucial’ testing activity scheduled for Monday morning could not be conducted.
As per documented Empty Men policies, if a planned crucial system change doesn’t happen on time, all the people involved will be locked up in a room called the ‘Battle room’. Nobody is allowed to leave the room and a specially appointed jailer from the crisis management department makes sure that people only take toilet breaks when their bladders are filled to capacity and on the verge of bursting. The Lungi men and the Bermuda boys with their leader Guddu slogged on. The resolution never came.
By Tuesday afternoon, Guddu who had come with a clean shaven face on Sunday night had a foot long beard, some of the Lungi men had to be taken out in stretchers due to exhaustion and yet the resolution never came.The Battle room shifted 3 floors, and the jailer was joined by a General Manager who was sweating bucket-loads and the resolution never came.
Guddu’s workforce was down to half and he now sported shiny new pimples on his face just above his beard. Baccha meanwhile was avoiding eye contact with his boss, Cheekhu Maharaj. The last time he told Cheekhu Maharaj that the testing activity got delayed, Baccha almost lost his eardrums. The thought of being one more ‘mute’ person on the floor didn’t appeal to Baccha. So Baccha kept shooting out email after email to show he was too busy to even look up from his computer throughout the day. He kept his fingers crossed. If Guddu and his lungi team came up with a Eureka moment within Wednesday, he could probably still retain his eardrums at the end of the week.
Baccha’s next door neighbour, the high flying consultant – Baba Om, meanwhile, was having his own problems. The floor manager BakwasBola had earlier come and questioned him why he had not finished the weekly presentation. The details of the presentation were given to him at 4 pm for a meeting at 3.30pm. Baba protested. BakwasBola (who had been taking vocal lessons from Cheekhu Maharaj recently) screamed and the ground shook on the 5th Floor! Baba relented for the time being. He uttered some magic words and waved his magic wand.The clock turned back to 8.45 and the presentation was ready. BakwasBola was still not completely happy. He didn’t get time to review the presentation and had hoped Baba Om would have turned the clock back 30 minutes instead.
The day never gets over at Empty Men Telecom but Baccha left at 6.30 pm. He returned to his apartment just in time to see Baba Om entering his own apartment. Baba was his next door neighbour who shared his apartment with Pehalwan K while Baccha was lived in an apartment he shared with BakwasBola.
At 9 pm, Baccha, Baba Om and Pehalwan get together to have the rice and ‘bhegan bhartha’ cooked by Pehalwan . And they happily bitched about the day’s events. Bakwasbola was still reading and re-reading the presentation on the 5th Floor. Guddu and his Bermuda boys were about to get a temporary parole from the battle room for dinner. It was just another day in the life the ones working in the Empty Men office.
To Be continued.
Empty Men Telecom 