Recently I happened to watch a movie - 'Office Space', which was released in 1999. It isn't a great movie for all but to me, it reminded some of my old memories.
Let me go back. When I was in work, that is before quitting ( I don't want you to presume I was fired), I had a good place to sit. My 'revolving' chair was inside a cubicle covered in three sides, one of which is a glazed big glass window, which overlooked a main road. Straight opposite to it was a small entrance to enter into my cube.
There were three main advantages: (1) I was able to watch who was approaching me, (2) that person cannot see what work I was doing, and most importantly (3) I had that great window through which I was able to see the ouside world. I must thank my company for that.
Still, what was so great about the window?
First of all, it reassured me that there is a world outside the concrete jungle. Reassurance did both good and bad; good is there's a world outside; bad is there's a world outside and how will I survive if I were thrown out from company. I wasn't in any danger of being kicked out that time so only good side used to be visible to my eyes.
So whenever I had to relax (or to make people feel that I was in 'thinking mode') I used to turn towards that window and enjoy watching traffic, hot weather outside, how people suffer in that heat, dusty roads, ear blasting consistent honks, smoke and pollution etc. Those sights and feeling used to give me a 'sadistic' satisfaction.
On lucky days I get bonus time to enjoy those sightings 'officially'. There used to be a conference call, where speaker would be one or two persons and listeners would be all managers across our group (count may be 30 or 40). And these calls were carefully accepted by managers to be scheduled just after lunch. Idea is simple: while logging into call pronounce your name, press 'mute', and then go into deep sleep.
But I didn't use to sleep; not that I was attentive but for reason that I snore. Imagine how my team friends would feel if they hear a 'grrr' sound from a covered, fort like, manager's cabin. It would be an absolute 'neighbours envy and owner's pride' moment.
And I don't blame other managers too. Who can listen to some theoretical ideas for 1 hour and could come up with practical solutions at end of call? And even if any solution was available, we were clever enough not to reveal that solution to bunch of peers immediately; what if another person picks up that idea and successfully implement it first?
So, one day during one of such official moment, I was staring across window aimlessly. A crow came and sat on windowsill. Either it wasn't able to see me or wasn't bothered about me. It's head slightly turned in an angle and with piercing eyes, it was looking deep into our bay. He seemed to be curious; may be he wasn't able to understand what this bunch of people doing so seriously or he wanted to come inside and join us? I didn't know.
But for a second I thought how would it be if I were in his position. No..I didn't mean to sit on a window sill at three floor levels high! what I wanted was to just fly away, get some grub to munch and safely sit on a tree branch under shade. But I am a normal human being. My life can't be that simple. I must live to survive (or survive to live?). I must live to worry about future, I must distance myself away from nature to live, and most of all, if needed I must work to live even at the cost of missing my family. I murmured - 'insane'...'totally insane.'
Crow flew away. I heard the speaker finishing the speech and asking if anyone had anything to say. Thankfully I came back to real world and didn't say the word I had in mind.
I quietly kept the receiver and started to work.
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R.Bharathram
21/07/2018