A Wednesday!

Some things tend to gather like dust bunnies under your bed until the day they fly right into your face when you are sleeping. A similar thing happened to me at office. You see, I was usually the first one in our team to get to office. It is very easy to accomplish this feat if you don’t have anything to do either at home or at office. If you are bored at home, you will want to get out of there; and if you don’t fear office for work but approach it as an amusement spot, you will head there. This worked tremendously to my advantage and I attribute it to my understanding of psychology of an individual that I learnt from reading Wodehouse novels at work. I am convinced that the morning routine keeps people in suspended disbelief about me - i.e., a person who gets to office at 7:30 am in office has to be dead serious about her work, even though they are not able to find any other smidge of evidence which implied the same. Everyone learns at their own pace.

Essentially, getting to office early worked like a charm for me: it afforded me a place where I could see people and comment on them; and it also helped me meet my rental agreement lease pinky-promise of paying my rent before the 3rd of each month. Life, as they say, was a dory that was hunky.

And then, dust bunnies. Looking back, it first made an innocent appearance last Wednesday when I walked up to my desk and saw a disposable coffee cup sitting on original Xin Li’s desk. Now I know that a magic genie visits each of our desks every evening and takes away all that is not wire and metal. So, the cup had to be a morning addition aka, someone had undertaken a jaunt to office before me. Hmm. Don’t get me wrong; I am all for hardwork and sincerity and I intensely cheer all the people who strive to do it. It would be a lie if I said that even on that first day, I was not bothered by this frivolously assiduous nature that was casting a shadow on my financial standing to enrol into the kickboxing class. But my kittenish senses reigned and I thought - maybe a one time hiccup. No biggie.

The next morning, the sight of the same coffee cup made an encore. Xin Li’s desk again. Whoa! I strictly live by the idiom that one day is a trial, second day is a habit, and third day is addiction.

I checked his LinkedIn page to see what kind of a career had he had - was he the kind of horse who everyone bets on to make it big? A quick look at his page revealed that indeed he was the horse who tries to run too many races and too quickly. I smiled within. N00b. Will not, cannot last. He will not be here tomorrow I prophesied. I spent rest of the day trying to unravel the mystery of winner of our offsite location which seemed to be tied between throwing axes in a room and alcohol by the sea. Tech people are so damn confused, I tell you.

With hardly a moment of sleep under my eyelid, I plodded my way to the desk at my usual time. And may I venture here to suggest to the reader to play a background Youtube video of drum rolls before reading the next sentence. You are right smarty pants, high Highness, the Xin Li, had broken down on his addiction day. No coffee, no sign of Xin. Zen moment. Triumphant, I turned to get to my desk and hold-behold, a royal blue hoodie from a competing company hung casually over my neighbor’s chair’s headrest. I slumped into my chair. I will forever remember that day. Forget me, even my manager would remember that day for my productivity slumped from the previously thought abysmal to the levels of fresh-groundwater in Delhi. I did not say much that day either. What was with people trying to come in earlier? There had to be an agenda, hardly a coincidence that two tech people come in this early to office in a non-review period.

I have to admit that I had an extremely restless weekend - I gobbled up a lot of food and I still didn’t have a solution. What was up with people’s greed? They already worked much and earned so much bonus and promotions; had I ever competed with them? Ever. No sir. Any person can testify that. In writing, on a stamp paper. What has the world come to if we cannot help our comrades succeed? There is a proverb in Hindi, “lend ‘em a finger, and they will grab your hand.” Nothing is sufficient. Blargh.

The whole of next week threatened to be loom large over my soul. I sweared to my friend that I am a reasonable person simply wanting to know what caused the arrival of the morning stream of people.

I got to office on Monday half hopeful and half in grief. The original Xin Li was at his desk - with the coffee cup. That darned coffee. I plonked behind my desk and hardly a couple of seconds later, a bag dropped thud on the ground beside me. I looked up and a masticating mouth was grinning at the original Xin Li.

“Yo man! They still have the coconut water; I thought I would miss it today! I got the last one.”

All it took from there was reading the ingredients on coconut water, doing some research on drinks sold in cans, how metal could leach in it, drafting an email to our office maintenance team with references, printing it out and ask some environment-conscious people to pitch in, and escalating the issue to my manager’s manager who is living on Soylent since 2015.

I am glad to report to my well-wishers that we do not carry coconut water anymore and life is the same dory that is hunky.