Pink Slip

Pink Slip
Originally uploaded by Bethany Mae Photography

Yesterday I was browsing through some articles on “How to fire an employee”. Those articles give practical tips to the modern corporate Gods of destruction, the HR firing managers. Varieties of tips are available on the net for these firing managers. After all once you throw an employee, he does not say the regular TaTa..bye bye..Cu.. Rather he says “I too will become like the Tata’s..I’ll buy you..buy you..and See you.” Even after being Lord Shiva, they have their own point of worry. Shiva is prayed but firing managers will become employee’s prey.

On the other side employees in the IT fraternity are scared of reading the morning newspaper. News about recession and pink slips make them stop going to the God of maintenance, the HR team. It is better to go and meet the God of creation, the manpower consultants. I hope the publishers of “Who moved my cheese” can get good business if they promote their book again in Bangalore.

The next widely used question in Human dialogues will be…
I’m fired what can I do now? Let us answer this question by wearing our usual humor veil (Nothing serious about it). Here is a step by step guide on what to do after getting fired.

1. Go and sleep well. It has been years since you slept properly at home.

2. Collect some more intellectual but fired gentlemen in your organization. Form a small group. Arrange a firing party for networking. Invite your ex-employer to this firing party and push him into the bon fire. The real firing!

3. Call all those money eating service providers who otherwise knock your door every other day and say boldly “You are Fired”. Time to cut some cost.

4. Update and activate all those Gods resting in the virtual world as login ids in Naukri, Job monster and India times.

5. Time to look down, run run…Faster..Run...Run....FASTER..RUN..RUN on your tread mill. Don’t stop till you can look down and see your toes. Time to trim your tummies.

6. Look for a temporary job in political parties. With elections around, they are the next big users of Information technology. Assist them in starting political blogs, campaigns in You tube, designing opposition party games, e-mail campaigning and a lot more to come. They can even give you a MP or MLA seat as bonus. Be an IT politician. Hey..I just coined a new position for parties.(Pay royalty if you are going to use this)

7. By the time you finish all these you will get a job. Because, India is vast and jobs are enormous. Just relax!

"Changing Minds" – A short story

Praveen was excited. This day was not planned but all these happened suddenly. If Shweta had not been home this holiday, this wouldn’t have happened. All thanks goes to her. Praveen was wearing a white shirt and a white dhoti and Shweta in a new type of saree designed by Remuki, her elder sister who is 5 years older. Remuki helped in Praveen’s costumes also. Praveen insisted to wear a black coat just like a Christian groom. He was inspired by Lawyer uncle’s marriage last week. Shweta and Remuki were already over impressed by the just finished priest’s daughter’s marriage and wished that this marriage should happen in the same way. After all you are not allowed to dress as you wish on your marriage. Praveen lost to the ladies but complimented it by arranging an English style music band over a traditional tabla and natasvaram.

All arrangements were done personally by Praveen and Shweta. Their parents should be nice asleep after their heavy Sunday lunch. Who knows, they might not even be aware of the marriage. Who cares to inform them about these silly things? The music band started playing. The marriage procession was a feast to the eyes. Men dressed in red were at the front playing marriage music numbers. The second line was made of relatives called with all respect as mousa mousi, dada daadi, bhaiya bhavi and all other possibilities. They hate their parents, so there was no papa mumma. The last line was occupied by the remaining crowd. In the middle was our beautiful bride and groom whose eyes were full of joy. They were holding hands. Surprisingly the same level of joy was found in every one else’s eyes. There was an aura of fun and excitement just like any other marriage. The music played was a bit asynchronous like a crow singing in myna’s concert, but who cares. There was sound and that is enough to make a marriage.

A beauty in this marriage is that there was no dowry discussed to sell the girl. No one cared about each others caste, region or social status. There were no aunties moving in and out promoting Khazana jewelers and there was no girl trying to outsmart other girls in the family to win the coveted “She is pretty” title. Praveen wished Shweta to be her bride and she agreed. Others were not given with a chance to interfere since the idea of getting married is Praveen’s and they didn’t want to interfere.

The marriage procession has walked almost 100 meters. The temple where they were supposed to reach is just 50 meters ahead. “PRAVEEN” shouted a big man with big moustaches. Praveen turned back just to see his surprise turn to shock. It is his Uncle from the military. He had a long machine gun raised in his hand. The procession halted. There was complete silence. Everyone was looking for Praveen to react.

Praveen removed the clutch from Shweta and accelerated towards his Uncle. The moment he was 2 foot away from his Uncle, Uncle leaned forward and gave the gun to Praveen. To everyone’s surprise Praveen opened fire at Shweta. Dududududdddd. Shweta accepted the bullets and fell down without any resistance. Then he went close to the crowd and shot everyone. Beautiful marriage turned into a war ground. The crowd fell down one after the other. In fact everyone enjoyed the change. Victorious Praveen went back to his uncle and said “Thanks Uncle, have you brought me more toys to play?”. “Yes my eight years old soldier” replied Uncle and lifted Praveen.

Shweta and the crowd understood that Praveen will not come again to play. They stood up from ground and headed towards the park to play ring a’ ring a’ roses. No one was worried except Remuki, whose carefully designed costumes went dirty in this mock marriage game.