In the new scheme of things, the distance one-way and point-to-point is 52 KMs across three "states" and since driving that distance and blowing up petrol isn't on the anvil, I am using the official cab service.
The office timings are 8:30 am to 5 pm. The cab needs to take a circuitous route to pick up all of us people who incidently stay in totally different directions - Sec 15, 44, 31, 56, DLF II, DLF IV, DLF V!!! So we take 45 mins to go around in this decagon or whatevergon it is and then are onward ho!!! Interestingly, it also takes us 45 mins to pick the last person and reach NEPZ! I am sure we travell at least 30 more KMs to do the GGN yatra.
How the mighty have fallen! Gone are the glorious days of waking up, checking email on the lappy, and then waltzing in to work, or maybe even deciding to work from day, if so inclined! Then leaving from office when the urge struck ... do whatever you want... do the leftover "work" as per your own convenience (translation: when it CANNOT be procastinated any further.) Be the person who practically knew all answers to the typical office questions - what is the site for this, who do I ask for that, where is the latest template, which tag comes here, are we allowed to do this this way ....
Now I am the rookie! I know NOTHING and it feels good :-D no expectations and no demands at all. But honestly speaking it gnaws at me most times. I have spent hours filling up HR forms, going thru the intranet tutorials, resolving some tiny little teething troubles, the ticketing system here is FANTASTIC. Want a new lock, raise a ticket, the furniture is amiss, raise a ticket, email acting up - raise a ticket...
But this post is about my transition from driving to office to getting ferried from home to office and then back.
To ensure I reach my designated pick-up-point (yes! that's what it's called; I kid thee not!) I need to be up at 6 so I need to set the alarm for 5:50 (10 mins buffer for the snooze snooze action on the cell.)
Day 1: the cab and the people had no clue about my location (liars) so I went to meet them at a gol-chakkar. D took me there and then I boarded the cab and settled in for the great NCR yatra. Now this cab turned out to be a mini-bus. Seating capacity - 11 people. (The last seat was collapsed to make a bed for the driver) That day there was 14. Three ad hocs. So people had to perch themselves on the driver's "bed". Hee hee heee...
Day 1: Evening - in the evening two people hop off saying they'll take the local transport to reach their places thus saving them 35 mins of scintillating sight-seeing. I stay on cause I have to show the driver where to pick me up the next morning. We reached the society gate - the driver is freaking and I attempt to make his understand that it's a normal route .... idiot
The bus has no radio so we listen to DJ-driver's choice of music that start from being very religious, then goes to happy romance songs, then sad betrayal ones, then regional songs that defy any attempted comprehension!! This all in an hour ...
Day 2: I am late getting to the pick-up-point. Driver freaks and interestingly all people are late that day so guess who was shaking his head, muttering under his breadth (abusing us and his destiny would be my guess), driving fast and furious to reach in time ... yea genius the driver :-) That day he was a tad too religious - the bus was all smoked up with incense and we had bhajans that beseeched the Godess (perched on a lion who lives in the mountains) for fulfilling wishes and also sang her glory. Not that I am anti-religion but I was sleepy therefore cranky and the smell of incense and all that smoke eeeeeeoooowww.... (Sorry bhagwanji but I just can't handle this type of bhakti.)
Day 2 evening: We start off and start our grave discussions on optimizing the bus route :-) No one slept that evening otherwise people doze off and catch one solid hour of shuteye. I hop off at the point from where I can get a local bus and then reach hope to realize that I hadn't really saved more than 7 mins. LOL!!!! There I was thinking I am so smart ....
Day 3: I reach the stop a lot earlier than the cab - it was now my turn to do the virtues-of-being-punctual-jig! But I didn't push it cause when you are dependent on the cabbie you don't wanna be on his bad side ;-) There were a lot of school kids waiting for their buses and I had this inane need to shake my head in disbelief - I am back in that mode?!
I had brought a cassette from home to avoid being subjected to the nine emotions thanks to DJ driver. I did a complete user analysis - songs that the driver and the passengers would enjoy. And knowing the quality of the music system, I had to pick something that I wouldn't miss when the cassette died! Horror, the cassette is inserted and instead of potboiler Hindi songs, you have English songs :-) The entire group had a laugh .. so we stayed with the soulful renditions of betrayals and all ... I decided to read, but the state of the roads had my eyeballs jumping up and down and there was no way to read. LOL! So it was back to appreciating parallax from the window seat :-)
Day 3 Evening: We decided to change our direction but then stayed with the original route. No public transport we all went to our homes. I finally remastered the lost art to sleeping in the bus!
Day 4: Is today. The morning was uneventful and I am sleepy as hell. My reality show has reached an interested point - the best are getting voted out before the better and the goods might end up winning!!! I was up till 11:30 howling for my contestant. Silly me .... Woke up startled. I was sure I had overslept and not heard the alarm. But then I saw the watch, I had woken up and there were still 10 mins for the alarm to ring.
TGIF I am going to sleep sleep sleep over the weekend. My family can take care of itself, I am not available to do a THING!!!
BTW I love my new office and its people.
