What’s your W.Q.?

I’ve decided to attack two tags as well as kill my laziness to do them at one go :-)

1) List atleast 5 weird things about yourself by Aarti
2) Weird things you do/did at your workplace by Sayesha

Tag 1

a) Billions of blue blistering barnacles, I have a multitude of names. Name-calling ain’t so terrible anymore! Rolls off me back like water off a duck’s (no reference to TGFI here :P)

b) Thundering typhoons, I also have a multitude of email ids. When I first joined blogosphere, I signed up for my first ever email id at Rocketmail. It had a real cool looking interface, but eventually it was bought over by Yahoo! and all the coolness quotient vanished. In quick succession, I registered for email accounts at Hotmail, Yahoo! (4 totally, 1 is solely for messenger), Mailcity — which was renamed to Lycos eventually, Email.com — which is now Mail.com, Rediffmail, Sify, Care2, and a whole host of other free email service providers that I can’t even remember now. Now I use 1 Hotmail, 3 Yahoo!, and 1 Gmail ids. Couple of the above-mentioned ones are still in existence and I check them once in a blue moon.

c) I have two pairs of glasses (spectacles). I keep one pair at home and the other in my desk drawers at work. Since I only need glasses while using a PC, these are kept at two different locations.

d) I had 26 pairs of unstitched a.k.a yet-to-be-tailored salwar suits as of this month. There are also some 10 odd pieces of ‘material’ or cloth that was purchased to make tops/kurtas out of them. Although most were bought eons ago, they have been carefully stored in the closet. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea. I have a closet bursting at the seams. My cousins and friends think I should hold a sale or open my very own store! At the rate I’m going, I can even open a branch or two! Earlier this week, I gave 3 pairs of suits and 2 pieces of material (to make kurtas) to the tailor. Two different tailors in the vain hope of getting them back around the same time. No such luck, one tailor is taking one week and the other two weeks. I also ended up buying yet another salwar suit the same day! In my defence, it was a beautiful chiffon outfit with Parsi embroidery, something I don’t own. :-D

e) I haven’t counted exactly, but I own at least 16 pairs of shoes. Out of which, I regularly use only 2 or 3 pairs for months on end. Now of course, I pretend like I’m walking on the sand at a beach resort since I’m barefoot most of the time after the toe fracture.

f) I have spent a whole night yakking on the phone during college days. Think this has happened on more than a couple of occasions. Have also been online for as many hours and more at a stretch. Spending time online only happens when I’m stuck at home for a while, when I was job hunting and now that I’m homebound. A daily work/study routine fixes this addiction automatically.

g) What’s weirder is how this tag has turned into ‘numbers of this, that and other’.

Think these will do for now. There are way too many weird things about me than I’d care to acknowledge :-)

Tag 2

a) My workplace (popularly known as Siberia) does not have uniform airconditioning. It’s like that commercial with Eskimos in one corner and people covered in layers of clothing and in another, there are camels and people peeling off their ties and sweating buckets. Ewwww! I know! Similarly, at Siberia, you will find some areas with people bundled up in jackets, sweaters, shawls and even monkey caps, and some people with all of these on! And then there are other corners with people wearing next to nothing (ok slight exaggeration, but I swear there are some people who at least wish that people would wear next to nothing :-)).

My seat initially used to be in the Arctic zone and I eventually succumbed to the eccentricities when parts of me began turning blue with the cold. So I stuffed my desk with a few essentials. I had picked up this beautiful Kashmiri shawl a year ago at a charity auction. It was an alternative to Pashmina shawls, though almost as soft in texture. I knew there would hardly be an occasion to use the shawl in Chennai, but thought it would be great for Mom when travelling to places with cold climes. And what do you know it came in handy for me in this city itself! From being relegated to the back of the closet, it was brought out to be used and displayed. So I took it to work and kept it in my desk drawer. Friends would vie to get their grubby hands on it and wrap themselves in it ‘coz it was so pretty.

Despite its beauty, the shawl wasn’t enough to battle the cold, so I also took along a pair of socks. I would put them on every morning after arriving at work and take them off whenever I needed to use the restroom or during breaks or if I had to leave my seat and go to some other part of the office. I would put them back on again upon returning to my seat. Irksome, it was!

Sometimes, we take breaks to stretch our legs by walking down the stairs (7 floors down) and then walking around the building a few times. Once I was taking a break and went down to walk about with a friend and realized halfway through the 2nd round that I still had my socks on. Had forgotten to take them off before leaving my desk! I happened to be wearing a salwar that day, not even pants. There were lots of people around and some might have wondered why this girl was wearing socks in the blazing summer heat of this tropical state! My friend had a hearty laugh at my expense and discomfiture. I figured there was nothing I could do about this embarrassing situation, so might as well carry on with the walk and break and then return to my desk :-)

b) An internal chat service/instant messenger is available and meant to be used only for “official purposes”. You can bet, however, that it is used for anything and everything but work! So people buzz each other to say stuff like:

-- You are an idiot!
-- I’m hungry, let’s go get a bite to eat.
-- What are the lyrics to ABC, do you remember? Can't get the tune outta my head...
-- I’m ordering juice, would you like something? (Reply: I’d rather have chocolate cake.)
-- Himesh Rishammiya needs to be shot dead!
-- The boss (nickname will be used so that MIS would have to use their detective skills in case the conversations were tracked) is a jackass!
-- Click this link at once! (some silly article on MSN/TOI)
-- I love Johnny Depp and hate Brangelina!
-- Did you read XYZ’s blog?! Omigawd...!

This software is also put to use for other important uses such as gossip about coworkers and lovers' chats/tiffs.

Just like MSN, the chat client's contact list can be categorized into team/managers/big bosses/trainees/other teams/friends/ciggie supplier or coffee man (just kidding) etc.

Once I received some ridiculous astrological prediction via email about marriage. I had to share it with a few friends who I knew would have found it equally hilarious. I pressed the Ctrl key and randomly selected a bunch of names across different categories on my contact list, to send them the same message at one go. This is called sending an "announcement" and will flash on the receiver’s screen immediately. I did not know that announcements selected across different categories would go to all the people under that category, not just the names selected. It turns out my "matrimonial joke announcement" went to my boss, my coworkers, HR and other random acquaintances apart from my friends! I managed to provide amusement and a break to quite a few people that day!

c) My boss at a company I'd worked in earlier had a car in the same model and color as mine, and as per parking lots provided, both cars were always parked next to each other.I was not in my manager’s good books for this sole reason! This parking situation could be seen from inside the office. The lady boss could not digest that her subordinate had a car, much less the exact same model and color and had the audacity to park it next to hers. Some people! *rolls eyes* This is probably a weird fact about my boss rather than about me, but it was one helluva weird situation (oh, weird bosses would be a whole other list!).

d) I later graduated to a two-wheeler when I changed jobs. Yes, it’s usually the other way around for most people, but what with increased traffic and parking problems not to mention obnoxious bosses, I found riding a bike to work more convenient. Plus, I've always been different :P Had booked a bike and was awaiting its arrival. Had not yet fully learned how to ride one. I had to visit a client and for once, decided to borrow my co-worker’s bike instead of risking life and limb in an autorickshaw. Well, a rick would have been safer than a bike. Anyway, I nearly ended up risking his vehicle and the lives and limbs of people walking on the road while bravely attempting to maneuver the bike on traffic congested streets.

e) I can’t sit at my desk in an upright position for too long. I get uncomfortable within a short span of time and then sit cross-legged or with legs folded one below the other, or stretched out under the desk and resting on a stand/the overturned dustbin.

I can think of plenty of weird happenings/co-workers/bosses at the different places I’ve worked. Many of them weirded me out so much, I was probably the only sane person around.

And that’s saying a lot about my weirdness quotient!