One fine day

Nothing unusual about that day. Office clock chimed 10 ‘clock when I stepped into my office. After a chit chat with the receptionist, I turned to my seat to start my day. Wait, I had not had my morning cuppa tea yet. Conversation with the next seat neighbors went on till I sipped the last drop of tea. I was definitely having one of those blessed days as my boss was out for a meeting. Such a lost opportunity if mice won’t play when the cat was out. We had enough topics to talk about. Right from cricket to politics to current affairs to weekend plans to latest movies. List was endless. Coming back to work; finally I glared at my laptop screen. First things first- e-mails. Forward button was inevitable on some funny mails. Then came official mails. As usual I forwarded some mails to my subordinates. This is called delegation of work, making me a smart manager. Thankfully, there were no mails crying for immediate attention. Another indication that I was gonna have a nice day at work. That’s the best part of working in the service industry. You are at peace if your client is not bothered. Finally I was left with a few tasks which I had to deal with. Anyway I had the entire day to myself, thinking that I started browsing. There was a couple of websites saved in my favorite folder which I generally looked through when I had free time on hand. Effectively every day!

Boss arrived as I was getting done with internet surfing. Looks on his face indicated that he had not had a good time in the meeting or alternatively he had a rough time with his wife. Well let’s assume the previous case. What was the best way not to have a spill over effect on me? Yeah I was informed about the closure of an old project costing the company a lot of efforts, meant a lot of money. I got all the updates from my team and entered my boss’s cabin to give him good news. I managed to get some brownie points from my boss. Besides, I wanted to discuss some new projects. Fixed up a time with him for the next day and I was done with first half of the day!

I really look forward to the lunch hour- A fun hour of the day when no body disturbs you because lunch time was ‘Do not disturb’ hour, virtually though. Lunch hour was incomplete without a walk in the office premises, along with a deadly combination of tea and smoke to give it a final finishing touch.

I was about to go on to a long phone call with my best friend when phone on my extension rang cruelly. A desperate call from my client, who was expecting an assignment delivery by lunch time but he hadn’t received it yet. Naturally I had a reason to be mad at my team, working on that project as I had to hear from the client. There started my bad day! We definitely had a problem. The final file got corrupted as there was a virus in the system. Unfortunately, backup of the last version was not saved. I, all by myself had attended the meeting where client had mentioned all the changes. Though I had explained those to Raima( my subordinate) but yesterday was her last day at work. By force, but I had to sit with the team to explain the changes all over again. But wait, client needed an explanation for the delay. In most of the cases that kind of situation ranked least on our excuses list. We used it when we were running short on our creative ideas to escape work. Day was getting from bad to worse.

After a long conversation with the client I finally managed to convince him that the work would be done at the end of the day. What the hell! I called up my cousin to tell him that I won’t be able to make for his b’day bash. In the studio designer and writer team was already steaming on the deadlines, I had committed. I, in red costume was thrown in front of two wild bulls in a closed arena. Anyway I got to handle the situation and woo them for a drinking session in the evening.

There I was pulling my hair out, listening to the ‘creative solutions' (read as un-acceptable to client) on my meeting notes. I was trying to find a mid way out between the client’s expectations and team’s reaction to it. The episode lasted for like five hours, including loo and smoke brakes. Finally we were done with all the corrections. It was close to what client had expected. I conveniently ignored the looks on my teammates, as it was getting late! I rechecked the whole assignment for the final QC. It was 9.30 pm by the time I got out of the studio.

I e -mailed the assignment to the client and called him up to inform that we had finally made it. Well, remaining exciting part of the day was my favorite TV program which I was hoping to watch after I reach home. As usual it didn’t turn out to be the way I had had planned. Client requested me to wait until I got a green signal from him. Another nail in the coffin! It was 10.30 PM and I was still in the office. I ordered pizza for dinner, still waiting to hear from the client!