Nocturnal Adventures

Nocturnal Adventures

Jawaharlal Nehru once said, “When the whole world sleeps, India will awaken to light and freedom”. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that these immortal words of his would ring so true in twenty-first century India, with its dime a dozen call centers and so-called IT services industry which can give Auschwitz a run for its money.

It was the first day of the dreaded night shift for Natasha. She entered office at around 8:00 PM and settled down for a telecon with the onsite coordinator of the new project and the clients. Soon afterward, Eunuch came along and they began their telecon.

After the preliminary introductions, Eunuch and Natasha were told that there were to be put in different projects under different clients. One client, Sarah was present, while the other was not. The manager randomly decided that Eunuch would go into Sarah’s project and Natasha would go into the other. Then, Natasha and Eunuch were asked if they had any objections. To Natasha, the question seemed pointless. She had no clue about either of the projects and hence had no basis to make a choice. Sarah gave an outline of her project and Natasha could immediately sense that Eunuch was seeing stars. Soon afterward, Eunuch tried to persuade Natasha into switching projects.

Natasha didn’t care either which way. She thought to herself “Why do I care which project I’m in. Moreover, that other guy has not even shown up for the telecon, which speaks volumes about what kind of a person he is. Why don’t I accept Eunuch’s demands? At least this Sarah seems human and a known devil is always better than an unknown angel”.

Call it divine intervention or call it a well-developed sense of intuition but something told Natasha that she must stick to the project she is currently assigned to. For once, she followed her gut instinct and refused Eunuch’s suggestion.

In the weeks that followed, she would think back to this minute and berate herself for refusing.

In the months that followed, she would think back to this minute and thank her lucky stars that she had the sense to say no.

The following day, she “met” her client for the first time. He seemed affable enough as he welcomed her into his team. He said that he never knew there was a meeting the previous day, which seemed strange to Natasha, but she let it pass.

This was Natasha’s first experience interacting with clients in a professional environment. She did not know what was expected of her and she did not quite know the dos and don’ts. But she never gave it a thought. She knew she had great conversational skills and she knew she could handle it just fine.
In the days that followed, she became more and more comfortable working with her client. He seemed a very friendly fellow and did not quite have any airs about him.

One of the first questions he asked her was whether she was comfortable working in the night shift. Natasha was taken aback. For once, someone had actually bothered to ask her if she was ok with what’s happening. She made it clear that she was certainly not comfortable. He said “Oh that’s fine. I understand how you feel. What we will do is this- we will start off with a one-week night shift period. I will start training you and depending on how fast you pick up, we can re-negotiate the timings. If I’m comfortable with how you work, you can go back to your shift. So it’s totally dependent on you.”
Natasha immediately agreed because she has immense faith in her abilities. He started educating her about the work involved and her responsibilities. Natasha realized that for the first time ever in her professional life, she was actually looking forward to going to work each day. What a tremendous feeling that was.

What she did not foresee were the logistics issues. To get the tools required to work alone took one full week. Soon, the one-week became two and then three and she realized what was happening. Then came another bombshell. He called her one day and said, “The project is in a crisis. I would need you to work in the nights for another 2 weeks”.

Natasha was furious and rightly so. She questioned him “If you needed a resource to work in your timing, why did you take in an off-shore resource. Why did you not take someone who lived in your country and therefore would be working in your time?”

He pacified her saying that he had no idea what resources would be allocated to him and that such decisions were not in his hands. He also spoke at length about how important the project is and how, as a professional, one has certain commitments towards his/her work.

So speaking, he convinced her to go the whole distance.

The dictionary defines a diplomat as one who is a skillful negotiator. God forbid, but if there comes a time, when one is forced to condense the personality of a man into a single word, this is the word that perfectly describes him.

The next day, she went to Bull Dog directly. She told him her concerns regarding the extended night shift. He was suitably concerned and he told her to send a strongly worded email to Shitface. He reassured her “Don’t worry Natasha, I’ll handle this. You send this email to Shitface and I can take it from there. I’ll make sure you don’t have come in the night shift anymore.”
Natasha replied “But I’ve already committed to the client that I would come. How can I go back on my word now?”

“That’s not a problem, Natasha. You don’t worry about that” Bull Dog hastened to assure her.
Natasha felt uneasy. As far as she was concerned, her spoken word was as good as the written word. As far as she could remember, she had never gone back on her word. Now, this man was asking her not to give a thought to her commitment. She wondered what kind of a man would say such a thing. Surely it had to be someone who did not think the spoken word amounted to anything. At the very least, it had to be someone who thought her spoken word did not amount to much.

She was shaken. This was SO drastically different from the impression that Bull Dog had given her in the past that she did not care to delve into this thought further. “No, I must be mistaken. There has got to some other angle to this” Nat thought to herself. “He’s smart. He will figure out a way to handle this”.

Hurrying back to her place with these thoughts in her head, Natasha quickly drafted a mail to Shitface as suggested by Bull Dog.

At midnight the same day, she got a reply from Shitface asking her to call him at once. With a sense of foreboding, she went to make the call. Once connected, Shitface asked NoBalls to join the call too. Shitface asked her to explain the issue once again. She quickly ran through the events of the previous day. When she told them about the questions she had asked the client, she heard a huge gasp. Immediately, NoBalls cut in and told her “Why did you say that?”

Natasha replied, “Well, It’s true, right?”

“That’s not the point. How can you say such a thing to the client? What will he think?”

“How else was I supposed to let him know that I’m not willing to work in the night shift?”

“You should have taken up the matter with us. You are not supposed to discuss these things with the client directly. You have to route it through your coordinators”.

Natasha was bewildered. She was used to handling her problems herself. She could never comprehend this way of handling things.

She said, “I was asked a direct question. What am I supposed to do in that situation?”

Shitface replied, “You should have said. Please contact my onsite coordinators about this. What you have said is absolutely not acceptable. You have made a big mistake”.

Natasha could not believe what she was hearing.

She shot back “The only mistake that was made was that you, Mr.Shitface did not bother to ask my permission BEFORE declaring to the clients that I was ok with coming in the night shift. Maybe IF you had thought it was necessary to gain MY acceptance, we would not be in this situation now. It is you who has made a mistake.”

“Oh no Natasha, please understand, it was the clients who decided that you would be in this project. It’s not my fault. I could not do anything about it”.

“Mr.Shitface, I refuse to believe that the client will ever overreach his authority and make managerial decisions for our company, a company that is not his. In the eventuality that he does try to, it is YOUR job to ensure that he does not. It IS your fault for not letting that happen.”

There was silence for the next few moments, before Natasha broke in again.

“To answer the other part of your suggestion, I would like to remind you that till this moment, you or anyone else at onsite has never lifted a single finger to help someone else at off-shore. Knowing this, how do you expect me to say that my onsite coordinators will handle this for me? Moreover, you told me that it was going to be for one-week alone. When I asked the client, he said that he had clearly told the onsite coordinators that it will be for a three-week period. So, why in the world would I trust someone who has lied to me repeatedly?”

Shitface saw a way out at once and jumped right in with “NoBalls, you told me that it was for a one-week period. You answer her now”.

NoBalls knew he had no answer to that. So he addressed the other half of Natasha’s accusation.

“If, as you say, you knew that we are not going to help, why did you send the mail in the first place”.

“Well, that was more of an FYI mail, so that you are aware of what’s happening and so are not surprised with what will happen henceforth”.

“Oh in that case, since you don’t expect us to do anything, please understand that we WILL not help you out with this” said NoBalls

“Oh I knew that Mr.NoBalls” replied Natasha unperturbed.

“Well, that’s fine then”.

So saying, NoBalls signed off from the call.

The next fifteen minutes, Shitface spoke to Natasha, and told her that he understood what she was going through and that he would help her in every way possible.

He said “Please believe me Natasha, when I say I really did not have any say in your allocation to the night shift. It was completely beyond my control but I assure you that I will take some steps today. I understand your frustrations and were I in your position I would have asked the client the same thing. There was nothing wrong in what you asked. It’s a completely valid question. You go home now and I’ll see what we can do. Next time, remember that we are not your enemies and that we are here to help you. Please feel free to call me anytime.”

Natasha was drained and exhausted after the day’s events. She gave her thanks to Shitface for understanding and went home.

The next day Natasha came to office and found out that an official complaint had been issued against her name to her superiors. The nature of the compliant was that “She does not know how to communicate with the clients and she is very uncooperative”.

It had been lodged by Shitface.

No one came to enquire about her defense of the accusation. To them, it was not necessary. They needed no proof. In their eyes, she was guilty as charged.

Natasha was bewildered and tears came into her eyes. She could not understand why people do not see reason. She wondered if there was anyone who saw things the way she did. Amidst her despair, she found a large ray of hope. She remembered her conversation with Bull Dog the previous day. He had said that he would take care of it. In spite of the fact that everyone in the office despised him, she was convinced that he would do the right thing. He had the reputation of screaming at everyone in the office, yet he had never raised his voice to her. Everyone in the office had accused him (never directly to his face) of never listening to him or her. She had never had that problem. Everything to her made sense. Someone who saw sense in what she said could never see sense in what they said and so obviously would lose his patience with them. She was sure that he would help her.

Towards the end of the evening, Eunuch called her and told her that he had received an email from onsite relationship head stating that “since she had already agreed, there is nothing we can do now”.
Natasha wasn’t quite surprised. She said “Did you tell Bull Dog about it?”

“Oh he was CC-ed on the mail too. Anyway I asked him, and he said the same thing.”

This hit Natasha hard. She could not believe what she was hearing. She excused herself and went to her favorite spot overlooking the city to think.

Character Sketch of The Bitch

The Bitch

At first glance, she is quite non-descript. With a second glance, if there happens to be one, you notice that she can be categorized as a typical Villager Turned Modern (VTM). And boy, she fits into this place like a hand to a glove.

Born into a small middle class family, in a beautiful hill station, she grew up in a conservative household. She had an ordinary childhood, and being the middle child, was neither rebellious nor overly responsible.

She went away to a college, located a few hours from her house, to do her engineering. She had no clue what engineering was about or what it involved. She took it up because her parents told her that engineering and medicine are the only respectable fields around. She took it up because everyone was doing the same. She took it up because she wanted to be one with the crowd and she felt comfortable in that crowd. She took it up because she wanted to be respected by all who knew her. She took it up because she did not realize that respect is got from being a good human being, and not by obtaining some fancy degrees.

College was a different ball game altogether. She realized that she was one of the select few who came from educated families, and that there was no one here to keep a watch on what she did and reprimand her if needed. Soon, she gathered around herself, a few followers, who did as she commanded. In college, she realized the power of words, and how a few words can destroy a person. This was a lesson she never forgot.

Like many people, she thought this was power, and hungered for more. Like many people, she thought freedom was the ability to be able to say and do things as and when she pleases, and she fought for this freedom. Like many people, she thought the constant presence of people around her denoted loyalty and the unquestioning acceptance of her commands, a sign of her good leadership, and felt proud of herself.

Like many people, she was wrong.

The Battle Begins

The battle begins

How many times in our lives have we been blind to something about ourselves, until one day, it appears as a flash of reality.

Today was one such day for Nat.

She had been avoiding her team lead for a while now, ever since she had finally realized what a sorry excuse for a leader he was. But, after another unnecessary meeting, he cornered her, along with Shitface. She had nowhere to go. She braced herself for whatever was coming.

"Did you get the mail this morning from Mr.NoBalls?" asked Eunuch, her lead.

"Duh!", Nat thought to herself, "It was addressed to me!". "Yes", she answered politely.

"I've taken it up with Mr.Asshole. I did it first thing in the morning. This is not acceptable. We cannot let this happen" went on Eunuch.

No fireworks this time. She's grown up, you see. Nat, she's learnt her lesson. She waited. She wondered what the reason was this time around.
"We have a 4000 hour project coming up"

"Ahh yes. There it is. The reason" thought Nat.

Out loud she said "Its testing work" conveying with her tone that she's not interested and waited for the lie that she knew would follow.

Sure enough, there it was.

"Oh, we are getting some development too this time".

"How many resources would there be?" questioned Nat.

Oh, one lie is always followed by many others.

"It will be me, Ms.Ratface , and they said they would loan 3 people from the other team but…"trailed off Eunuch.

"We decided we'd rather have you Natasha", finished Shitface who was just dying to put in his two pennies worth.

"What? One woman as a replacement for 3? Do they take me for that big a fool?" Natasha thought to herself..
Moreover, Eunuch had not written a single line of code for the past 6 years, as he so proudly claimed and Ratface is involved with another project, so any guesses for who would have to shoulder all the work?

"There is this dot-net project too that is coming up" went on Eunuch..

Nat knew it was pointless to even mention that she had no clue about dot net. They would only come up with some ridiculous answer like "oh, we can train you" and brush her concerns aside.

Nat no longer paid attention to the ramblings of Eunuch and Shitface. She felt this weird sensation within her. Something like she had never experienced before.

"I guess I'm going to be violently ill", she thought to herself.

She waited for it to pass. She rode the wave, as it came. Only then did she realize that what she felt was this uncontrollable fury at the farce that she was being forced to witness. She felt this immense rage towards these fellow human beings in front of her, towards their pathetic pretenses and towards their unprincipled souls.

"Why?", she fumed to herself, "why am I forced to interact with such people". "They use my morals and my integrity as a noose around my own neck when it is the same morals and integrity that makes me stand here in the first place".

"Calm down", she told herself, "This is not the time and place to think about this". The rage within her lessened but stoutly refused to die down. This was uncharacteristic. So far, she had been extremely capable in shutting out her anger. Now it wouldn't listen to her.

Through all this madness, there was one moment of clarity. One of those rare moments in which one finally sees reality though it had been staring into one's face all along.

"Oh my God, how could I have bee so blind", thought Nat, "It is they who are at my mercy. It is they who need my expertise. That's how it's always been. Never the other way around. Lord, what a fool I've been".

Sanction of the victim. Never the other way around.