THE CRAPBOOK

How irritating it is at time when you are in a meeting or at the hospital when you get a call offering you a credit that you already have? Or asking you to take an insurance policy that you don’t need?

National Do No Disturb/Call Registry for your rescue !

I am not sure if you guys know about this. It takes 4 weeks to be registered. I got my confirmation the other day.

Register your number with the national Do Not call/ Disturb Directory of India.

Now TRAI is planning to introduce fines for the unsolicited caller up to Rs 20,000 !

I have written about a similar topic “What do we call this” sometime back.

Yet this is quite different from my earlier post.

I was at the airport the other day to see off my wife. (yay…..:)) .

She was all tired and wanted to sit down, and we approached a near by bench. Apparently the bench was occupied with BAGS. I asked the person standing next to it, if it was his bag. He said ‘aha’ and looked the other way.

I asked him “Could you please move your bags so that we can sit down?”

He nodded hesitantly and moved the bag a little. 

I asked my wife to sit down.

I mean what are these benches and chairs for??? to keep our baggage?

Its funny because, we put our bags on the road, trolley it all over, but yet when we see a place which is meant for people to sit, we keep our luggage instead.

How much can it hurt if you have to move your luggage for another person to sit?

I guess it’s the story everywhere, railway stations, airports, bus stations or even at the doctor’s clinic. 

My encounters with security guards. 

I don’t have anything against security guards, I respect them for their age and more importantly since most of them come for this job after a long time serving in the Indian army. Below are a few encounters I had with different security guards all around Kerala.  

At a Major Software company in Techno Park, Trivandrum

I wanted to see an old friend of mine at a major software company in Technopark [I am not mentioning the name of the company as this company has nothing to do with the entire incident]. I approached the reception when I heard lots of “ shoooo shooo” from different directions. Wondering from where its all coming from I turned back to see 4 security guards approaching me. I told them the reason I am there and I spelled out the name of my friend. The security at the chair asked me “Do you have her employee id”. Keeping in mind that the only employee id I know in this world is mine, I told him smiling “NO”.  “Then you cannot see her” was his prompt reply. The other security guards also echoed. 

“Can I talk to the reception” I asked politely.  

“No you cannot enter the facility” he replied.  I guess the whole idea of having a reception has been overruled with these words. If I can’t enter the facility why do they have a reception inside the facility? Or in other words, what is the reception for??  Well may be I am not good at explaining or understanding what receptions are for.  

Coming back to the story, I asked the security guard “I want to meet this person, how will I do that?”

 “I don’t know” he replied, this time firmly and a bit rude.

“Now can’t you just check the directory for that person’s extension number?” I enquired.

“No and you cannot see the person” he replied this time raising his voice.

This really pissed me off. I said

“Sir, I am working in a software company too and we do not treat people like this”.  

Believe me. He said “Well our company is different” .[ I think the CEO of this company should hear this] :)  

I said “Well I dint know you guys called your employees by their number. Give them some respect” and walked off.  

One of the securities however gave me the extension number and told me to make the call.  I met my friend later and got her phone number too. Oops but I forgot to get her employee number, maybe I should call her again to get that ! LOL.  

At my previous company  

It was one Friday morning, with plans to go home to Kottayam the same day, my brother(we both were in the same company) and I came to office with huge bags, with clothes that plead for a small ride in the washing machine. As the company has strict rules to deposit our bags at the security guards desk, we approached the chief security guard and showed him the bags.  He quickly opened the register book to issue the token. Then something struck him. He asked me.

“Where is your seat?” I said “Here” pointing to the adjacent glass door.

He turned to my brother “Yours?”

“Fourth floor” said my brother.

“You should surrender your bags only on the fourth floor security desk” said the security guard.

Taking into consideration the flooded elevators or the steep floors that he should take, carrying the bag to reach his office, he asked “Can I just keep the bag here?” and explained to him the difficulty in climbing the stairs with the bags.  

“Nope you cannot, only the employees in the ground floor are allowed to keep bags here”.  

“What is the big deal if we keep both the bags here? We both are off to the same place” I told him assertively.

“No you can’t” he repeated.  This pissed me off. No wonder my brother says I have something against all security guards, may be our relationship is like the ‘dog and the postman’ (okay I know what you guys are thinking now).  

I asked “Do you have a problem if both of these bags are mine?”

“Uhh no” he said wondering what I was up to.

“Okay then, these bags are mine” I declared. “Now you can keep it here right?” I asked sarcastically.  

You can guess what happened next. My brother climbed the stairs with one hand in his pocket and waved ‘bye’ to me.

At Cochin to meet my cousin  

This is one incident that I always think about and laugh. Once we went to visit our cousin at his office at Ernakulum. He called us up and explained the turns to take to reach the street where his office building was. We finally managed to reach the place, amidst traffic and chaos that the private busses created when they whizzed by.

We had to find the building by the name ‘Lucky Star’. Our cousin told us to enquire if we were lost.  Five minutes walk and we were.  We asked a bystander to help us out. He told us to walk further. We approached a huge building when we decided to get second opinion.  We approached the security guard at the building and asked “Do you have any idea where Lucky Star building is?”.  

“No” he said “I don’t think it’s in this street” he said confidently.  

We thanked him and started walking again. Something told me to turn back and look up. The board on top of the building which the security guard was ‘guarding’ read “Lucky Star”.  

My brother looked at me and said “No comments !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” .