March 17, 2006

Getting Wasted

As Software Engineers, work is still seasonal. When it’s there, you’re screwed, and when it’s not there, it’s as good as getting wasted on the beach with a beer. One fine morning, when like always there was no work to be done, I wrote a long mail on one my yahoogroups and awarded one of my friends with the ‘Member of the Month’ title. What I didn’t expect was that he’d be free too. The following is my mail and his response to it.

I wrote:
In accordance with our 299 year old tradition of bestowing upon one of our members, the title of ‘Member of the Month’, this year, in the chienese year of the cock, I take the previlege of handing over the title to another great member of our passive tribe.
It was extremely difficult to come to the conclusion, but after much thought I narrowed it down to three people. With D getting a campus placement, which most of us could not afford to have, and none of us expected him to get, but like always he fought against all the odds to come out victorious in the end. But since I have heard he is busy with his new girlfriend these days , I reckoned he would be too busy to take
the award.
The second nominee P, who with his Magic Potion at home, got calls from all the IIM’s, and many other colleges, which after his other feats don’t seem worthy of mention. But even with his magnanimous brain power and self control, he is still waiting for his MA result. I am sure you would agree that he was a strong contender, but since he has not disclosed the contents of his magic potion to me, I refuse to give him the title.
But since the aim of all of us, from our very childhood, has been getting wasted. I would like to present this award to the best man amongst us who got wasted. Ever since he got hold of the email id on the 20th of October 2004, which has now become a household name, he has shown us the way. With his unlimited supply of “good one’s” and “must read this one’s” he has found his place in our heart’s and inbox’s.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the ‘Member of the month’ for this year is none other than our only basketball player, our only distinction holder, our very own, G. Over the last 117 days, he has forwarded as many as 279 ( Two hundred and seventy nine) forwards till this moment. Out of the
117 days, he worked furiously even over the weekends to make sure that there were only 26 days when we didn’t get a mail from him. With a crushing average of 3.069 forwards/day and a mind boggling 16.692 forwards/week, our center forward is our Member of the Month.
We wish him all the best for his forthcoming triple century. And are waiting desperately for his treat.
Thank you.

And this is what the big guy had to say :

Wow…..gasp….I’m speechless…..
I am humbled by this great honor bestowed upon me. This is a dream come true for me, I can’t get over thefact that I just won the most coveted 229 yr old ‘Member of the month’ award. Let me tell you that it was no cakewalk for me. I took great pains to ensure that my fellow tribesmen wasted as much time in reading all the crap forwards as I did. I did this at the cost of cutting my coffee n cigarettes breaks from 20 a day to a measly 16 a day, surfing only non-porn sites on the web, chatting only an hour or two with complete strangers, reading only 100 pages of fiction a day in office. But at the end I think that it has all been worth every wasted moment of my completely wasted life. It has been my lifelong quest to take the art of getting wasted to ‘higher’ levels, and this award gives me a great sense of achievement. But this is
only the beginning, there is a lot more left to waste in this world and I shall not give up before the world lies utterly wasted at my/our feet…..Wuaahaaahaaaha (Evil laugh).
So my friends, my fellow tribesmen ……… lets pray…let’s take a pledge together to make this world a totally wasted place. Amen.

PS: before returning to my busy schedule (read: c ‘n’ c break) I would like to thank all those wonderfully wasted people who helped me attain this state of utter waste, who offered me a joint whenever I strayed from the holy path to wasteland and tried to attend lectures in college, who rightfully discouraged me from making use of my time to get some ‘Education’ , who showed me how cigarettes were an indispensable
tool to reach wasteland, who made me realize the importance of watching porn for at least 1 hr a day, who told me wonderful secrets about wasteland in their drunken stupor, who made me give up my worldly possessions (namely a silver CBZ up-15 l-6931) for
community use, who helped me ‘engineer’ a perfectly wasted career for myself.
And yeah a special mention to Raheja who actually kept a record of my mails……..good show …. Now that’s a lesson to all of those under-wasted people out there.
Thank you all.
Mooooppphhh…….mooooppppphhh (blowing kisses)
Thank you for this great honor ….thank you.

This is what software engineers do, when the company doesn’t have any more projects, and it’s bright employees are doing documentation. If this is what they do, I don’t understand, why did I spend four years trying to become one?

Tagged , ,