At work these days, I take a break in the morning to read the daily paper. This is in addition to the lunch break. These times, I mostly like to get away from my workspace and park myself in the office lunchroom.
I hugely enjoy these breaks, not least because it is coming after what I like to call my ‘winter of discontent’ at work – a complex assignment that demanded obscenely long hours. The work cafeteria has glass walls that overlook the office. During these breaks (and this has nothing, at least consciously, to do with the glass walls), I make an elaborate deal of it – lay out the New Yorker and my lunch and splay myself comfortably. (Splaying by the way is not the best way to eat or do anything except if the objective is to just splay). And then the fun starts.
This morning for example, two lovely ladies were discussing dance and treated me to some ballet steps they had learned. That led to a discussion about Julliard and Save the Last dance and the merits of Julia Stiles as an actress {"Gorgeous and also strikes you as an intellectual". "Yale educated but did you know, hush, that she now appears in a risqué television series about lesbians?”}. It’s the sort of fun conversation you would never think an office set-up could afford you.
And then the flawless women and men (not necessarily beautiful, because it’s the flaws that make one beautiful) who hang around waiting for their name to be called and their time under the lights. {I work for a company that does media as part of the final service we offer to our clients}. It’s a great way to network for the future {“did you know about this new TV series that is all male-cast, but with all female roles?”} besides earning money for the day.
Not to mention, the discussion around food and cooking and diet {I’m still in the kitchen, remember?}. These are the ones I enjoy the most and in keeping with that give here a free-flowing, un-bracketed writing treatment.
“Nothing like carrot cake. It’s probably the best-kept secret in the cooking and binging world.” “Oh, well. I remember the cappuccino more from when I’ve had carrot cake”.
“Fruit diets work best when it’s not taken in addition to the regular cheese and fries diet”.
“I love coconut in my food.” “That does not even belong in the kitchen.”
And then there are the politically-incorrect office crushes and romances. Politically incorrect because the organization has not driven you to distraction enough with work to bury hopes of any spring fling and such. The timed entries. The furtive glances. And meals shared in silence in the backdrop of an adoring audience.
It's also amazing how at times an inspired work-related decision will happen just as you’re polishing off those fries or sipping that ginseng tea {"Why not apply that work flow to this new project and make it a standard, if it flies?"}.
As I leave a semblance of heaven and head back to more drudgery, I can’t help thinking about offices with lunchrooms. And those without. And how that is likely to be a deal breaker for me when I look for another job. Whatever ails the modern enterprise, it must be said how Sisyphean a task it is to keep employees engaged. To those, I provide advise gratis – you can never go wrong with a break room (ok, ok, lunchroom) having glass walls.
As I conclude this blog, it occurs to me how irrelevant the title is to the content of the blog. Because after all, work breaks can’t be considered slacking, right?
Apr 17, 2008
Apr 12, 2008
Fatherhood and the Culture factor
Thankfully, the changing diapers phase is well and truly behind us. But I'm not off the hook yet, for fatherhood, at least for the next 15 or 25 years - depending on where my wife and I settle down, in the US or in India. Ours may be the last (or is it lost?) generation of grownup-kids (India and elsewhere in Asia) who stayed with their parents till they were almost pushing 30. We were too comfortable to let go and our parents never thought you could overstay their welcome. A fact most amusing for my American friends who would be well and truly on their own as soon as they figured some means of earning. As one of those friends confided, better that than being booted out of the house!
Becoming a dad is an indescribably exhilarating feeling. But for me, it was not unmixed with angst. The fact that we were not allowed to determine the sex of our baby in advance, and so gloat over the possibilities. The fact that I was not allowed to accompany Usha into the delivery room and welcome my son as soon as he came into this world (though I am told that's just as well). But thinking about it now, I have no business really to be even a bit bitter about where Aakash was born. The joy and cacophony of grandparents and assorted uncles and aunts of the newborn would be unrealistic, I think, to find anywhere but at home (home still conjures up only India, at least for now). As also the festivities seeped in tradition that follow childbirth. Not to mention the support structures (close family and paid-help ... how cynical that I should talk both in the same breath?) that virtually take-over in the first few bewildering months for the new-born parents.
The changing diapers phase is behind us, yes. But like every father finds out, the last phase was probably the easiest. You get paranoid about his teeth but can't really blame him for gorging on chocolates because you like it too and so that kind of stuff is always lying around. You want him to be a model of words and action even though you are by nature, anything but. You don't want to push him too hard but can't deny the feeling of pride when he says or does something beyond his age (maybe you too are really one of 'those' parents who treat their kids like performing seals!). You love that he loves his mom so, even as you're slyly trying to score brownie points and not make a complete fool of yourself in the process {when he's desperately seeking his mom in the presence of friends and strangers, for example}.
Summer is around the corner here in Chicago and with it comes the anticipation of watching as he learns to ride the bike, playing cricket (yes!) and football, and getting those bruises and scrapes that little kids do, to make their fathers unhappy and proud at the same time. Its going to be indescribably deja vu once more and I yearn for it like nothing else.
Becoming a dad is an indescribably exhilarating feeling. But for me, it was not unmixed with angst. The fact that we were not allowed to determine the sex of our baby in advance, and so gloat over the possibilities. The fact that I was not allowed to accompany Usha into the delivery room and welcome my son as soon as he came into this world (though I am told that's just as well). But thinking about it now, I have no business really to be even a bit bitter about where Aakash was born. The joy and cacophony of grandparents and assorted uncles and aunts of the newborn would be unrealistic, I think, to find anywhere but at home (home still conjures up only India, at least for now). As also the festivities seeped in tradition that follow childbirth. Not to mention the support structures (close family and paid-help ... how cynical that I should talk both in the same breath?) that virtually take-over in the first few bewildering months for the new-born parents.
The changing diapers phase is behind us, yes. But like every father finds out, the last phase was probably the easiest. You get paranoid about his teeth but can't really blame him for gorging on chocolates because you like it too and so that kind of stuff is always lying around. You want him to be a model of words and action even though you are by nature, anything but. You don't want to push him too hard but can't deny the feeling of pride when he says or does something beyond his age (maybe you too are really one of 'those' parents who treat their kids like performing seals!). You love that he loves his mom so, even as you're slyly trying to score brownie points and not make a complete fool of yourself in the process {when he's desperately seeking his mom in the presence of friends and strangers, for example}.
Summer is around the corner here in Chicago and with it comes the anticipation of watching as he learns to ride the bike, playing cricket (yes!) and football, and getting those bruises and scrapes that little kids do, to make their fathers unhappy and proud at the same time. Its going to be indescribably deja vu once more and I yearn for it like nothing else.
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