Day 1 at a new work place

[Non-Disclaimer]: At a serious risk of getting fired if this gets to the senior management at my new work place, but organizations when going all out on the hiring, should take a step further and plan the first week for the new recruits too.]

Day 1 at a new work place is like being an uninvited guest. The blank look on the HR guy’s (The same who interviewed you and begged you to accept the package) face when you arrive in the office, no one knows where you are supposed to sit, how you’ll enter the building or God forbid you’d need a laptop to work on. The horror on the admin staff’s faces when they are asked to fix the electrical boards beneath the most non-private cubicle you just have been bestowed with *heavens* or the worst…not having an introduction with the peon who brings tea, which is why he keeps on skipping your cubie and avoiding your eye while serving it to the rest of the floor.

So now sitting at an empty desk, staring at your cell, re-reading a million year old messages, refreshing Facebook every few second on the uber slow GPRS and trying not to listen to everyone else sounding super busy and important, you try not to feel awkward.

As the time barely crawls by, you could flip through your FB photo album and wonder which photograph of you and your beau should be displayed at your desk, *discreetly crane neck to check if others have frames on their desks*
Maybe you could bring your “Best wife in the world” mug to the office and use it as a pen holder.
Or cut out the little picture of the climbing boy and stick it on the side of the monitor so it looks like its trying to climb up your screen…
… perhaps a bonsai on your desk.

Without realizing you’d open the notes tab on your phone and make a to-do list:
– Get a cute photoframe for the desk
– print your best couple picture
– dont forget to bring your own funky mug for tea at work
– “World’s best wife mug” to hold the stationary
– buy the cute  butterfly wala memo holder from Wrap N Grab

*Feeling a bit hungry you check the watch and its just 11:00 am*

– get buiscits wheatables for snacks
– get a funky notebook and a purple pen (office stationaries are too drab, you’ve gotta like what you note) 

Just then an angel (in grey overalls) comes down to fit in the drawer in your desk and allows you to happily stash in the perfume bottle, leaflets of panadol and nexum and flavored tea that you had braught from home today.
Its good to be prepared!

the relief and excitement that you keep in check when its time for introductions and orientations is impressive, but whoaa, too many people! Smiling and nodding at everyone, you are struggling to remember who is who and whats his JD.

Trudging back to your desk after the orientation, you also realize the only department you know MOST about is HR. (You are so not in HR or anywhere close..Ha!)
Grabbing at straws, you finally message your super busy husband in his super busy well settled job a couple of miles away from your office…

“So…how about lunch today?
You and me…like old times? ;)”
*hearts and all*

Hurray! you shall pass another hour and five minutes exactly without looking out of place and space or nodding off to sleep!

Post-lunch and back in the office, you try to find the water cooler, the cafe and the washrooms. Sucess…now that the chai wala peon saw you, he has to serve you tea with a dash of coffee, 1tsp of suger and less Everyday thrice a day please! So you throw in a “Shukria” in accented urdu just so he knows you are a sweet person unlike the guys who do the “oye..chai lana zara”
The washroom survey shows an array of soap dispensers and detergent dispensers (Hain??!!..but yes) and the next 15 min are spent in fixing your hair, refreshing the lipstick, cleaning cuticles, filing the rough edge of the thumb nail, drying hands…uhh yes back to the desk.

the delicious big stretchy yawn that overwhelms your senses is suddenly cut short by a realization that makes you whip out a post-it and stick a font22 size note on your screen

“Always remember that you sit by the glass partition!”

 4:30 PM…oh yay oh yay!
but apparently your face is so radiant that the lady besides you casually mentions how the work day here ends at 5:45pm and not 5:00, but then thats official and hey, what boss in a telco cares about that right? So normally the day here ends at 7:00 or 8:00 pm

Shizz! *troubled* with a hubby and a home and a life together to manage, you think of scripts and emails to send to the Director addressing this issue… *nail biting* or maybe you’d do that when he actually holds you back.

[Insert missing the previous organization here] 😦

The last 30 minutes of the day you spend calculating how many years will you have to give in to this slaving till you can start your own business.

Day 2, as they say is History!