Friday, December 16, 2011

Permanent Vacation


It was another typical Monday.  Rows of cubicles were filled with sounds of feverish typing on the keyboards.  It was a busy day at the office and there was lots of work to be done.  Everyone was working hard.  Everyone… except Charumathi.  She was busy whining as usual... about the traffic, about the weather, about 'all the work' she has to do, about just about everything.

Her managers, Venkat and Santosh, were fuming, trying hard to keep their cool.  Even the usually calm Venkat was visibly upset.


"We’ve got a real problem here, Venkat.  We have to do something!"

"We will, we will.  Calm down." said Venkat, trying hard to console Santosh.

"When?  This has been going on for too long already.  She spends all day complaining, gets other people to do her work for her, and then complains that she has too much to do.  This is getting to be too much!"

"I know, I know.  We’ll come up with something. (short pause) Tell you what, let’s set up a meeting with her next week, and we’ll get to the bottom of this, ok?"

"Alright, fine" said Santosh begrudgingly.   No one hated "Charu the Complainer" the more than he did.  He despised her carelessness, her incompetence, her indifferent arrogance, pretty much everything about her.  He’s not one to be impressed with just a pretty face.  He labored on the rest of the week, fixated on the meeting to come, when could he finally Charumathi have it! 

The following Monday arrived and it was business as usual.  But something was different.  There was an eerie silence in the office.  There were no sounds of complaints screeching mercilessly through the air.  Finding this development rather strange, Venkat and Santosh instinctively headed straight to Charumathi’s cubicle, only to find her missing.  They searched for her all around the office and inquired everyone about her whereabouts but no one had seen or heard from her.  Both Venkat and Santosh were totally perplexed.  Finally they went to the HR office and spoke to the representative there.  The representative gave them the shock of their professional lives!

"Miss Charumathi has left the company."

"What?!?!" said Santosh and Venkat almost simultaneously.  Both were totally exasperated.

"Yes, here are her papers.  She turned them in last week."

How could she just leave without saying a word?!?!, they both were saying to themselves.  But they carried on with business as usual, chalking up this unfortunate event to be a blessing in disguise.  If nothing else, they wouldn't have to put up with
Charumathi's constant whining.

The next Monday rolled forward.  As Venkat and Santosh began the weekday, they both got an even bigger shock than before.  Charumathi was back at her desk! Santosh went directly there, looking totally confused. I must be hallucinating, he was thinking.

"What are you doing here?!?!"

"What does it look like?  I’m working, of course" said Charumathi arrogantly.

"I can see that. But why?"

"Because it’s my job"

"Since when?!?!  We all thought you left the company already!"

"I didn’t leave.  I just went on vacation for one week."

"Vacation?!?!"

"Yes" said Charumathi, looking at Santosh like he was an incompetent fool.

"If you were going on vacation, don’t you think you should inform someone beforehand?!" asked Santosh. He was totally pissed off and exasperated by her attitude.

"I did.  I turned in my AVR form two weeks ago to HR."

Santosh just couldn't believe that she didn't inform her teammates or him or Venkat beforehand.  He was about to go off on Charumathi, but suddenly held back.  It was at that moment that he realized what had happened.  He dashed straight to Venkat’s office.  As the two men chatted, loud roars of laughter came from them both, which lasted several minutes.  After they regained their composure, they headed for Charumathi’s cubicle.

"Charu, you need to know something.  The ‘VR’ in AVR doesn’t stand for ‘vacation request’" said Venkat, barely able to control his laughter.

"It doesn’t?!" asked Charumathi, clearly looking worried.

"Nope.  Take a closer look" said Santosh, also grinning.  He showed her the form she filled out and pointed to the bottom of the page.

Charumathi looked at it nonchalantly at first, but then noticed a crucial detail she had previously missed.  The words she dreaded stared back at her:  Application for Voluntary Retirement!

16 comments:

  1. Delightful & rib tickling stuff. Only cannot understand why Charu had two bosses which is unusual but not improbable :)

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  2. @Ramakrishnan... Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! Having two bosses is not uncommon, especially in larger organizations.

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  3. You are very good at making people laugh. Yes, 2 bosses scenario is not unknown and quite difficult to sail thru.

    How much truth is in there in this story? :-)

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  4. A story that added smiles to my face. So readers be careful while filing your vacation request letters. Nice work friend!!!

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  5. @Nisha... Thanks, glad you had a good laugh. Yeah in larger organizations multiple bosses can be bosses from different teams who you work with on different projects.

    This was actually a true story, though the names are all different. The woman was so careless about things it was almost too good to pass up -- I just had to write a post about it! :-)

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  6. @sriramnivas.... Thanks, glad I can make you smile. It was meant to be a humorous post with a moral to it.

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  7. A great start to my day...you made me smile...You have a great way with words...you kept me interested till the last word...
    Thank you for visiting my blog...will look forward to your visits.
    Alpana

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  8. @magiceye... Thank you, please visit my site often! :-)

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  9. @Motifs.... Hi Alpana, welcome to my blog site. Thanks so much for your wonderful compliments. I'm glad I could make you smile. Even the words in your posts are equally engaging and pull me into another world when I read them. I look forward to your vists too.

    Thanks again! :-):-)

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  10. @Purba.... Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed it! Good to hear from you again, looking forward to your vists. :-)

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  11. @Zeba... Thanks, looking forward to your visits.

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  12. haha :-) good one .... by the way where r u these days? :-)

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    1. Thanks moon... glad you like it, and thanks for becoming my follower! :-)

      The contract at my current job ended so I've been busy job hunting for my next gig, so no time to blog. But I plan to have one coming up in a few weeks.

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