Crucial skill: Dressing for work

There is horrible fashion (?) trend that has splashed itself all over my office. I suspect it’s the case with most offices in India. People have been repeatedly spotted wearing horrid, fat, ugly flip-flops to work.  I mean, it truly is ugly and so wrong on so many levels. And it is not limited to a particular gender. It makes me cringe when I see people walking into office in that nasty footwear like they are walking into their bathrooms. I suspect that these set of people also wear crocs when they go to fine-dining restaurants.

Also seen around are: socks with floaters, t-shirt and jeans, shiny/blingy off-to-a-wedding attire, SHORTS (!), micro mini skirt, spaghetti tops, see-I’m-wearing-a-bra-today top and the nasty kurta and jeans look. It sometimes makes me feel like I’m working for an advertising agency where individuality is not only accepted but also encouraged. The organisation I work for is into serious academic publishing and though the company is not inflexible, people are expected to dress professionally and it would seem that the newer crop of employees all decided to ignore the dress code.

Time-to-time, an individual is gently “encouraged” to dress more professionally by their Managers. It gets worse, I tell you. Now I see some women wearing thin stoles around their shoulders when they report to their Managers to make up for the fact that they are wearing a spaghetti/sleeveless top underneath. How did so many people not learn what professional dressing really is?

Some months back, a newbie complained that she does not like to seem like a run-of-the-mill person dressed in blacks and navy blues all the time. She and I had a lengthy talk about how to invest in some basic pieces of clothing and how to work with colours and prints. She took the advice and personalised her formal skirts and tops with mid-calf boots and scarves, which went very well with her “edgy” professional look...and her short Mohawk hairstyle. Nope, I did not make that up. She does sport a Mohawk. She is a fantastic example of how not to lose your individuality or look boring in formals. Unfortunately, not many people seem to take the clue. I still see people turning up for work in their flip-flops.

The mid- and top-level managers are always dressed in formals mostly because we need to be prepared for sudden meetings or client visits and also since we represent our company. Then are there are some people make the weirdest choices. I know one Manager who is always dressed in formals but chooses to put together the fugliest clothes together. And on the days she turns up in her detergent coloured blue floral top and latte coloured pin-striped trousers, we know she is feeling at the top of the world. No kidding! Add to that her poor social skills and it is not surprising that most clients were under the false impression that I was attending all meetings with my secretary.  And I have had to explain her role in the organisation after 3+ years of interactions with the clients. Most of them were surprised. Yes, people judge you by what you wear. That’s life, deal with it.

Since we are a few businesses functioning together, there is a constant flow of interviewees to the conference room. It is discouraging to see some very capable candidates being turned down because they came in their pyjamas (true story!) or similar inappropriate attires. I mean geez! How difficult is it? For each and every interview or test that I went for, I made a conscious decision to dress in formals irrespective of what the outcome was to be or whether I would be appearing only for the written test and I expect the same from the candidates who appear. Is it too much to ask for?

Though I do hope that someday all this changes and people start taking workplaces more seriously, I want to get rid of all the ugly flip flops immediately. Let’s build a huge pile of nasty footwear and set them on fire. Can we do that?           

Maid and drama

The importance of maids in a household especially in a city cannot be stressed enough. If you get a good maid, you will spend each day in fear that she might leave you someday to better paying household. If you get a bad maid, you will pray to god to give you patience till you find a decent replacement. There is always some power struggle in a household where the maid and the memsahib don't see eye-to-eye and cruel fate has them on lockdown where their personal needs exceeds the desire to break free. 

Ever since my father retired and we started living a civilian life (a little over a year now), I have started to understand why this "other woman" is so important in all houses. I, however, refuse to let them walk around our house with the confidence that we would, as a family, collapse without their services.

Need I even say that all my maids have feared and/or hated me. I'm never rude with them...well, almost never, but I know how to use my words carefully to get the desired action. I'm always polite and firm and that puzzles most of them since they are used a certain amount of pleading and frustrated rude talk from other employers. And since I show no fear about them quitting and walking out, most of them are afraid that my "connections" will ensure that I'm not without a maid for long. They are partly right.

Most of my friends, wait for the time that our maid of the moment is left alone with me. Such opportunities usually come when my parents are out of town for a few days and I don't get the time to supervise the maid's work in the morning since I'm rushing to get ready for work. Invariably, a weekend or a public holiday comes along and the maid's nightmare comes true. I follow the maid as she works around the house...each furniture is moved and dust gathered, I run my finger on shelves and make them re-do the dusting and all utensils are inspected. I make sure that by the time they leave for the day, they have compensated for the shoddy work they did during the weekdays.

Some of them try to gain sympathy from you with a sob story (talks about her hungry children at home but omits to mention that they are 30 plus year old sons), some deliberately do a job poorly just to get you worked up and some test your limits till they understand how to break you. Fortunately, working women like me have an advantage here. We are so used to getting work done from difficult people that we are become almost impervious to their tricks.

For instance, one of the peons in my office has mastered the art of avoiding work. God alone knows how he got the job or what he gets paid for but I assume he's been with the organization for so long that he continues by being barely functional. If given any job, for instance, when asked to get 20 photocopies if a document. He returns after 5 minutes stating that the paper got jammed and he can not figure out what to do or the toner ran out in the printer. Naturally, we then ask him to use any other 5 printers available and he promptly disappears with the document for an indefinite period of time and in the meanwhile all one can do is sob at the desk for trusting him to do something. Some of us figured out the solution, which was to stand and instruct him on how to unclog the printer or tell him which particular printer to use. We showed patience and waited for the job to be completed by him. In some cases, we reported his misbehavior as well. Now he spends his days a avoiding us all together for as long as he can but then that's another story.

I use the same patience technique with my maids. They eventually realize that unless they do their job well, I'm going to stand in their heads the whole time. My friends like to believe that I put my maids in their place by dressing up in leather and sitting with a ready whip in my hand. I assure all of you, that is not the case. Nothing works better than seeming unaffected and being polite and firm in your interactions at the same time.

My current maid refuses the place the washed utensils in their designated places. Her excuse? That she was illiterate. I then asked her for the connection between utensils and education. Now she knows how to arrange the pots and pans. She earlier had the habit of asking me for time despite us having giant clocks in every room. I initially indulged her. When I would tell her the time, she would gasp and make a comment like "it's already been an hour (45 minutes/2 hours) since I started working?!" I then offered to teach her how to read time and also reminded her that she could save a lot of time by working faster. She now can miraculously read time by herself.

Beatles' hit song "All you need is love" would have been very different had they written if keeping the Indian maids in mind. With maids here, only patience and spine of stainless steel works.

 

Romance and working women

I have always prided myself for being one of those people who got everything one wishes for. I do consider myself blessed since I don't have to chase them...it all comes to me, neatly on my lap...tied up prettily in a bow. Good job offers, gadgets I have been eyeing suddenly gifted to me, more money, and yet the one thing that has always eluded me is romance.

A colleague once said, when I was feeling particularly low and lonely, "I don't believe a crap you say about not finding love. You have always had gorgeous, interesting, successful men around you. You just don't give them a chance." I wasn't so sure I believed her then but I couldn't ignore the weird tug in my heart that there was an element of truth in what she said. People have told me that I hang out with some really good looking men and that always perplexes me. Good looking men? Who are they talking about? My friends that I hang out with? I mean sure they are good looking and yeah they are very protective (and forgiving) towards me but should I even be seeking romance there? Is it ever okay to sully friendship by coloring romance into it?

I usually prefer to date men I don't consider "friend." An acquaintance maybe. While most women think it's absolutely fantastic to have this two-in-one package of friend-cum-lover, I find it boring. I have this essential need to have a friend to discuss boy troubles with and it is no fun if you have to discuss it with the man in your life just because when you found love, you slowly withdrew from your friends till they become just your drinking buddies.

So this brings us back to the problem of finding eligible bachelors to be acquainted with and to eventually date. This becomes particularly difficult when one is a working woman. A woman who is perceived to be doing fairly well in her career, is independent, and has no time or emotional bandwidth  to tolerate nonsense. Add to that the laziness to play pretty girl and go on dates that one has no clues where it's leading to. 

A large number of Indian men assume that the point of dating is to have sex and if you are an independent woman, surely you are not the stuck up sorts who wants to wait until you are married. All that is fine, I say, but what about romance? Where are those breed of men who send an embarrassingly huge bouquet of roses for you at work or plan special dates that does not include sexy lingerie and an agenda to see you in them? 

I know a very nice guy who had been asking me out for a long time. Problem was, he is younger than me and I did not even know if I wanted to go out with him. We planned to meet a few times and each time I cancelled. He is married now so it doesn't matter anymore. Maybe I was over thinking at that time but I have started seeing relationships as investments. And seeing that at some point his family is likely to object to him dating an older woman, it just sounded like a shaky deal that would leave me heartbroken and even more determined not to waste my time on a guy. And I do intend to find love and marry hopefully all done in a non-messy manner.

So this ought to mean that an arranged marriage would be ideal for me, right? No. Not really. Most men I met through arrange marriage setup go either way: 

1) "Do you know how to cook? When we start planning a family, I expect my  wife to stay at home because mother's love is important for a child." Very nice, sir. Now would you want me to perform a skit in bharatnatyam or would you like to hear me sing raag Bhairavi while ironing your clothes?

2) "I always wanted a working woman as my life partner. Women who are independent are great assets. I want my wife to be able to handle bank work or get groceries when I can't and not be sitting around helplessly. We should function like a team." Very good, sir. And what would the team colors be? You see, green doesn't go so well with yellow and I don't want people to pass snide comments when I'm running errands and you claim to be at work while you are actually at the pub shirking your end of the teamwork.

*sigh*

It's not easy being a working woman in search of giddy romance. While girls like me wait for a Mr. Right to show up, I'm afraid we will have to be content with one-time romantic encounters to keep our hopes high. You know, like, feeling happy about sitting next to a non-creepy cutie on the flight or making googly eyes at someone at an out-of-town conference. 

I am not ready to give up on romance yet. I just have to chant this mantra 108 times every morning before work.

Sleepless in Delhi

It's maddening sometimes...sleeplessness. It's like my body starts to wake up just as the sun starts to set and is in it's brightest and sharpest by midnight. I toss and turn, try to kill random thoughts just so my mind  calms down. I can't even figure out what's keeping me up. I sometimes blame the extra cup of coffee I had in the office during the day or some horror flick I had seen sometime in this lifetime. I am tired, that stays that way all day. I usually am not sleepy at work either and then there are those days when I am mentally (and frantically) searching for a hidden corner somewhere near my desk where I could slip in for a quick snooze. Hopefully somewhere no one can hear my snores. Yup, I snore, which is why I never sleep in planes. I'm absolutely terrified of being that one person everyone stares at as if in disbelief that a lady can snore like a good old rattling Indian trucks on a bumpy road.

Even now my eyes are heavy and I'm was trying to sleep but it evades me completely. I remind myself that it's almost 3 am and I have to be up at 6 to let my maid into my house. It was the same story last night...and the nights before that. 

I miss being so tired that I pass out blissfully in my bed only to wake up in the morning fresh and ready to face the day. Instead, I shall be greeting the morn like I were face-to-face with a nightmare. The day will pass in a state of strange disconnect. I have now learned the pattern. That is sad. 

I need human contact when I sleep. Could my years of sharing the room with my sister have left me crippled? I am usually at peace when a part of me in touching someone like it needs reassurance that I am not alone in the room. It seems strange now that I have lived by myself in the past and I certainly did not stay up for 7 years! Maybe if I try to solve this mystery of why I'm an insomniac, I'll be able to rest. That's what I'll do now. I have nothing better to do.

Working women and mama's boys

I used to joke earlier that instead of a husband, I need a wife just to have someone who would take care of home while I was away at work. The thought of walking home to Nigella Lawson or Kylie Kwong’s fantastic cooking has always been a somewhat of a fantasy for me. It is a sexist thought, I admit, and despite having positive male role models in my (the one’s who participate in housework to assist their wife), l can’t help but fear the “responsibilities” of a wife that the society expects. Even independent women like me do face guilt brought in by parents, television and society that no matter how much we earn, we are incomplete unless we harassed by thoughts of running a smooth house while juggling career,  clean house, screaming toddlers, fantastic cooking skills and a 30 plus year old husband who is incapable of finding his socks. Being successful continues to mean different things in a man and in a woman’s life.

I have lived away from family for 4 years and I did manage very well when it came to handling housework and bills. I was and still am quite proud at how well I adjusted to a life without servants and I enjoyed every moment of it. So staying alone is never a problem for me; it’s the entire thought of living with a man whose mother did everything for him that repulses me. For those who say, “adjustments and compromises are a part of married life,” I wholly and completely agree with you. The question is how much adjusting and compromising should a woman do?  There’s a joke that I read sometime back that makes a good point here. It goes as this: Guys, to impress an Asian woman, give her equal rights. There is no denying that most of us (I’m addressing Asian women here) would find it difficult to control our tears of joy and, dare I say, gratitude if the man of our life willingly helped us run our household. You know the one who says, “Honey, since you are cooking, let me take care of the laundry/children’s homework/washing the dishes…”

Most of us have grown up seeing our fathers come home from work and mothers rushing with tea and snacks for them. We grew up knowing that fathers are not to be disturbed for the rest of the evening since they had gone to office and had worked hard. Now that women have not just started taking up jobs but also started building careers, we don’t get fooled so easily by excuses of “went to office and hence tired.” Now the scenarios are changing in an average house.

Imagine this, husband and wife come back from work and wife gets busy with a household chore.

Wife:  Hun, could you take care of (insert any household chore)

Husband: but I just got back from work!

Wife: So did I!

Husband: *whimpers* but my mother did this and more all her life.

Wife: She didn’t have a 9 to 5 job like I do.

Husband: *whimpers*

Maybe that is one reason some men don’t like women who work. It means loss of good, warm homemade food, sorting out clothes and bills with the dhobi, being equally responsible in bringing up kids, and weekly trips to the sabzi mandi. For most of these men, the thought of helping the spouse doesn’t occur thanks to their loving mamas who did EVERYTHING for them. Does the current generation of mothers have what it takes to make life easier for the young woman who will share her life with her son?

Re-training your mind for unending possibilities

In any work environment, attitude separates winners from losers. This does not mean that winners move from one to win to another but that when things are going bad, they don’t crumble. They remain positive long enough for times to change in their favor. So, why do positive people always see the sunshine when things are going well and silver lining on the worst days?

According to some studies, it’s just the way our brain works. We have a very strong tendency to see what we want to see and what we expect to see. Do you remember the last time you had to make an important decision, for example, buy a new car? You may have liked a particular model but had to wait till you got your hands on it and in those days, all you noticed is how many cars in the model you liked are on the street. They were in front of you, honking impatiently behind you, overtaking you. They seem to be everywhere! The way we think, determines what we see. The subconscious mind is still often underrated especially in any workplace. This has huge implications when studying our customers, markets, competitors, and other data that influences key business decisions.

When we only see what we want or expect to see, we miss competitive threats because our brain ignores the possibility of danger from that direction. For similar reasons, we miss opportunities because we only see what has worked in the past rather than what could be. We miss major market shifts and changes in customer needs that seem obvious in hindsight but are easily overlooked when focusing on what we already know.

We humans are wired such way that we have a natural affinity for set patterns and make connections (have you noticed face of your deity on your toast lately?). Our brain is constantly filling information gaps. What was/is a very important function for our safety also makes us vulnerable to jump at the first answer/solution that pops to our head rather than take the time to examine all the data. This is especially true in today’s world where we receive more information every day than we have time to assimilate. Important facts are that the brain doesn’t always get it right and it is possible to re-train your mind.

Most people know that yoga and martial arts not just work on the body but on the mind too. They both have the same underlining philosophy, calm the mind. A calm mind is more focused when not panicking at the first appearance of a problem real or imagined. For those who are as impatient as I am, when faced by a dilemma that makes you want to throw your hands in the air and lament, “what can I do?!” ask yourself, “what else can I do to take care of XYZ problem?” This is the most basic brain training. The minute you pose the question differently, your brain opens up and starts to search for other possibilities. It is easy and possible. An example from real life is when I had just started working and I had to send some documents urgently to an author who had no mobile phone and was not attending his landline number either. All I had was his address and when our peon, who had gone to deliver the documents, got confused between two very similar addresses not too close each other, I had to figure out a way. Once I managed to calm my agitated mind, it struck me that taxi and auto drivers are usually familiar with routes and addresses. I phoned the local taxi stand closest to the address (thanks to Google!), I was able to speak to a friendly driver who explained the route and important landmarks, which I was then able to communicate to the peon. The work got done within minutes. Had my colleague been handling the situation, he would have asked the peon to return with the documents (as he was advising me to do) and cribbed about people who don’t attend to their phones.

As for attitude at workplace that I discussed at the beginning of this post, positive people are already tuned to the part of brain that is open to other possibilities. They believe that things will be OK and they often don’t even realize when they have started on a new/unknown road to recovery. Of course, there are situations beyond one’s control but an open and calm mind is listening to every opportunity and is waiting for it to knock.

How work and play made me a good hostess

When I joined my current company as an Assistant Editor, I got the opportunity of working with publishing giant with the added advantage of working in a fairly new branch. This of course meant that my role was much more than what was expected out of me. Not having a dedicated marketing team for the journal’s team meant I had to work with the Indian marketing team based here for all promotions in India. And before I knew it, I was asked to help out organize in-house events as well. I recall the first time I ventured into this unknown territory. What all my friends know and the office did not know was that I am a much better guest than I am hostess. However, here I was, organizing snacks and food items for a team of 80 plus. I think I stopped eating for a few days until the event out of sheer stress.

It took about two in-house events till I noticed a trend…samosas disappear very quickly, so does dhokla. Shammi kababs will always have takers and bread pakoras are usually avoided by most. There are not many soft drink drinkers either. Most people are not OK with trying out tarts and pies and it is redundant to order tarts when there is cake to be had. Also, cakes and champagnes disappear very, very quickly. Once I understood this, I know exactly how much to order when catering to 100 plus people while keeping their tastes and appetites in mind. One thing that happily changed was that now there was hardly any food wasted even when everyone had managed to eat well. All within the budget too, I add. I now had phone numbers of Nathu, Bikanerwala, Haldirams, Wengers, and other eating joints in and around Connaught Place. I was then made the Food-in-Charge of the newly started recreation club in the office. Now while all this was going well, my reputation as a party person reached some members of the top management and then came up with the request to come up with games and other activities for our picnics and other social get-togethers. Again, since I was new and they were seniors, I could not bring myself to telling them that I was good at clubbing and bar hopping and not at organizing games. However, thanks to internet and some common sense, I was able to tackle this challenge as well. My friends had no idea that I was honing my hosting skills at work…until recently, that is.

One of my closest friends owns Party Hunterz in Delhi, which made me the designated person to organize the Naughty at 40 b’day bash for a friend and colleague, at her house. I hunted down a baker and had a naughty cake arranged, got cool hats and headgears for all people at the party and made sure that the b’day girl really stood out it her craziest b’day accessories that I bought from the party store. Everybody had loads of fun and I blabbed all about it to my friends. My friend still did not believe me completely.

Now, my sister is getting married this month and since her wedding was decided very soon and very unexpectedly, and my friends were more nervous than I was about the Bachelorette that we had to throw for them (my sis and I have loads of friends in common). My Party Hunterz friend was even more anxious since he thought I was missing all party hosting genes. Since he was caught up in opening his third store in Delhi and with various other events thrown, he pestered me to organize a good party for her (as if I wouldn’t have!). I assured him that I would take care of it all and so he then pestered me even more to make sure it was perfect. Thankfully he got really tied up with work and I was able to plan it out at my pace. I got a list of my sister’s close friends from college that I did not know too well, called them up, invited all participants, got a final count, booked a suite in Radisson Blu, booked buffet dinners for all attendees, got glitter hats for all men (yes, we had men in the bachelorette as well) and cutest bunny ears for all girls, “bride-to-be” gear for my sister, and some naughty and drinking games. I even managed to buy truckloads of alcohol for the party though I had to enlist help from 2 friends. All that done, we all met up in the suite, danced our heads off, drank like crazy without getting drunk, jumped on beds, laughed and laughed and shared raunchy gossips. By the next day, the suite looked like some hardcore rockers had spent a week in there. Bride-to-be was really happy and my friends were very happy to tell me that it was the best bachelorette that they had ever attended. My Party Hunterz friend came to tell me that I had done a really good job. Coming from him (he is the perfect host at all his parties, btw), it meant a HUGE deal.

My friends are already planning on having lots of get-togethers at my house once the wedding is over. I don’t think I’ll have much time to miss my sister. I’m already nervous about the new standards of hosting that everyone now expects from me. But like all other times, I accept the challenge.