Newspaper or Nuisance paper?
(This post is not for the Old One. Have discussed this with him yesterday night.So he can skip reading this if he wishes to)
Yesterday morning, I got myself ready to go out and pay my Telephone bill for last month. Thing has to be said about my mobile service provider though: They say 15th is the last day every month for paying the telephone bill, but the bill never reaches you before atleast 10th of every month. This time, I guess it should have come on 12th Saturday or on 13th Sunday(am not sure, I was out of station. Or had it come already and my house owner didnt give it to us early? No thats not the case either. I saw the postal stamp on the bill and it had been dispatched only on 10th March). And sometimes the bill doesnt reach the home at all. You have to just go and pay the bill quoting your mobile number and the SMS you get telling the Bill Amount.
Unusual thing about yesterday was that the boy who delivers newspaper at our home had delivered a different news paper than what we usually get. There in the first page the news was that employees of my mobile service providing company, employees of all the departments you can think of in their company, are going on a three day strike. March 15-17, for whole of the Karnataka region and hence all their services are going to get affected for three days.
What!? That means I am not gonna pay the bill on time. Means there is one more day I have to go to work late. And would they really disconnect me for not paying the bill on time? No, they cant do that. I would go on 18th promptly and pay the bill. If they are on strike for 3 days, then who wud be working there to cut my phone connection, ha ha ha...
Anyway, I have already told guys at work that I would be late that morning: I tell you when you are working with a team thats spread across the timezones, these things are really important,for these people in US would schedule their time based upon that. If I go and pay my telephone bill today, that means there wont be a conference call now in the morning. Arvind would have to mail whatever transition hes doing to me, and if i dont have a conference call, I wont be able to clarify any doubts that I might get(Alas, Arvind's mails are so damn clear. There wont be any doubts most of the time, but yeah, you never know, there might be things which we might have not considered in the code and you would come to know of it only when you run and test it). So if I am not paying my telephone bill today, that means I am gonna be late to office on some other day and one more day I have to inform at work that am gonna be late and one more day there wont be a conference call in the morning. So, thats the effect paying this bill has on me.
Since I have already told them that am gonna be late, I just want to go and try out at their office: may be they could have made some alternative arrangements so that the customers might pay the bill. Why dont i give it a shot? So I board the bus and reach their office and what do I see? There is nothing called strike there. The office is working completely to its full strength and I see a never seen Q to pay the bill(for its the last date to pay the same). I was really pissed off at the newspaper publishers.Good that I didnt pay heed to that news and took a chance.
Its not that big deal for me actually: I could have paid the bill later also. Three days wouldnt have mattered much to me at all.(Which company in this country is so prompt that they wud cut their services for a 3day due, huh?) But think of some serious issue which they could have a wrong information on.Like, last week there was a buzz at work. The same news paper had published that a Kashmiri militant organisation has planned to attack and blow off the buildings of one of the software company's premises here. Because of this report, there was unprecedented security all over the software companies here. Even our HR as a measure of caution had warned us about this report. But, people at work were wondering: "How is this possible, yaar?Why this software company that they are targeting out of all other big giants here.?But, hey, only this newspaper has published this news while no other newspaper company has got this news and published it.
Strange isnt it?"
Yeah, right, its strange. May be these news paper companies are focussed more on increasing their sales volumes than the actual news itself. It doesnt matter much to them whats being said and whats the impact on so many people reading them. Every now and then there would be an Ad in their newspaper where they would boast: "Hey, guys look here(and there would be a bar graph there). This is amount of copies which we have sold over last few months. And look at our competitors. Poor fellows. They cant match us, can they?".
Well yes, they cant match you in being so awful and stupid, thats what I can say.
Yesterday morning, I got myself ready to go out and pay my Telephone bill for last month. Thing has to be said about my mobile service provider though: They say 15th is the last day every month for paying the telephone bill, but the bill never reaches you before atleast 10th of every month. This time, I guess it should have come on 12th Saturday or on 13th Sunday(am not sure, I was out of station. Or had it come already and my house owner didnt give it to us early? No thats not the case either. I saw the postal stamp on the bill and it had been dispatched only on 10th March). And sometimes the bill doesnt reach the home at all. You have to just go and pay the bill quoting your mobile number and the SMS you get telling the Bill Amount.
Unusual thing about yesterday was that the boy who delivers newspaper at our home had delivered a different news paper than what we usually get. There in the first page the news was that employees of my mobile service providing company, employees of all the departments you can think of in their company, are going on a three day strike. March 15-17, for whole of the Karnataka region and hence all their services are going to get affected for three days.
What!? That means I am not gonna pay the bill on time. Means there is one more day I have to go to work late. And would they really disconnect me for not paying the bill on time? No, they cant do that. I would go on 18th promptly and pay the bill. If they are on strike for 3 days, then who wud be working there to cut my phone connection, ha ha ha...
Anyway, I have already told guys at work that I would be late that morning: I tell you when you are working with a team thats spread across the timezones, these things are really important,for these people in US would schedule their time based upon that. If I go and pay my telephone bill today, that means there wont be a conference call now in the morning. Arvind would have to mail whatever transition hes doing to me, and if i dont have a conference call, I wont be able to clarify any doubts that I might get(Alas, Arvind's mails are so damn clear. There wont be any doubts most of the time, but yeah, you never know, there might be things which we might have not considered in the code and you would come to know of it only when you run and test it). So if I am not paying my telephone bill today, that means I am gonna be late to office on some other day and one more day I have to inform at work that am gonna be late and one more day there wont be a conference call in the morning. So, thats the effect paying this bill has on me.
Since I have already told them that am gonna be late, I just want to go and try out at their office: may be they could have made some alternative arrangements so that the customers might pay the bill. Why dont i give it a shot? So I board the bus and reach their office and what do I see? There is nothing called strike there. The office is working completely to its full strength and I see a never seen Q to pay the bill(for its the last date to pay the same). I was really pissed off at the newspaper publishers.Good that I didnt pay heed to that news and took a chance.
Its not that big deal for me actually: I could have paid the bill later also. Three days wouldnt have mattered much to me at all.(Which company in this country is so prompt that they wud cut their services for a 3day due, huh?) But think of some serious issue which they could have a wrong information on.Like, last week there was a buzz at work. The same news paper had published that a Kashmiri militant organisation has planned to attack and blow off the buildings of one of the software company's premises here. Because of this report, there was unprecedented security all over the software companies here. Even our HR as a measure of caution had warned us about this report. But, people at work were wondering: "How is this possible, yaar?Why this software company that they are targeting out of all other big giants here.?But, hey, only this newspaper has published this news while no other newspaper company has got this news and published it.
Strange isnt it?"
Yeah, right, its strange. May be these news paper companies are focussed more on increasing their sales volumes than the actual news itself. It doesnt matter much to them whats being said and whats the impact on so many people reading them. Every now and then there would be an Ad in their newspaper where they would boast: "Hey, guys look here(and there would be a bar graph there). This is amount of copies which we have sold over last few months. And look at our competitors. Poor fellows. They cant match us, can they?".
Well yes, they cant match you in being so awful and stupid, thats what I can say.
3 Comments:
I thought you are mad at me coz I'd written all that back then... Was glad to see you in my space... And am waiting for some super-duper posting from you Zygote...
Sametime...Do lafzon ki hai... Anonymity...I'll make a list..
Pondicherry... Kerala... Chennai... have we met?
To Poornima: To be honest, yes, I was little angry at you. But then realised its not your fault either! It would be better if I explain things. And am happy that things got straightened out.
I dont know what your definition of super-duper post is like and I am not posting for that sake either. I am just posting things the way they are! And if you like it, great. If you dont, then also great.
And let me make a list from my side too. Then we would have that 'list' also common between us :)
Pondicherry: Yes. I have been there for some years of my life.
Chennai: Definitelly yes. Many years there as well.
Kerala: Nope. Have been just these infrequent visits, now and then. So the probability that we had met in Chennai/Pondicherry is definitely high.
My definition of super-duper... well, now that I've said it, I have to make myself clear...But am not clear myself!
Ok- let me rephrase... am waiting for a posting from you! :o)
I hope I havent met you... and I hope I would... one day... someday....
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