If January is any indication of how this year is going to be, I don’t think I want any part of it:(

I’m not saying there isn’t a mix of the happies (new shoes, nice little relay thingy that a bunch of us ran, a lot of long weekends ahead, a promise of company for two mountainous trips which may or may not happen, but at least the thought is there), and the sadnesses but somehow the negatives right now (workplace angsts that are surprisingly unrelated to the R-word, and therefore completely unempathised with by others, cancelled wildlife holidays, ailing family and the ilk) seem to outweigh the positives so much that it’s all really very, very non-happy.

*sighs and whines needily and pathetically for hugs and chocolate:o*

... with big beanbags to sit and read on:o

I have after all these years finally figured out what I should have wanted to be when I grew up, while growing up.

I should have wanted to host travel plus food shows on TV. I can travel, and I can say nice things some times... especially about places that somebody else is paying me to eat in. And I can rate restaurants out of 10 too.

And I'm sure I can say stuff like I love Belgian whatevers or the world is my osyter, blah blah or recite extempore poems about obscure highway towns or just sit back and eat and let the finished plates do the talking

*sighs over lost opportunity*

I had to send some papers to Chennai. Nothing massively urgent, but I ended up couriering them anyway. I’d ideally have preferred to post it because the courier companies get all antsy about delivering out of city limits and you need someone to be available to sign for receipt.

But then I realised I didn’t have stamps. And I don’t know where the nearest post office is - nearest to home or work. A little discussion at the workplace did jig the memory a bit, and I now remember a post office near home. I vaguely recollect one somewhere near the workplace also but I can’t quite place it (I’m horribly afraid now that it might be just two buildings away).

But I still don’t remember seeing a post box either near the workplace or anywhere near home, and now I think about it, I can’t remember seeing a post box recently anywhere in Bangalore.

I am now contemplating wallowing in nostalgia over the one red and the bigger green (for parcels or some other such different thing?) post boxes that used to stand near the old house in Delhi.

I finally did something that I’ve often thought of doing at work.

After listening to another lot of inane conversation from the ‘boys’ on my floor, I finally went and gave the HR guy an earful today. My floor’s a pretty rotten place to sit. It’s dominated by men, rather unusual in the industry I work in, where you end to have more women. Most of the guys are okay but a few of them are plain idiots, and they really ruin everything. In the last year I’ve put up with increasing levels of crap, listened to more double meaning-ed sentences to wonder if some of them don’t have third meaning, and got to know far more then I care about the personal lives of my colleagues (including the women).

The guy who heads HR here used to sit with us earlier, so I figured he had an idea of the amount of crap that flies around every day. This morning began with a conversation in the morning that involved the worst of the offenders as well as the big boss (I actually had to ask him why that guy was being allowed to speak like that – not that it made an impact; this is the man who cracked bedroom jokes as part of his speech in a conference!). It sunk to really low levels though and I became really annoyed, so I went to the other floor, ranted to a gal pal in a position of some seniority, partook of sympathy and empathy both, and then finally went to the HR guy.

I figured I don’t care if I come off as a rat or even if this is not appreciated by the higher-ups, but there’s only so much I can endure. I’m really not interested in a daily dose of idiotic jokes on the other women in this office, stupid remarks about women in general, and general locker room conversation, including my neighbour’s favoured genre of movies before he got married!!!

Someone had to protest because no one is pulling them up, and I think everyone then begins to think its okay to continue the entendres. It’s been getting worse every day to the point where the jokes are actually aimed at people at work. I’d have spoken to my boss first but I don’t think he’ll pull up the main offender in question plus he wasn’t there. I don’t think HR will do anything anyway, even if he did listen patiently enough to me, but I think they need to be aware there’s a cause of concern. And I've never faced this issue anywhere else I've worked.

The HR guy’s smart enough to have picked up the undercurrents while he sat here though. The one humorous moment in the entire conversation with him being when he wanted to know if I wanted one of the female boss types to stop discussing her personal life in public and rather lurid detail.

And seeing all this in writing makes my workplace seem such a den of insanity and depravity, I’m surprised I’ve survived this long here! *sigh*

I don’t know about any particular highs this weekend but here go the lows...

I cancelled plans that would be considered active and energetic and hence good, in favour of plans that were less energetic. *sigh*:o

It’s possibly irrelevant to most of you, but one of my favourite coffee shops has done a vanishing act!:((. The Barista on St. Mark’s road, the coffee shop with one of the nicest locations in town and the bestest, most conducive to wallowing in nostalgia brickwork has gone a-missing. The building is still there and there’s clearly renovation happening within it, but the coffee shop per se is not. It's gone lock, stock and tattered, aging, scrabble boards, and there’s nothing to tell you if they plan to return. I’m depressed. I’ve whiled away a lot of quality time there, with a lot of fine friends, including anupma and was looking forward to more of the same.

And ...I tripped over a speed-breaker in the lane near my house, had a near spectacular fall on a fine, hard road, and am now the proud possessor of two scraped knees and one scraped elbow, sundry minor twinges and a tendency to whine more than the usual quota. Sympathy, etc is welcomed, nay, demanded.

On the highs, the weather's lovely. There's a nip in the air, and an afternoon sun to wallow in.

I need a holiday from my holiday:o