5 Minute Call

 

On a regular day I was sitting on my desk and was working out the scenarios for the given application but my focus was on India vs Australia world cup match which was on its full swing. I was kept on glancing at the score on my mobile screen and in parallel I was doing the necessary work. All of a sudden my phone rang; it was Parmeshwar Hegde , the cool dude (Your welcome Parmesh ). I answered the call, we normally chat about the current match when it’s in its decisive phase and he called me for this very reason. We were discussing different circumstances where India can have an edge, which I am sure every Indian does especially when it’s a world-cup knock out match but well that’s another story, we were just into 3^rd minute of our argument which typically lasts maximum for 5 minutes but unexpectedly someone called out my name while I was on the call,

“Ankit”, Poonam Pandey (Name changed ) called out my name

Poonam Pandey was my colleague in my earlier assignment. Poonam joined Crap Bag just a week before I joined but she joined a job level senior than mine. I would not say that she used to boss me around but I will not entirely deny that either. There were few thing which I hated in her but always kept it to myself because she was just a coworker,

# She is very very impolite, whenever I came in the morning said “Hello” or “Hi”, she never replied or even looked at me !!! Can you BE any RUDER !!!

# She is not at all humble

# She does not have the word “Please” in her dictionary

# She has an ill attitude which I discovered lately and this blog gives account of that very event.

“Hold on”, I asked Parmesh and turned towards Poonam who sits just next to me

“What ?”, I asked her little rudely

“Go out of here and talk”, she said with a hideous look without even looking at me

I am working in this miserable industry from last 5 years now and I thought I have seen all kind of people     but little did I know that I still hadn’t met Poonam Pandey. I never even thought that even in a public place a person would not be so discourteous and this was an office !!!

I would have understood if I had done this repeatedly but I do not speak to Parmesh every 1 hour; I am not his girlfriend !!! but that boorish command from Poonam was absolutely uncalled for !!!

I disregarded her in fury and kept talking on the phone, I was in shock because I never expected this from anyone for me. And when something happens which you never anticipate; you do not know how to act in response and that’s why I did not answer her back, I finished my call after 2-3 minutes and continued my work. Since the moment was gone I did not feel like talking to her about it but I was hurt, no one deserves to hear things like that. I decided that enough is enough, I will just keep quiet and will never talk to her because until that time I gave her plenty of benefits of doubts on her actions but this incident crossed the threshold.

So I called Parmesh at same time for next couple of days and simply argue about cricket even if there was nothing to discuss, I wanted Poonam to say those things again so that I could exchange blows but she stayed unspoken !!! I let it go and by now my rage was also settled. I started practicing Mr. India outlook towards her,

# Mr. India outlook – Person is in front of you but you act as though no one is there, as if he/she is invisible, you don’t even speak to them but not even look at them.

It was working for me and I felt great about it because this gave me an insight that one crappy person whom I loathed from the bottom of my heart is out of my life. I was having a cool life from there onwards but I think something else was in store for me,

“Ankit”, Poonam called me

I pretended that I did not listen to her

“Ankit”, she called out again

“What ?” I turned towards her, could not be rude anymore

“Are you busy ?”, she asked

“Yes”, I said

“Ok then let me know when you are free”, she smiled

I did not come back to her with anything and started working, I faked for 20 minutes that I am working and then turned towards her and asked,

“You wanted to talk ?”

“It’s evident that we are not speaking to each other, do you know the reason for that ?”, she asked

“Yes I know”, I said calmly

“What is the cause ?”, she asked

“Why don’t you know the reason ?”, I enquired

“I know but you tell me what’s the reason ?”, she asked yet again

“The reason was that You asked me to go out and talk”, I finally told her

“YESSSSS, I thought instead of having a cold war between us let’s talk it out”, she smiled again

I could not believe my ears,

She wants to express regret !!!! Impossible !!

“Ok, what do you wanna talk about it”, I asked her with delight; waiting for her to apologize

“Look there are some business decorum and manners which needs to be followed in the office”

“Unmistakably, you are not aware of any”

WTF !!!

She opened her mouth to say more but I stopped her

“Wait Wait Wait”, I was Red Ankit

“You are saying that it was my fault ?”

“Yaaaaaaaaaaa !!!”, she said unperturbedly

“Ok then here is what I think before we even move on”, I said

“OK”, she acknowledged

“If you think it was my mistake then I don’t think that we should be having this discussion”, I grinned

“What ?”, it was her time to turn RED

“Yes, you heard me”

“Listen Ankit, I asked you to go out and talk, I was having a serious work and you were talking about cricket !! It was ok if you were talking to client or someone. There are some basic manners which everyone must follow, whenever I get a call I go out to attend it”

“Look Poonam, If you have so much problem with me then please go to your manager and ask him/her to allot you a sound proof room or at least complaint that the person sits next to you bothers you A LOT but I am not even 0.01% interested in discussing this anymore”

“Ok”, she almost spat on me and turned her back

I turned back to my machine and felt relieved and flabbergasted. I was stunned on recognition for 2 things,

# After analyzing the entire episode I learned that when she said “It’s evident that we are not speaking to each other, do you know the reason for that ?”, by this she meant it was she who stopped talking because of my blunder not the other way around !!!

# And after all this she wanted to become a larger person here and sought to rejuvenate the relation between us ONLY if I apologies for a single incident !!!

It’s been almost 2 weeks after this confrontation and I am still incapable to understand, how a person can be so dumb and rude to act like that.

Can a single 5 minute call be so intolerable ? I don’t think so