Life - or something like it

Let me tell you companies don't know s*** about hiring. They don't know how to treat job seekers as human beings, let alone with respect. The entire process is so screwed up and skewed in favor of companies that a job seeker has no bargaining position. It is time that companies stopped treating job seekers like beggars. Right from applying for a job, filling out mind-numbing applications on their websites (which can never represent who you truly are), to giving out personal information, past earnings, and gaps in jobs. Everything is designed to keep control in the hands of a company. So here are some real situations I faced in the recent past when trying to look for a job. All these interviews are at so-called "professional companies" and have pretty websites and great LinkedIn pages describing their successes and how good they are at helping their customers. Interview 1 I get called for an interview with a leading IT company. I used my networking skil...

The "sab chalta hai" attitude of Indians is quite famous and many even take pride in having this state of mind. Have we become a society which is used to accepting a mediocre quality of life? Are we so immune to this attitude of our fellow countrymen that we don't stop to think twice whether it is right or wrong? Image courtesy: www.mutiny.in Everyday we face these situations, where "thoda adjust kar lo" has become a slogan of sorts. I believe that unless we live in a different country/place where things are much better managed, we can never know the difference.  I have noticed these very annoying habits amongst people and they remain the same wherever you go in India. 1) What Queue? : People have no patience to wait in a queue for their turn. I have seen it happening at a number of places. People will push and shove you to be first at the movie ticket window or they will completely bypass the entire line and form a second line in front of that window...

This is usually how the conversation flows, whenever I am asked about my work. X: Do you work? Me: Yes I do. X: Which company? Me: I have my own business. I am a freelance content writer and an essay editor. X: Do you work from home?  Me: Yes. X: Wow, You are so lucky. It must be so good to work from your own home and not go out and work. No tension and no commute.  Photo courtesy: Forbes.com If I know the person well, I do go into a long winded explanation but usually I just say, it is not all luck, but involves tons of hard work. Well for all of you who are sailing in the same boat like me, let me say this, I know exactly how it feels when people say you are lucky, because you work from home. Most of us have given up our well paying jobs to raise children, to provide a stable home, because we have health issues that do not allow us to take full time jobs or like me who had to give up countless jobs because Hubs constantly keeps moving fro...

Does it ever happen to you, that one of God's creatures manages to get on your nerves every time it flaps it's wings? The title (Kabootar Ja Ja or Pigeon fly away) of this post aptly describes the feeling I have about Pigeons. These rats with wings have been hounding me everyday and have surrounded my house from everywhere. My house is under total lock down these days, with all the windows shut in the daytime, with only a little gap left for ventilation. The culprits  Every day, without fail, I am woken up not by the jangle of the alarm clock but by the scratching of claws on empty cardboard boxes stored on the kitchen ledge. Those dratted pigeons never fail to make an appearance early in the morning making that peculiar noise and dropping feathers everywhere. Even before I have managed to open my eyes completely, I am out of the bed, running behind these feathered monsters to shoo them away. Things have become so bad that these days, I have dreams of shooting these suck...

I could see the bright light through my closed eyes, I knew it was there, I was sure that it was not a dream. I tried to speak, but my mouth felt as if it was taped shut. I could hear them speaking, there were words, low murmurs, sound of metal striking metal. I felt a pressure on my abdomen and heard water gushing some where. Photo Courtesy:  Free Digital Photos My heart was fluttering and I was unable to swallow. I wanted to move my hands and scream, 'I am awake', 'I can feel and hear you'. I tried to open my mouth to scream but no words came out. My hands felt as if they were made of lead. I used all my strength to move them, to lift a finger, to show them I was awake. No one could hear the scream inside my head. I was a trapped inside a nightmare, from which there no escape. My confused mind started playing tricks and I thought I was in a bad dream. A nightmare, that was so vivid that it seemed unreal. I thought, that I will wake up soon and feel silly abou...

Dear Super Idiots, Everyday, while driving and even walking around the city, I come across people like you, who think they are God’s gift to humanity. Your arrogant attitude and non sense driving skills has prompted me to write this open letter. Yoo-hoo!! guys, you know who you are and hope you are reading this.I know that deep in your heart you do want to follow traffic rules, but again breaking rules is a matter of pride for you. You still think that being a rebel is in, and have taken it to heart. The other day, I was in a great mood and was on my way to do some shopping. I was waiting patiently for the signal to turn Green. There were only a few seconds remaining for the light to turn Green, 12,11,10 the seconds ticked away. At that moment, I felt that I was standing at a Derby with restless horses ready to start galloping, the moment the doors are thrown open. I suddenly see you and your friends starting to drive ahead in the incoming traffic just like untamed horses in the win...

I know that there is no such word, I totally made it up. After reading Psych Babblers post today..something prompted me to write this post.  She has written about our intense desire to be people pleasers at a cost which sometimes harms our self esteem and how we cannot please all people. We are social creatures and as such we need friends to be a part of this exciting journey we call life. When I was growing up, I had tons of friends, so many that my parents were alarmed at the number of people who turned up to celebrate my birthday. Slowly, as time passed some friends disappeared from my life and new ones came in. Every woman needs girlfriends in her life, there are some things your better half will never be able to understand even if he is your soul mate. We can discuss almost everything under the sun with our girlfriends right from, why we get angry with our maids, guests who drop in unannounced and leave a mess in the house, the latest fashion trends and the rising co...

Social media like Facbook, orkut and twitter have literally exploded in our faces these days. Friends and relatives are coming out of the woodwork as though, after a long period of hibernation. Everyday I get friend requests from people I have lost contact with for more than a decade.  The conversations start with excitement as we have so much catching up to do. After the initial furore things cool down once we discover that we are not the same people any more, the ones who bunked classes together, had beers and danced like maniacs to the beat of Hindi movie songs, gave a shoulder to cry to broken hearted classmates as they sighed and yearned for the attractive girls of the class.  All of us have changed, we have families, jobs and responsibilities. We are no longer the carefree people who thought that the world lay at our feet and we could conquer it all. The bond with classmates though not broken is not what it was earlier, it has weathered as time has...

This post has been itching my mind for past few days and how much ever I try to make it humorous, the funny words just refuse to come. I have been working for the past decade or so and had the chance to work in different companies with different work ethics and environment. Indian companies have evolved and so has the work culture. We now spend most of our waking hours at the workplace and it is like a second home to us. The workplace is like a big dysfunctional family with some members we want to completely avoid and others who bring comfort to us. The work culture has changed drastically in recent times with people having long work hours and the pressure to perform. With the influx of more and more young blood each day at the workplace most of us have become expendable. There is fear of getting overshadowed in this race to climb the corporate ladder. In such situations anything and everything has become acceptable. There is an insane rush to get promoted and stand out from ...

All of you from India or of Indian origin know the meaning of the post title. As you know, I am talking about house guests. I read a post at 'Musings' which inspired me to ponder and write this post. Over the years since my marriage, hubs and I have been entertaining house guests in myriad size, shapes and attitudes. Even living in this phoren land, there have been very few months when we did not have a guest. It has been wonderful to have friends and relatives dropping in, even if it is just for a day or two. In India, families of friends and friends of friends have stayed over to avail of our hospitality i.e. free lodging and boarding. I am not complaining folks, it was easier in India when you had someone to cook and clean and do other household tasks for you.  In UK, similar to other western countries you don't have a butler or a maid helping you out with chores. It all falls down on your shoulder, you become the official toilet scru...

SNAFU, Here is a crazy ass word for you. In short, 'I royally f***** up'. Remember this? Photo Courtesy : Flixster.com I am not in a much better state at the moment. Both my eyebrows now look as if they are running scared from each other.  I am in a 'Joey' moment and AM not liking it a bit.  Call me a lazy bum....I deserve it, for not getting up and plucking my eyebrows under better light.  I have scant hair in my eyebrows and so missing a few hair at odd spots really makes me look scary, maybe I will get a job to scare the pants off little pesky kids, bwahhhha Or I can join celebs ....no eyebrow thingy was quite hot last year and I can start a new trend all together. I usually pluck errant hair around my eyebrows and chop off the too long ones to bring them into shape. It was easier and cheaper in India, where you just hop into a salon and get them threaded by a beautician. Lancaster does not have any salons that provide this service and even if ...

It was one of those nights when sleep was evading me. It rarely happens, but yes it was happening yesterday night. I tried all tricks to fall asleep. 1. Counted sheep, jumping over the fence. Some of them even started looking like Usain Bolt & P.T. Usha. I must have counted at least a 2000 sheep, all of them merrily mocking at me. 2. Guzzled warm Milk. 3. Tried to relax my body from head to toe (Yoga style). 4. Pretended to sleep so my brain was fooled in to it. 5. Squirmed in to a comfortable position on the bed (this meant pushing hubby near the edge). Nothing worked. I was a walking zombie... (Quirky, this is entirely your fault). The bed felt too warm, so I threw off the covers. For a while, I thought, yes babes this will do the trick but I was freezing in sometime. This dance continued for a while. I was frustrated and the tossing and turning was not helping much. The blasted alarm clock became my nemesis. Every tick and tock was hammering in my brain. I cou...

You are in the shower, happily scrubbing away the grime and cleaning your pores. You are covered in soap and at that moment, the phone rings (Why does it always ring when you are in the loo or shower?). You scramble to grab a towel, come out of the bathroom dripping wet and shivering with cold. You take these efforts, so that you do not miss a call from a friend or family. You rush and pick up the phone to hear a debt management agency on the call. You feel like reaching inside the phone and socking the guy on his face. Not that, I do not acknowledge the fact that the telemarketers are just doing their job. But unsolicited calls can actually cheese you off. Most are selling stuff you will never buy. The enthusiastic way in which they try to sell you things which you don't need, can really grate on your nerves. Plus, the wasted time attending such calls can exhaust anyone. A few days back I had a really weird chat with a telemarketer, that too an Indian with a fake British accent. T...

We all hate chores, but like all adults we cannot run away from them. We have to behave like dutiful adults but all this pretence definitely gets tiring after a while. I am dropping my guard and ranting about it with passion. I am bad at doing some stuff around the house and I have to holler for hubs to rescue me from the mess I make. You can call me a nerd, opening a can of soup gives me heart palpitations. Same with pouring stuff like sugar in storage cans. Without fail, every time, I manage to drop half of it on the kitchen counter. Oops Clumsy me. As a child, I always ran away from chores to be done around the kitchen. It still gives me the heebie jeebies when I have to chop onions. I hate it from the bottom of my heart. My entire day is ruined, the day I cannot rope in hubs to chop them. My eyes are blood shot and I look like someone with a massive hangover. Give me cleaning the loo any day over ironing. Another dreaded housework. Who likes it anyway? Its pointless...a few minu...