Workaholics Anonymous

It's been a long hard day at work, and you are just too tired.  Your eyes are drooping and your spirits are sagging. So what would you rather do to cheer yourself up?

a) Get on the bus/train back home and catch a quick refreshing nap on the way; or

b) Get home groggily and take a hot/cold shower to freshen you up; or

c) Starbucks, here I come. Get yourself loaded on caffeine; or

d) Pull out your mobile device/iPod and play games till you go crazy; or

e) Get home and watch a movie lazing on the couch; or

f) Watch the umpteenth re-run of supposedly funny sitcoms; or

g) Call up some friend and chit-chat away to glory; or

h) Logon to the computer and do some work; or

i) Cook half-heartedly and be morose; or

j) Cook whole-heartedly and feast on your work; or

k) Just get home, hit the bed and sleep through the evening; or

l) Finish the long-delayed grocery shopping which just cannot be put off further; or

m) Finish the long-delayed laundry, which just cannot be put off further; or

n) Go jogging; or

o) Hit the gym and get health-conscious; or

p) Gaze into nowhere in particular and be half-asleep; or

q) Dream about the love of your life and what could have been if you were not alone at that time; or

r) Eat chocolate and drink some caffeine-laden soda or some uber-healthy juice; or

s) Skip the bus and just wander along on the way home thinking that the exercise might freshen you up; or

t) Walk home along the river with spectacular views of New York City in the evening twilight; with a sprinkling of rain in the air and a cool breeze blowing across; feeling the breeze in your face and immersed in the strains of 'Dil Gira Dafatan' on your earphones.  Heck, nothing beats that. :) 

Must have done all of the above, but the last one really pepped me up today. And for a change, I wanted my home to be a couple of blocks further away from the train station. 

Life rocks ! :) 

(And why is it that it's always 't' that ends up as my favorite? ;))

Looking forward to the weekend, eh?

Every day, when I walk from the WTC path station to my office, there's these bunch of pedestrian cops (as in, cops for pedestrians, not the other meaning !) who ensure that no one jaywalks at the traffic junction. It is not much of a traffic junction; but these 4-5 cops ensure that there is no pedestrian congestion near the WTC re-construction site. And they do a mighty good job at it. And that got me wondering - what do they really look forward to when they go to work everyday? I mean, it looks quite a thankless job from the outside, doesn't it?

Of course, this seems to be pretty much the same question as I had about toll booth operators last week. Or, do I have the same question about everyone who goes to work? Well, maybe. :)

So what does the security guard think when he goes to work? "Hope, nothing goes wrong today." Or maybe, "hope there is some action today." 

What about the guy working at the met office? Oh well, about the met guy, I have a whole lot of questions. How does he really work? Does he think something like, 'been predicting sunny weather for days together; time to pull out my rain slides today'? And if his dog is like Marley, then it would be 'dog barking too much, thunder and lightning forecast for the day'.

For that matter, what do software engineers look forward to when they go to work every day? Do they think - 'wow, another fine day in front of a bright large monitor, with pizza for lunch and a tank of soda for drink...can't wait to get to my desk and type all day' ?

Jokes apart, I think the met guys end up doing a fine job anyway. As do the toll booth operators or the cops at the WTC re-construction site. Ok, you can add the software engineers too. 

And I think I can safely speak for the latter that typing all day in front of a computer is much more exciting than it sounds. :) So, maybe work at the met office is fun too. And being a cop is definitely a cool job. 

So that brings us back to the question - what do all of these people really look forward to at work?

Well, what do you?

Crazy cricket connoisseur?

As the Indian Premier League 2 enters the final week of its league matches, die-hard cricket fans like me are obviously excited. Since most of these matches are scheduled at 8 pm India time (10-30 am EDT), it's pretty easy to follow them 'live'. And that is a scarcity for cricket fans in the US.

So, everyday, I am all set on Cricinfo following ball-by-ball commentary of practically all of these matches. The thrill of watching T20 live on television has been conveniently replaced by the 'excitement' of reading text commentary live. Well, not just the commentary. I devour practically every single word published on Cricinfo's IPL site - all the articles, anecdotes, observations, interviews, quotes, statistics, caricatures and of course, match bulletins and reports. 

It has reached to such an extent that even when I get to see a match live, I make sure that I am logged on to Cricinfo so that I do not miss any of their educated observations. And I suspect there are many others like me. :)  

Gotta admit that the love for sports makes a man do weird things in life. :)