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Corporate Kafka

There's a philosophy that you make someone feel guilty, let guilt drive him to the point where you can punish him while being no bad at all. The person in question will think that he deserves it, out of utter guilt.

My employer seems to be involved in this practice recently. We were supposed to get our performance reviews, and raises based on that, early in July. But they held our raises as "ransom", I would say, because we had to deliver two milestones later, one in August and second in early October. They want us to give us raises based on the performance not included in review period. You performed poor, there you go with couple more bucks, thinking you deserved it. You did good, there you go with a couple more bucks plus a lot of guilt as bonus, thinking you deserved it.

Guilt, you might think, comes from what?
Well, my employer has some unusual policies. Like 10 hours pure work day. If you think you want to have lunch today, work 1 hour more. Less than average annual leaves. Same hours in Ramadan. No overtime compensation.
So, this is what guilt comes from. Nobody follows minutes and seconds of timing. Sometimes you come late, sometimes you leave early. But since it was mentioned to be there for 10 (+1) hours, you are guilty. Everybody leaves early in Ramadan, so if you leave early and the employer is kind enough to give you a "relief", all those hours are going to be accumulated and cut off from your annual leaves. If you didn't take that "relief" and left minutes before Iftar, you are guilty.

All these accumulated guilts blast right on your performance sheet. No matter what you did, no matter how dedicated you were, nothing matters more than those skipped hours in last six months. The hours that were supposed to be missed since you had to work 10 (+1) hours everyday while running your daily life errands. And then you realize that this policy was made with an evil grin on the face. I tried to be vocal once but was immediately reminded of my missed hours. Enough to silence anyone.

As our reviews come inevitably nearer and nearer everyday, rumors has it that be prepared to die with this guilt.

Bullshit

I can smell bullshit from miles away.

The Innocent Past

When I was getting (much needed) haircut from Cha-cha Siddiq (same person who gave me my first haircut of life), the brawl for Eid moon was occupying TV. Then I asked him "How people long before TV, cell phones and radios used to find out about Eid moon when cloudy?" This is what he said...

"Once when I was a kid, Baba M_____ went to city (12km from my village) on last day of Ramadan to buy things for Eid. When he got there, the city, he saw everyone wearing new clothes and going in flocks towards Eid Gah. Then he ran back to the village and asked everyone to break the fast because it was Eid today. We said Eid prayer next day."

This is one of the many stories of "Innocent Past" I come to hear from my grandmother and old folks around. Suddenly we lost that innocence and made the hell out of everything.

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Death at a Funeral

I nearly killed myself while watching this movie. At least twice I paused it, laughed my heads off for half an hour, and then resumed. One of the funniest movies I have ever seen. I totally dig British comedy.

Messy Hair Month

Something happened to me on the morning of August 20th. Right when I was looking in the mirror getting ready for office, I thought and then challenged myself: Not to get haircut or comb my hair for a month, without telling anybody about it.

I thought I would post this on my blog once I am half way through. Actually half of the world could have recommended me a haircut right when I started, so you can imagine what my hair look like now and what would become of them on September 18th's morning. So far it's been love-hate relationship. First weekend of the decision: hardly anybody from my family notices it. Second weekend of the decision: everybody pushes me for an instant emergency-based haircut, when I just pretend to be lethargic and changing topic to random things. Some days I get so irritated and some days I feel like a lazy careless rockstar.

This is what certified insane people do when bored. Don't you try this.

Update: I do shampoo my hair regularly, so I don't really look like a Malung, yet.