Oh btw, If it isn't clear already, I *HATE* Facebook

So its a bright and sunny new day and you find that you are only five minutes late to work. You heave a sigh of relief because:



a. You don't have to make lame ass excuses for your late-ness such as "Oh I've been working so much with the US team that it twisted my sense of time and I started believing that I was on daylight saving too"

b. You are spared the embarrassment of seeing the look of disbelief on your boss's face when do infact have a genuine excuse like the last time - remember that? You told your boss that you lost your debit card and had to spend an entire hour canceling the card and then had to wait for another hour for a friend to give you the money because you were penniless. And because you were penniless, you actually couldn't come to office. Yeah your boss chortled away. But that didn't disturb you. What disturbed you was that your boss didn't show any concern for your state of penury. What's happening to the world you ask.



So, its all good today morn. Many people commented on your new haircut, which is always an upper. You turn on your laptop. Watch it hum back to life. Curse the shit out of it when it takes too long to load. You let your mails download one by one. Or in your case, make it bombs dropping by one by one. Work for you has never been less than world war 3. So while the bombs are dropping, you check your personal mail account to see if you have any new job offer. Yes your official position has always been that you love your work and yada yada and you really do but it doesn't really hurt to be curious. And that's how you justify a lil personal mail checking. All seems to be good there. Oh. Wait a facebook message from someone you exchanged pleasantries with 8 yrs back. Oh you wonder what she could want?



So you log into facebook and immediately see that your entire "friends" circle is up and about and so bloody active. Lot of status message updates already. Somebody's status message says that they just had a fancy breakfast that included bacon, ham, croissants and preserves. You sigh on reading that and your stomach rumbles because:



a. You've forgotten what a breakfast is because you haven't had one in a zillion years, because you have to look after yourself all by yourself

b. For you, there can only be only dynamite breakfast and that is the set dose special at shanti sagar together with south indian filter coffee.



Deep sigh. And you are filled with hate for that person with the fancy breakfast because just 20 minutes into your day and you are already yearning...



You peruse through your mails and pay special attention to the one from the boss. It says he needs the budget by 4 PM. Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit you say. You totally forgot about it. An entire year's budget in less than 6 hours!! (coffee breaks not included) But you don't panic. You are strangely zen about the whole thing because:



a. You did this last year in 3 hours, so considering that, this time it seems like a walk on the beach

b. You have everything you need so its just a matter of putting things together. Infact you even have the competition's budget - which needed a lot of chicanery on your part and its something that your proud of

c. You have a secret weapon called the "Miscellaneous" field. A place where you are going put all your extra needs if you run of time



So, all sorted, you toggle your windows and come back to the facebook page. You decide that this would be the day that you would update your status message. You think hard about what you want to say. Unlike other people, you are not at all glib when it comes to one-line self explanatory sentences. So you think hard. You frown. How about..



"..... is facing world war 3 at work"



Nah..too boring and very work slavish. Meanwhile your voyeuristic self rears its pretty head and you start trawling through all your "friends' "photo albums. You see that one of them has posted pics on the Sistine chapel. Again you sigh a deep sigh. You look around your cubicle, which, infact you remind yourself, was voted the most unclean cubicle in your entire building. You also remember how they took pictures of it to educate people on how not to maintain a cubicle. Sistine Chapel sounds nice you sigh. You yearn for a vacation. You've not had a vacation since err..well two weeks ago when you went to Ooty. That's it, you think. You'll tell everyone about your Ooty trip



"............is wishing that she was in front of a toasty fireplace in Ooty"



Ooty? you realize how lame that sounds. There are people putting up pictures about bar crawls in barcelona and here you are talking about lame ass ooty. You veto that one too. About the bar crawl, you wonder how people go to bars armed with cameras because:



a. When you want to get drunk, you never tell the people you are gulping with to hang on a sec and pose for a pic. How do people post apparently drunk pictures you ask yourself?

b. It sounds utterly lame ass and cheesy



You trawl some more and find that your best friend is "in a relationship" all of a sudden. And there's a little pink heart next to it. You start hyper ventilating because:



a. anybody in any relationship makes you hyper ventilate out of curiosity because that's just the person you are

b. You are hopping mad that the bitch didn't tell you and that you had to find out



So you do the most logical thing and immediately speed dial a common friend (CF). CF tells you that the bitch didn't tell anyone and that it was a facebook announcement you see. I've heard of breaking news and all but this was ridiculous. What ever happened to the good ol' fashioned manner of calling all your friends and telling them that you're in love and all. Yes, to be honest, you loathed such saccharine calls, but in hindsight, it seems more acceptable than this pink heart menace. You want your status message to say



".............Loathes pink hearts"



You veto that too, because in reality you don't loathe pink hearts. You just hate the bitch. You get back to your excel sheet and concentrate on the budget. Your meeting reminder pops up and reminds you that you have a major product meeting to attend to. You decide to go because:



a. Its good time pass

b. Its a meeting where cake and freshly brewed tea is served. What's not to attend you ask?



The meeting breezes on. You find yourself engaged. You are relieved and happy to know that the product will not only do well in the next 5 years, it will also kick ass. Hooray, pipip, Jai etc. Your ebullience makes you want to change your status message to



"......is working for the winning team"



but you shoot it down because being gun-ho about your company is soo passe in this world. You come out of the meeting and go back to your budget. You notice that your "Miscellaneous" line item is looking alarmingly large. You also notice that the whole world has converged on facebook and is furiously Web2.0-ing. Two of your colleagues ping you asking for advice on relationships and career. You are a born nutcase and instead of realizing that you should stay away from it all, you plunge in and give on full on advice. You tell one to go for it and the other to follow his bliss. You colleague thanks you for the relationship advice and informs you that he will break up with his girlfriend. You gulp. You double gulp. You then launch into a full on speech and try to dissuade this guy from breaking up because:



a. You don't want to be THAT person who precipitated the break up. Bad karma follows THAT person

b. You refuse to learn and just shut-the-fuck-up



Post the traumatic stress of being THAT person, you want your message to read



"..................is making a mental note NEVER to give relationship advice"



You veto that too because you know that isn't really true because as far as you know, giving random advice is truly your forte.



You are done with the budget and mail it off to the boss. You see that since morning all your facebook friends have been updating and re-updating their status messages. You have taken an entire day and not even come up with one while your buddies have made 15 updates already. A realization, that surges forth with a deep resonance, hits you. You loather this entity. Facebook. Because:



a. You are learning minute details of people that you wish you hadn't known. What ever happened to that thing called Discretion you ask. Why can't people just shut up you wonder? Why do I have to know what they ate, what they feel, what they are doing, who they are doing....why all this information and the urge to share. If people want to share, they should start a blog you say to yourself

b.Its unbridled exhibitionism. People don't want to share, they just want to show off. Oh look how cool I am, look how many friends I am etc. Its like high school and college all rolled into one. Take for instance all those people suddenly taking Barack Obama quizes. Really?? when surely 6 months ago these very people would have though that Barack Obama was some sort of sordid, diabolical south indian movie.

c. Your real true friends are lost in this diluted pool called "Friends list" It has all become so random. You hate the fact that your best friends write you non-intimate scraps that everyone can see and that those personal phone calls or emails have stopped because everything is on display on the profile page

d. You apparently have shit loads of work when apparently the rest of the world is having a care free life. Don't these people have work to do you ask?



You ruminate and close the facebook page.

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DISCLAIMER

1. Fictionalized account of my work place. No resemblance to the actual work I do and yes I do do a lot of work regardless of what my account might suggest

2. I Hate facebook. that part is true

3. Yes, I think in bullet point format.