Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
May 25, 2015

You have a boss. Most of us do. Good ones, bad ones, even you-have-to-be-kidding-me-is-this-what-I-got-as-my boss ones but in all my years I have never had a boss who said, okay everybody get your passports we are going to Phuket or the Costa del Sol, so pack your suntan lotion.

My bosses either celebrated an anniversary with a canteen lunch or a soggy cake and warm colas and oily samosas.

Even if the samosas are yummy compare that to this Chinese guy who has taken all 6,400 employees to France for a vacation at the same time. Cost him $14 million not counting those who swiped robes, bath towels, raided the mini bar and ran up spa bills. Which would have been another million or two. Come on, out of 6,400 there have to be at least 10% who clicked adult pay channels. His Accounts Department must have committed collective hara kiri.

So I called an ex boss and said, let’s have a reunion, sort of get all the old gang together, you fly them in, put them up and we can have a riotous weekend of fun.

Whatever for?

Because bosses do that sort of thing.

You never liked me, I didn’t like any of you when we worked together why would I get you all back into my life and pay for it, do I look crazy to you?

See what I mean, no spirit for the occasion.

Not one to give in I contacted another ex-chief and said, don’t you think that Chinese billionaire is something else, why don’t you do the same, take everyone to Goa or Colombo.

Silence at the other end.

Imagine, I said, three hundred senior journalists from way back when, bonding under your mentorship recalling the old times, the action on the editorial floor, the wars over un-passed vouchers, the grand battles….

More silence, then a weeping sound followed by a click.

So I said, hmmmmm, third time lucky and called the last boss I had (thankfully) and his secretary said he is in a meeting.

I said, it’s me, his old favourite son.

You, she said acidly, were not his favourite son, not even fifty fifth favourite, I don’t even think he wants to talk to you.

After much suspense and wrangling he came on the line and said, what do you want?

To party, I said.

So you have finally lost it, he said, do they have you in a straitjacket.

No, no, I said, just think of it, what a pleasure, you the boss, we the minions, reunited in festivity, all under the same roof…

Go wash your mouth.

We can rem… remin… remines… you know that word where we talk fondly about the past.

Whatever for, I celebrated the day I retired, no more journalists in my life, that’s why it is called the past, it’s over, I have had my party and my pleasure. 

Oh, when?

The pleasure of sending you packing and then going home and partying.

Guess we all can’t work for Chinese billionaires… have to settle for soggy samosas.

(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)