Latest
12:17 AM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
May 4, 2014
There is nothing more soul destroying than those ghastly company farewells where the departing staffer has to suffer the idiot comments of his bosses and then be given a silver chain or some other meaningless memento of his 16 years of loyal, selfless service after which everyone has a cold drink, a piece of cheap cake and the boss gives a dreary 'when do we get out of here' speech and that's it, 16 years of hard dedicated work up for grabs.
All you get is a crumpled can and a few soggy crumbs to show for it. By next week you won’t even be history, they’ll call you whatisname.
I remember one boss coming in to do the needful and he is hissing to his secretary, what's the name of the guy, the guy who is leaving, what department was he in, okay, okay, thanks, I've got it.
Then, five minutes later he's singing this staffer's praises and telling the assembly how he will be missed and we'll never forget him (ha, you didn't even remember the fellow) and he is welcome anytime he is in town and he should always treat this company as his second home (half the congregation wants to be sick by this time) and as a token of affection, on behalf of his colleagues here is a little gift (bought after emotionally blackmailing reluctant colleagues to cough up hundred bucks each and sending that office letter around 27 times to conjure up the splendid sum of Rs3800) and we hope it will always remind you of your tenure with us (perish the thought).
Much clapping, much backslapping, much hypocrisy riding down the room.
Then some idiot in the office who can’t keep his mouth shut says, speech, speech and everyone else joins in the chorus and now we have the departee coming up front and he pulls out this sheaf of foolscap as you look on in horror and launches into his reverse match.
It is all sickly sweet and he tells us how much he has learned and the happy memories he’ll take with him (seeing as how he got superseded eight years ago and didn’t even get a bonus this is really great going) and now he is drivelling on: I'II miss the MD, I'II miss the FM, I'II miss the GM, I'II miss the Adm Off, I'll miss the RM, I'll miss the Accounts Manager (nobody misses the Accounts Manager, they celebrate), the canteen, the Comm Mgr, the teaboy, all my beloved colleagues, Uncle Tom Cobbely and all.. .ho hum.
The way I see it, when you gotta go do that…go.
(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)
If my call is so important to them, why don’t they answer it for 22 minutes?
How come when I want to, but something specific online is the only item out of stock.
When I get into a queue or lane going fast, the moment I get in, it becomes the slowest and refuses to budge.
Read more... | Archives