October 28, 2006

Not so Funny!

Something interesting happened yesterday. I say interesting for lack of a better word.

The day being Friday, the 'Friday Fun At Work' games were held. Funny thing, Rajiv had told me around the same time last year, that all these HR 'Fun' Initiatives start around the time of the appraisals, and surprise surprise, appraisals are around the corner ;) After all, the HR folks must be getting appraised too!

Anyways, back to my story. One of the games was Virtual volleyball, with four teams, and one had to call out to another person in the other team, and that one would call to someone in the next team, and so on, till a person didn't know someone's name. Well, the team size is big, so that is bound to happen especially with atleast a coupla new folks every month. And the one who was caught without a name to call, would have to do anything the audience asked him/her to. Sounds like a recipe for trouble, aint it. Not there was trouble per se. But people behave more outrageously in groups than they would alone.

I had lots of work, so I tried sneaking up to my desk, after my name was called and I called out someone from the next team. My turn was done. I heard everyone laugh. There was a bakra caught, so I came back to investigate. Apparently the cue from the crowd was to imitate someone I will refer to as X (Not very inventive as far as aliases go, I know ;) )

Now, X is actually one of the PLs around, a good sport I suppose, because he didn't say anything as the bakra(for want of a better name, no offense :-P) even went up to his desk and shook hands with him. The team has a loooooot of people just under a year old, in terms of work ex. I doubt if most of the people stopped to think how they would feel if anyone if someone imitated him and he also happened to be quite senior. After all, any personal attack in front of a laughing crowd amounts to being vindictive, and is insulting.

No one stopped the 'imitation' from taking place. The folks conducting the game forgot to play their role of being an impartial conductor. I wish I could have stopped the thing, but it had started even before I found out what was happening. And maybe, even if I was there right at the very beginning, I still might have been a spectator. Most people in a crowd don't say anything even when they would like to, maybe because they don't want to play spoilsport, they just watch things happen. I maybe talking about riots, I don't know. I just know, that I didn't like what happened, even if X really didn't mind even a little bit, which I doubt.

7 comments:

Cruel Intentions said...

Mr X Eh? Now I wonder who that might have been?

Rush said...

@aman, not so hard to figure it out aint it??

@raj.. not quite d effect i was aiming for ;)

Padma said...

good to c ur blog rush.. where r the C & H? i'm missing them..
ya nobody likes theri imitation

unforgiven said...

Violence, physical or mental, is the last resort of the incompetent.

When one cannot tastefully grab attention, get back at someone, etc etc, they resort to the entire physical or mental violence thing.


Making personal attacks, humiliating and distasteful, no matter however funny they may seem to the rest of the world, is a part of the latter.



If I were you, I'd tell the asshole to stick one up and enjoy.


But then, that's just me :)

Rush said...

@ padma & rahul,

thanks for your comments :) been snowed in under work.. hence d loooong delay!

Samarth said...

X was a hansome fella??

Rush said...

naaaaaaaaaaaah