Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Hazards of taking Conference Calls from Home


It is always considered as a boon to have flexibility in terms of "Work from Home". Working in a Global project, I have various stakeholders who set up meetings at very odd hours. Only respite for not spending 24 hours in office is that I can take few of the late hours or early hour calls from home.

It generally works fine. Most of the time we have connection issues and Murphy's Law always wins !!! Weird issues like interference, sometimes my US counterpart wanna know if I stay in some sorta slum. Lol. I still remember he put all things on hold to check out my house's satellite view on google maps.

I generally try to avoid abusing the facilities given to us. This particular day was an exception as this close friend from office and my project was leaving the company and the whole gang planned to go out for dinner. And I had been skipping many get togthers and didnt want to miss this one. We had enough time to have dinner, loaf around and still reach home before the time stipulated for the call. If everything happened as planned I wont be writing about it.

The superb service the restaurant prides about, didnt fit into my time frame. We were famished and I had a time crunch. It was 12 15 when we finished with main course and there was cake cutting. Me and roomie reached home at 12 35 and logged into the call 7 - 8 minutes late, which was tolerable. Anyways Sym was leading the call and my turn had sometime to kick in.

Some 15 minutes into the call, there was a shriek from the next room. With all the suddenness, I couldnt find the mute button and I rushed to the Kitchen from where the noise came. Roomie stood froze. It reminded me of scene from crime or horror movie/shows. Well it was close.. well pretty close..

It was this horrible looking vampirish ( bcoz it was pale ) and Huge ( compared to a expected size. Courtesy for expectation: My Life Wikipedia ) ... BIG WAT? PALE WAT? HUGE WAT? Well it was on the wall. So it has to be a Lizard. I still go yewww after imagining that. Roomie always thought i was super adventurous and a symbol of courage, ( even i got to know about this that day :P ) looking at my plight it dawned upon her that it was upto her to shoo the lizard out of the house.. We are not letting the Lizard move around the house but just out of the kitchen. I also got some sympathy factor because my call was on.

God knows what folks on the call were discussing. There was such a grave danger lurking around in my house. I am sure if i unmuted all they could hear was Yeww.. aahhh.. help.!!!. god please take this thing out of my house. and God's reply - please i have better standards of prayer. Come back with better request.

I was of the idea if we switch off the lights, it would lose interest in our kitchen ( i wish i was such a bad cook. I dont want to invite lizard into the house :P ) We were actually trying to understand the Lizard pychology. Roomie says "No we should not switch off lights but also keep coming to kitchen in turn so that it doesnt start thinking this place is deserted. Lizard stay in a place because they think it is not being used" Wow we were applying logic. I am proud of us.

It was my turn to talk and handling the call, I did keep a watch on the Lizard and its route. After the call, I was just standing there trying to make noise with the vessels to ensure it hears that we are in the house. To emphasize we owned the place, atleast for the time being. It went near the door's frame and I guess it got confused which way out. I really wished it was educated ( not that we dont get confused between Push and Pull etc.. ) After many go's and Shoo's ... I couldnt see it anymore. I just closed the door. Just praying it doesnt fall on me due to the impact ( 1. God still was ignoring, bcoz even this was below his standard to intervene. "I could hear - Hello Dudette, I am supreme Power...get it?" 2. As per laws of physics the liz cant fly or do some matrix stunt to come and fall on you. )

Bottom line, we keep the doors closed and I stay back in office to finish up my work. Never take work home. ( never say never ;) )


9 comments:

zephyr said...

That was one super adventure Archana. But lizard are really clean creatures and they eat up all insects, poisonous or otherwise. They only look scary and yewwwy. Don't you know that they can come in through cracks in the doors and windows too? And did you counterparts ask you about the shriek and what did you tell them?

optimismattheheights said...

Thankfully it was muted. The initial shriek was passed as a interference noise. :) Everything has its positive side.

Rajan Thambehalli said...

I dont know what to say.... But good you managed to find some time to write and share your "Lizzy" Mc Guire tale

optimismattheheights said...

Lol Rajan.. my blog needed ur wise crack

Swathi said...

.... And me being the roomie, can totally imagine the scene (even now,,,eeewwwwwwww !) But hats off to our courage and determination, we did show the lizard its place huhh (head held high ;))

optimismattheheights said...

Yes Swathi!!! Many more adventures to come :)

Soul of The Violin said...

Finally the perennial issue of WORK LIFE BALANCE has a solution.

All i need to do is get a contract with pest control companies, and send them to my employees´place. So they spend enough time at home.


Blame it on lizard, all our perils... there was a time, the ``uneducated`` lot pinned their hopes on Lizard omen..

Today, the younger and empowered, rehabilitated Sapiens, pin their ``perils `` on Lizard omen ... Life surely has seen some evolution :)

optimismattheheights said...

My Calvin has a valid point

Amitabh Vatsya said...

Actually I also hated lizards for some time past in my life, and that resulted in decrease in Liz population by atleast a few percentage may be:P
..Applying logic..good one:P
Never say never:P