The Terminator

An email with the subject 'Work allocation for the weekend' popped up in my inbox one Friday evening. I found my name in the list and it said that I was required in office on both Saturday and Sunday. Bakshi hasn't even shown the courtesy to ask me if I am available over the weekend. My plan to take Cindy, a beautiful young Latino, for a lunch and then a movie was close to getting ruined. My blood boiled. The email was copied to everyone including a few client managers.

I asked the WRSC associate who was sitting next to me 'Dude!! Did you see this email?' I turned my screen towards him.
'Yeah!! What's up with it?' He looked curious.
'Bakshi haven't even asked me if I am available this weekend.'
'He never does. You're new this project, Huh?' He smiled.
'So you guys are always ready to be called over the weekends? Don't you have better things to do on a Saturday or a Sunday?'
'Yes, we plan some things but we keep them all tentative. We expect Bakshi to call us any time.'
'He calls you to office whenever he wants? There is no project plan?'
'Yes, there is. But it's as good as not having one. We get calls late night as well.'
'Jesus!!! What is this? Some kind of paramilitary troops ready to be mobilized any time during a crisis?' My question raised an eyebrow of my friend. He looked at me as if I have commented something terribly bad about his ethnic origin. I was talking to the wrong guy.

I turned my monitor back and sat straight. As I stared at the screen and imagined walking with Cindy, hand in hand, along the river Thames.

I clicked on the 'Reply to all' button and typed 'Hi Bakshi, I am not available this weekend. Please plan accordingly.' and pressed 'send'. Within 1 minute 20 seconds Bakshi was at my desk. I looked up at him. He was in great agony, in great anger. He was standing very close to me. Him being very short, his face was only a few inches away from mine. I could feel the power of his anger on my hair, as they got disturbed every time he exhaled.

'Do you think you are a genius, very intelligent?' Bakshi shouted.
'What's up?'
'Then why do you send such stupid emails?'
'What's so stupid about it?’
'Do you think I am fool?'
'What?'
'Why are you not available on the weekend?'
'I have some things planned.'
'What plan?'
'It's something personal.'
'What personal?'
'IT IS PERSONAL!!!'
'Yeah! What's so personal?'
'I can't tell you.'
'What is so personal with you that you can't tell me?'

This guy is really dumb, I thought. He was angry because he wouldn't be able to charge the client for my time for this weekend. That means he is going to make a fucking negligible loss for WRSC this quarter, which means a little less on the peanut target of his.

'Listen Bakshi!! I can’t work on this weekend. Please understand! ' I said.
'So you won’t work.' He flared through his nostrils. 'You will be terminated from WRSC.'
'What?'
'Yes, if you can't work, there is no point keeping you in WRSC. You will be terminated.'
He was talking as if WRSC was his dad's company and that we were his slaves. Bloody Terminator!!! I imagined him wearing a leather jacket and black sunglasses holding a double barrel gun in his hands walking with jerky movements across the floor and say 'I'll be back' with pan (aka kaini, supari, gutka or kaini) in his mouth. It looked pretty funny for a man of his height and would've made a perfect replacement for Arnold but the only problem was Terminator would've been a comedy movie. I almost laughed. Bakshi was shivering with fury when he sprinted back to his desk.

'Man!! You're great.' My colleague asked me as I turned back to my computer.
'Why so?'
'How can you talk to him like that? What are you going to lose if you work on a weekend?'
'The weekend billing of a regular programmer like me is nothing for WRSC and the WRSC share prices are not going to crash when the quarter results come out. If he needs my time to meet his next to useless target, he needs to be at least a little polite with me. He can't expect me to available round the clock and shout at me like that.'
'But still, you would end up in trouble man.' He advised me.
'Why don't you go and wash his ass every time he goes to the toilet? Trust me, you would be pretty good at it.' I replied and he was enlightened because he now had answers to all his questions.