It was a busy Monday morning and I had to rush to catch the office bus. I am usually late; running to catch the office bus is one of my cheap thrills.
Many a times I miss my office bus, catch the speeding 600K Vayu Vajra coming right behind(http://www.bmtcinfo.com/), get down at the sight of the office bus and board it. I have my little challenges in life - getting to office is one of them.
So in the rush to get to office, I forgot my access card. And the story begins.
I try to enter the gate as usual and the security stops me...
"Saar, Id card illa" he says smilingly.
In my 6+ donkey years at work, I had never forgotten my access card. But this small little incident made me think.
It made me think that although I have put in 6 years*260 days/year*8 hours of work at this place, I am still an outsider. I still need a supporting infrastructure (the card) to prove my identity. Very few recognise me by face - talk about downside of working for an MNC. On the contrary, about 15 years ago, when my dad took us to his office, we were all given a warm welcome. There were hardly 100-120 people in the office, so everyone knew everyone.
I could, however, walk in to the office with a duplicate ID card...
And thankfully my lunch group had no problems recognizing me - a curly-haired, wheatish complexion, rotund figure. This is the picture they have of me, with/without the ID card.
So, there isn't much of an identity crisis - just a temporary loss of it. So, no sweat! :-)
Ha ha nice one.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience in office yesterday when I forgot my ID card at home. They did give me a temporary card (without my photo on it ofcourse). But the security was very suspicious.
Later in the day, I was carrying my laptop to a conference room and this security guy stopped me.
"Sir, laptop" he said.
"Yes, this is laptop".
Smilingly he said "Saar, temporary card and laptop"....
"Am I not suppose to carry laptop if I have a temporary card"?
Finally he asked me - "Saar is this your own laptop"?
I told him "Yes" and he let me go :-) Oof... they ensure that you will not forget your card forever in your life again :-)
very true. too much dependence on technology and security at most places is a farce.
ReplyDeletehilarious,especially the first few lines! Guessyou can blog on ur challenge with boarding trains as well !
ReplyDeleteI forget my ID card many times and never had problem getting the temporary one! It even happened once that I thought I did not get my ID card, and got the temporrary ID, but in fact I had got my ID thatday! :D
ReplyDeleteGoing beyond the Access card and the laptops, there is a deeper message you get from these instances. Is that how much of importance we give to office/work/laptops/cells and ignore the ones who can actually recognize us without these...
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