RoboCorps

It's almost the end of my six week internship at a certain multinational bank. As it so happens whenever a certain chapter of our lives draws to a close, I find myself reflecting upon the entire internship and what aspects of it I'll miss when I'm back to eat-sleep-eat-repeat mode.

The most uncanny thing about interning here has undoubtedly been the kind of devotion that employees show towards work. Hence the term RoboCorp (short for Corporate. Yes I know I'm very smart to have coined that term). The first day that I entered the department I had been assigned to, I chose to be the Extra Preppy Internee and went around introducing myself to everyone there. The head of the department was effusive and cheerful enough. So was my supervisor, who was quietly surveying me and wondering if he would regret volunteering to be my supervisor over the next six weeks. I strode over to the other employees, especially one who hadn't even participated in the conversation I was having with the others and was staring at his computer screen with alarming attention. Not blinking. Clack clack clack, went his fingers on the keyboard. Eyes affixed to the screen. Silent and motionless, otherwise.

'Hey, I'm the new internee,' I chirped happily, trying not to get freaked out by the zombie-like behaviour.

'Yes, I know.' He replied shortly. Without even looking away from the computer screen. The keys on the black keyboard continued the staccato.

I shrugged off this incident, unnerved by his brusque behaviour. However, as I later found out, I had misinterpreted his abrupt manner. It wasn't just him, it was everyone. And that's when I realized that two years at this bank had transformed them all into RoboCorps.

Each morning, they would all troop in silently. Like missionaries on a secret vigil. They'd plop themselves into their identical swivel chairs, switch on their systems, and whoosh. What then ensued was a mindless marathon of never ending work- poring over spreadsheets spreading over so many columns that I never even know MS Excel could hold, devouring financial frameworks like teenage girls over the Twilight series, and matching figures from ledgers like mathematical superheroes. Of course, mindless would be the wrong adjective to use in this case. All of this work required immense concentration and dexterity. And undoubtedly resulted in heavy salaries.

Nevertheless, it was freaky. Every morning, I'd be forcing my bleary eyelids open just so that I could wrap my head around the rows and rows of figures splayed on the screen. All around me, these mathematical maestros were in their element, engrossed in their work. The only sound in the room was that of six pairs of hands going clickety clack, clickety clack. Morning passed into afternoon, past twilight and into the late hours of the night. And still, the clicking and clacking went on relentlessly, like the harbinger of some kind of impending doom.

Sometimes I felt like going up to them and shaking them. Unplugging their computers and scattering all their papers everywhere. The monotony was dreadful.Yes, there were pockets of laughter where they would crack jokes, pick on each other or have a rare conversation, but this mirth was seldom to be experienced.

It would be hours before any of them would even look away from their screens. Most of them arrived promptly at 9, or even before that at times. Instantaneously, they'd morph into RoboCorps and start working. Most of them didn't even go for lunch, and merely subsisted on the chai that the Bitchy Peon brought in twice a day. Nowadays, they even have aftari in the office. It's a wonder that their families haven't disowned them yet.

Their robotic indifference to everything around them was perturbing. As mentioned in my previous post, a number of employees in Business Planning & Analytics and Commercial Banking have had babies every week. Each time anyone in my department received an email, or was greeted by a peon bearing the glad tidings and mithai, someone would comment nonchalantly 'Guys, Zubair/ Hamza/Taha has had a baby.'

Awkward silence. The spell of the sinister staccato had been dispelled, painfully cleaving the air into half.

'Oh,' someone would finally say. 'I didn't know his wife was expecting.'

And that was it. The ceaseless agony of the keyboards would start again.
The day the AirBlue crash took place, someone piped up 'There's been a terrible crash in Islamabad. Over a hundred people were in it.'

A weighty silence pressed down upon us all. Then another whispered solemnly 'Mr. XYZ's wife was in the crash too. I just got an email.'

And then they all went back to the clickety clacking.

Fast forward to the day that the ANP member was killed. 'Some political person been killed,' someone spoke up all of a sudden. 'There are riots everywhere. You should go home,' he advised an employee who lived in Johar.

The employee's' eyes briefly moved away from the screen. 'Yeah,' he finally blurted out after much thought, and went back to his keyboard. He finally managed to pull himself away from his seat after half an hour. Maybe that's how long panic sets into a RoboCorp, I thought.

The other day, a fire drill was being conducted in the office. My heart leapt at the sound of the low, repetitive siren blaring throughout the office. Yes! Finally a chance to get a break and stretch my legs. I surveyed the people around me, waiting for any of them to make a move.

Nobody did.

The employee mentioned in the beginning of the post motioned me to come over and started explaining what I had to do with the file I was poring over.

I was stunned. Were these people deaf?

Finally, some female barged into our department, apparently out of breath. 'Get up you guys, it's a fire drill!' she hissed viciously and ran out.

These guys looked at each other and grinned amusedly. A slow smile flickered across their faces as they contemplated whether to participate in a silly fire drill or continue with their RoboCorp-ing.

Then someone finally pulled back his chair and ordered everyone to lock their systems.

I skipped down the stairs of the emergency exit and out behind the Branch Operations area. People were milling about and talking to each other; the diversion seemed to have been quite a welcome one. A much needed one, I might add. I hung around with my other internee friends for half an hour after that, and when I finally trooped into my department, bracing myself for those wretched keyboards, a calm silence descended upon me.

There was no one in the entire department.

Apparently that was the only time that the RoboCorps decided to get a life. I sighed, grateful to know that these guys were human too.

The Baby Boom

For all those who are interested (and even those who aren't), my internship is Mashallah sae going great. Not only do I have a very chill boss, but the only hot guy in the entire place is on my floor - EEEEE! :D

There is this one particular department on my floor where the employees are always having babies. No, I don't mean to say that the employees are giving birth in the department, during office hours. But seriously. So far, during the three weeks that I've been here, there have already been at least three babies whose births have brought glad tidings into this world and sentenced their parents to years of Pamper-ing (the brand, not the verb) and putting wailing tomato-faced cherubs to sleep. To celebrate the occasion, boxes of greasy mithai (sweetmeats) promptly arrived, carried in by peons who were by then tired of distributing them to everyone in the entire office.

I don't really like mithai. Gulab jamuns maybe, but nothing else. So every time a wimped out peon would offer me some from a box, I'd disdainfully survey the globs of mithai swimming in sheer (syrup) and politely decline. My friend Emma interns in another department, and time and again she's been boasting about boxes of Lindt and other chocolates that have been coming to her office and how successfully she's managed to swipe a number of them. So my interest in these babies eventually declined.

But today, an employee in Emma's (fellow intern) department has had a son. And Emma has promised to pester him until he gets chocolates to distribute in the office. Let's call this employee Daddy. Apparently, Daddy had told everyone that his wife was expecting, and since he's new, this kind of stayed in everyone's minds. It's hardly been two weeks since Daddy has joined, but he's been trying to be popular. While this is an insanely joyous occasion for him, it does have a downside. He now has a new nickname - Daddy- and whenever anyone calls him that, he pouts like a petulant five year old and childishly admonishes 'I'm not a daddy. No, I'm not.'

My friends and I have immediately labelled Daddy as a wannabe. I also feel sorry for the day old baby whose dad is denying his very existence in an attempt to be cool and sustain the non-existent interest that females here have in him. Tch tch. But our interest in getting our hands on those chocolates has still not subsided.

Nerdville

My boss has been away for umra for the past two weeks. A day before he left, he called me up and told me that this new kid would be coming in to teach SAT/GRE/GMAT. 'At the moment, he's being trained for both Math and English, so please help him out with anything related to English. He's very bright,' Boss vouched. 'He was a student with us last year and scored a 2300 something in his SAT. AND he's topped the IBA test this year.'

Any new addition to the prep center's staff is always looked forward to, and a smarty-pants would be all the more interesting. But when I finally met the alleged the IBA test topper, it turned out to be totally unclimactic.

I was sitting in the reception area talking to Sohaib (another teacher and one of my seniors at university) when Smarty-Pants strolled in.

Sohaib had just been praising him 'Yaar he has a great SAT score too.' I rolled my eyes inwardly- coming from KGS, SAT scores fail to astound me anymore. 'Hey, what was your score in the IBA test?'

Smarty-Pants adjusted his askew glasses. 'Um, I got a 345 out of 400,' he muttered in an embarassed tone.

I looked on impassively, unaffected. I mean hello, I've never even bothered to ask about my IBA test score in the past three years.

'So? That's good!' Sohaib chirped, noticing how downcast he looked.

'Not really,' mumbled Smarty-Pants, shifting from one foot to another. 'I could've gotten a better score, it's just that the Math section was really tough.'

Sohaib cocked an eyebrow. 'Dude, you topped the test. What else do you want?'

His tone immediately got Smarty-Pants all flustered. 'No, I just meant that it could've been better,' he finished lamely.

That very instant, Smarty-Pants' past and future flashed before my eyes. I saw him getting mini awards for coming first in primary school, mugging up stuff from exercise books and crying if he didn't get a full on a test. Getting a world distinction in Add Maths and cursing himself for not getting them in a couple of other subjects as well. I envisioned him having a heart attack on getting a GPA of 3.99 in his first semester at IBA.

What a wimp.

No Anees Hussain-ing

NOTE:  Everyone who hasn't been able to comment on my blog lately- please use the 'Name/URL' option from now on.

Saturday is one of the days I really look forward to now. Ever since my summer internship programme began last week, I haven't been able to take my regular classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So after a hectic work week, I look forward to four hours of AH. Some of the things that I have really been missing for the past ten days are:

1. Screaming at the reception walay to get me a pencil. Then shouting at them again to get me sharpened ones.

2. Looking out for Headband and thinking up of new subtle lines to insult him.

3. Looking out for new hot guys.

4. Green tea brought in by the reception walay. Especially since my encounter with the Bitchy Peon.

5. Muneeb-ur-Rehman's lame excuses for missing class.

6. This group of kids who used to explain FIFA to my sport-retarded self, and told me about Paul the Octopus.

So I was terribly terribly disappointed when some losers burnt up places in Gulistan-e-Johar and haalaat were kharaab. AH was closed for the day. Sniff.

The Coffee Freak and The Bitchy Peon

Yes, I know what you all must be thinking. Samosa Freak meets Coffee Freak? What an uncanny turn of events! However, I regret to say that this was a so-not-exciting and rather annoying encounter with an individual who has made me suffer terribly.

I have always been proud of the kind of stamina I have. Even after a gruelling day of uni and fours hours of Anees Hussain-ing, I've been able to go out with friends or even study. When others complain about how dead tired they are after a 9-6 internship, I hide the smirk on my face since I can never empathize with these people.

I have always been most pleased with the fact that I am not addicted to either tea or coffee, and a good night's sleep is more than sufficient for me. But since I happen to be human, I did realize that long internship hours were extremely tiring. Thankfully, this really nice peon on the first floor used to bring me coffee twice a day, and so I spent the first three days sitting with my friend Amal and having the most scintillating conversations ever. The fact that coffee perks me up like an Energizer bunny probably helped too.

When I finally managed to transfer to the department of my choice, I was ecstatic. But as the old adage goes- there's always some bad with the good.

The first day in the new department was terribly hectic. By 11 0' clock, I was absolutely dying for my daily dose of coffee. I stared at the computer screen with bleary eyes and willed myself to focus. Treasury Operations......Export Refinance Loans...... BIA.............................    ICOFR....zzzzzzzz...... Sitting in a chair all day doesn't help either, and it took me every ounce of energy to keep my face from falling flat on to the keyboard. I didn't think I'd have fancied QWERTY stamped across my face, and that thought kept me awake.

Tea was served around that time. In my dazed state, I failed to notice the peon who brought in chai. So when he entered the office a second time, I got up hurriedly and asked him to get me some coffee. Little had I known that he was no ordinary peon. He was a Bitchy Peon. THE Bitchy Peon.

'Humen sirf boss aur visitors ko coffee daenay kae orders hain,' (We're only allowed to serve coffee to the boss and to visitors) he apprised me in a very superior tone.

'Mujhay hamesha neechay sae coffee miltee hai,' (I always get coffee from downstairs) I whined beseechingly. Yes, I was whining, I was that desperate. Anyone would be, if they couldn't even keep their eyelids open. I felt like a ragged, starved and lowly fakeer (beggar) begging for a morsel of food, just to have the king's minions ridicule me. Jaisay coffee nahin caviar ho gai.

The Bitchy Peon finally came to his senses and suddenly realized that being diplomatic was the only way he could shrug me off. 'Main dekhta hun,' ('I'll see, but I'm not making any promises,) he finally muttered and scurried away.

As expected the coffee never came. But the Bitchy Peon did. He reappeared with chai several times during the day- rather an extra number of times that particular day- just so that he could rub in his superiority and jala-ofy me. My friend Saira Hassan, who works in another department on the same floor, had been disdainfully informed by the Bitchy Peon that 'interns don't get coffee'. I spent all of that day with bloodshot eyes, cursing the Bitchy Peon to death. Little had I known that my cursing was misplaced.

This morning, I trooped into the reception area to see Omer Mukhtar and another intern aka the Coffee Freak chatting. 'Yaar how in the world can I get coffee on this floor?!' I groaned wearily.

The Coffee Freak laughed. 'Interns aren't allowed coffee, but I manage to drink several cups during the day. I even made him [The Bitchy Peon] some coffee the other day.' He chuckled. 'It's because of me that he stopped giving the interns coffee.'

Now THAT got my blood boiling. Not only was this particular person enjoying a gazillion cups of coffee every day, but he was The Bitchy Peon's new BFF!  The word COFFEE was bleeping in my head like a huge pink neon sign, and this person had not only had A cup, but rather CUPS of coffee! Argh!

I mentally argh-ed to myself some more and mustered up a smile which was crappy at it's best, what with no coffee and all. 'Oh that's nice,' I finally managed to say. 'Could you try to wheedle him into getting me some too?'

The Coffee Freak pacified me with false hopes too. Like a defeated warrior, I slumped back into my seat, vowing to seek vengeance on The Bitchy Peon and the Coffee Freak. Time to chalk out a battle plan.

Of Internships and Attention-Seeking

Lately, my newsfeed has been peppered with statuses that rant, whine or boast about internships. So I thought I'd use this space to brag about mine. As if. Rather, I'm going to elaborate on how internships have conveniently divided people into lame categories.

Before this semester actually came to an end, people had started putting up statuses like 'Citibank or SBP?' or 'Sanofi or PnG?' These poor confused individuals were really meant to be sympathized with. Not only were these (un)lucky people getting more internship offers than they could keep track of, but they absolutely needed all one thousand, seven hundred and fifty-two people in their Facebook friends' list to advise them. What ensued (for obvious reasons) was a long list of notifications where half the people would have posted random comments ( Yaar kaisay ho tum, itnay time sae milay nahin) and cracked lame jokes, (Yaar! Kitni jaga pae pawwa hai tumhara?!) but not offered any suggestions. Nevertheless, the Confused Retard would track the number of not-so-helpful recommendations using a tally chart and then generate a bar chart on MS- Excel for the most popular bank/company (ratings would be high for places with the highest number of hot female employees people knew of). Where they finally decided to go is still a mystery (no attention seeking status followed), causing many to wonder whether the multiple internship offers had even been received at all.

Once the term ended, my batch had to attend a compulsory MBR conference. This presented many with the opportunty to whine incessantly about how ''My internship starts this week/ JUST A DAY after the exams!'' While this resulted in a lot of petting and clucking about the misfortunate people who had to work abhi sae, the woeful whiners secretly revelled in the prospects of how they would be done early and would feel sorry for those who would be slaving away in Ramazan. Little did they know that internees ( at least I) will get off at 3 then. Tch tch.

This retardedness did not quell once the first week of vacations started. The I-Work-Harder-Than-Thou Competition began. This loser in my class bragged about how three of his ideas had already been approved for future financial products, and that he would be getting a stipend of Rs. 12,000 PKR. Since this is a paltry amount compared to what I earn at AH in a month, I remained unimpressed. Also, hardly anyone would believe that an internee would receive double the regular stipend. People who make up lies should at least make up believable ones.

People can be so ridiculous. This one guy I know ditched a fairly good internship because 'they were making me do such a big project and the stipend was so low!' He promptly ditched a good opportunity to learn in favour of a lousy internship with is more of a summer camp, with free food as the only consolance. A regular query seems to be 'How much are they paying you?' Yes, I totally understand how everyone needs money to fill the empty stomachs of their five hungry children. But I fail to understand how a stipend that is Rs. 500 less than anyone else's will make a dent in your pocket.

This is also the time of the year when fashion freaks like my sister have a chance to shine, or rather whine. She spent endless days poring over the multitude of dresses in our wardrobe, complained that she had 'nothing to wear' and ended up flooding our already crammed wardrobe. The Summer Internship Collection rage has caught on now. And yes, we won't be needing to make her a bridal trousseau anymore.

Lastly, there are those who feel that it is their duty to inform us of what they have been having for lunch. Internship pictures are being used to convey the exact degree of oil in each company cafetaria's biryani so that we can create a benchmark for the biryani in the IBA cafetaria. Albums also contain close-ups of the insides of ice-cream cups so that everyone can gauge the amount and colour of ice-cream being doled out (and feel sad about having to pay for their food. Namely me).

The only thing I WILL brag about is the access card I received on Thursday. Because not only does it have a decent picture on it, it opens up doors too.

Retard-est

Sometimes it's not only the students who make me feel like banging my head against a wall, but also some of the teachers. One of my classmates from IBA, Muneeb-ur-Rehman recently joined AH to teach IELTS. The other day, it was raining heavily and so none of his students turned up. Instead of going home, Muneeb whined about having to cancell class- whined to the reception walay,  to Sir Irfan, and to everyone in the vicinity- and occupied a chair. I just rolled my eyes and thought dude, go home!

An African guy and his sister were sitting in the reception when I ducked out of class to get some handouts. Apparently no one at the reception could understand a word of what he was saying- he didn't seem to know any Urdu- so Sir Irfan was called for.

The African guy mumbled something and Sir reiterated 'What? You want to sell us books?'

'No! I give books,' he repeated adamantly. 'For Computer Studies.'

After ten minutes, Sir finally figured out that he was not a salesman. 'Do you want to study here?' he asked, slowly enunciating each word.

'Me not study, my sister,' he pointed to the hijabi girl sitting on his right. 'Maths.'

Sir sighed. 'That will be a problem for us, because there will be a communication gap,' he motioned between the two of them, saying 'communication' as if he was breaking up a word for a child.

'Why? You teach,' insisted the African guy. Tch tch. Poor Sir.

Sir held up his hands. 'Sorry, I don't teach.' Haha. Yeah right, Sir.

'What has she done so far?' Sir questioned, but was unable to be understood.

Muneeb-ur-Rehman, who couldn't stand staying out of the conversation any longer, got up and plopped into the chair next to African Guy and his sister. 'What has she studied so far?'

African Guy managed to convey that she had completed high school back at home, and wanted to apply for Computer Studies at Sindh University. (Yes, everyday I get to know about universities I never knew existed). That took another ten minutes.

'Ok, you bring your books, I'll teach. Come on Friday, I have class from 7-9,' volunteered Muneeb-ur-Rehman. It turned out that the books were for prep and not for Computer Studies.

Sir Irfan chuckled. 'Arey, tum parhao gaey kya ussay?' (Will you teach him)

Muneeb-ur-Rehman shrugged. 'Sure. Bring your books, we'll see.'

Apparently, he had agreed to teach the girl Math, when he's a teacher for English. During a time slot when he would be conducting an IELTS class. I guess the African guy really took a warming to Muneeb-ur-Rehman, because he asked me to call him from Sir Irfan's office a couple of minutes later.

'Please call, the guy,' he requested, as if Muneeb-ur-Rehman was THE GUY. When he came out from the office, he asked him to repeat everything he had just been told for the past half hour. Haha.