PAY DAY

I know I will be the last one to get paid in my office.

How do I know this? This is how ……..

It was week number 3 of the month before and I was yet to get paid.

Did they forget? Are they ignoring me? Are they punishing me for Facebooking so much?

What????

I send an e-mail to Sriram. “Hey Boss, may I please get paid for last month? I need money for petrol”

I hit “SEND” and THEN feel like poop!

I mean c’mon! These guys work so hard and are in the office day in and day out, working 16 hours at a stretch sometimes, to launch PROHIVE and here I am adding one more burden to their overflowing bag of woes!

Shreeram, CS and Sriram haven’t had a pay-cheque in 2 years!!!!!

What kind of a leach am I?

I’m low. Lower than a snake’s belly-button.

These guys are doing something with their lives and I’m drifting along … on my good days!

How can I be so mean and un-understanding? So callous? So un-charitable? So un-Christian?

I look around guiltily and try not to picture my poor bosses standing in line to sell their blood to pay me.

CS pops his head over the partition. I’m wanted upstairs.

Guilt weighing my shoulders down, I trudge the stairs and enter Sriram’s office.

He asks me sit down and proceeds to spray the room liberally with Old Spice, to remove the toilet-stench that infuses his office [the rest-room’s just across his office and these 2 rooms are each other’s ventilation]

I squirm.

Poor Boss. Can’t even afford a room-freshener!

The mental image of them standing in line to sell blood, to pay for my ‘petrol’, flashes in my mind and I wince once again. How am I going to sleep at night?

“Edel, this is how it is”

Oh help!!!!

“What little we make we’re pumping back into Synamen. There are 9 guys working their butts off for PROHIVE, because we need to launch it yesterday. Vijay needs to take care of his father’s hospital bills. Mahesh is the sole bread-winner of his family and he has twins. Thamizh annan has just had a baby. Paramaesh makes just enough to make ends meet. You …..”

GULP!!!

“…… are going to spend your money on shoes”

Clothes actually.

Eh? How did he know about that? Did Preeta teach him that ‘Petrol’ was girls’ new code-word for anything to do with wardrobe?

“So you will be the last to get paid. I’m so sorry about this, but we’re stuck in a place where we have to prioritize even the order in which we pay.”

I walked out of his office feeling terribly superficial and a little wronged.

But I did get paid on the 3^rd week of the month!