THE STORY OF HOW ‘THE CALLING BELL’ CAME TO BE

Once upon a time there was a young man called Mahesh. He worked for Odyssey, taking care of their warehouse in Kottivakkam … the warehouse building managed by a young man called Sriram. His dad actually owns the place.

Their paths cross one day – er – not very dramatically I’m afraid (Dang! But wouldn’t it have been amazing is Mahesh had pushed Sriram out of the way of a speeding truck or saved him from being attacked by vicious dogs or something? Don’t these guys know that I have to write a blog about them and the material they give me is so blah sometimes? No fore-thought for these men, I tell you …. Hey! That can be my new status update on Facebook “Employers have no fore-thought”)

So they meet and smile in passing, as people tend to do [Please read-on in spite of the yawns. I promise you, it gets interesting]

One day the Odyssey people decide that they want to vacate the premise and Mahesh is in a fix. He’s a young man with a family to support! So – enterprisingly – he hands over his CV to Sriram who wants to employ Mahesh – in the newly-moved-in Synamen office in Nungambakkam - but doesn’t know what to employ him as.

Mahesh makes it easy by saying, “I’ll do any job sir!”

Obviously the trend in Synamen being, ‘No Conventional Interviews’ – remember how I got MY job? – Mahesh becomes the receptionist with a flashy green wall behind him and a funky curved table in front.

So every morning (Ahem - or afternoon - as the case maybe) when I walk through the door, there’s the sweetest guy to smile at, on entering the office.

Then suddenly something happened!

Vasanth – our designer – was leaving us! Vasanth is a young boy, who was studying in an Animation College in the evenings (who seemed terrified of me, for some strange reason) and he was looking for work. Obviously my 3 Bosses came to his rescue. They offered him a job – as usual - and paid him a salary for an entire year. Their logic being, ‘Ethethukko panam sellavu pannurom. Oru payyan munnukku vara sellavu pannuna nallathuthane?’ {We spend money on so many things. If we spend that on one young man’s progress, that’s good isn’t it?} Oh did I mention that Vasanth put no product out the entire year he was in Synamen?

Now Vasanth was leaving, and Mahesh – who had expressed an interest in wanting to join the IT team - got Vasanth’s computer and a new post as the HTML guy … Because:

A] There was now a spare computer - and we hate waste ;)

B] Bosses have not employed anyone recently and were feeling bored ….. So decided to launch ‘Synamen’s Employee Development Program’ with Mahesh.

But that left a vacant receptionist place, and that means anyone can enter the office unawares, and steal … er … nothing.

Oh, or maybe hold us all hostage! What? That COULD happen!

Which is when the Bosses came-up with the idea for - “A Calling Bell for the Office” and a 'Locked Door at all times' policy.

Now …. This is how men’s mind work. They like anything with wires and switches. They like to ‘build’ stuff and make things work. The bigger the mess they make – the more important it is that which they are doing. They like to talk technical and they all like to pitch-in.

(We women would just call an electrician and be done with it, but mention THAT and you have stepped on some seriously tender man-toes!)

So they all make man-noises, pound themselves importantly on their man-chests and promptly decide that The Calling Bell would be installed by them.

Because they are Electronics and Communication Engineers, on top of being men. Potent, killer-combination that!

(I just noticed that we have no Fire Extinguishers and Emergency Exits in this office!!!! HEALP!!)