IgnoRantus

Just as I reach the crescendo of fretting about gender play at work and the related dynamics I hear about the New Zealand bird called Kea. Keas are clever birds that bend rules and create their own to adapt to the constantly changing world. The strategy seems fair, but unless it is tried and tested in a particular work environment one can never tell. It’s tough being a woman at work. And an ambitious one at that. An ambitious woman is almost an oxymoron. How dare she be ambitious? Does she not care for her husband and children? Does she not know what is good for her? These are not openly proclaimed, but implied in every deed and word.

The very fact of being female closes political doors, I am completely at a loss as to decipher the hieroglyphics on the walls or to decode secret languages. I am rudely shoved into unfamiliar terrain, nobody sympathises because this is what is in store for ambitious women. A young male is equally a novice in office politics but is clued on earlier into the dynamics of male interrelationship because that is what, unfortunately for me, a present day workplace largely is.

I am picking up, though. And fast. In time I fear I will be so much an expert at playing slick smooth political games that I might end up hating myself. A large part of career progression is about histrionics. Men do that, women hesitate to do that - I think. Arse licking is something that men do discreetly, going out for a drink with the boss and doing small and big favours for him and generally getting to know him socially and collectively leching at other women, which form the cornerstone of male camaraderie and bonding. Women are denied that window of opportunity to interact thus. Those who do go out for a drink with the boys run the risk of being seen as easy and willing to sleep to the top. And though one may care two hoots about what others think, such an image is a sure fire way to career suicide. If one is serious about reaching the policy making levels, ie.

I do not know if I am ever going to reach the policy making levels. I am not happy with the trillion restrictions I place on myself, but when I try to think outside of those restrictions my mind screams at me to get a life. The very notion of being a servile, sycophantic hyena who gnaws on discarded bones to start with and just waits for an opportunity to ease into the charmed inner circle of the jungle king is anathema to my soul. Career is slavery. You are a slave to all the bosses, but you swallow your ego for the paycheque and for the sake of future opportunities, and take it out on your subordinates when it gets too much. And therefore the restrictions that cut blood flow to my normal real person life for the sake of a career seem meaningless and soul selling. I do not know if men feel this way at all. Or are men so conditioned as to ignore such things at work? Just as women are conditioned to compromise and adjust? And maybe such conditioning is good?

The Team Leader

And then he swaggers in. His hair is gelled into spikes that gives his face a boyish charm. An unruly schoolboy wearing a man’s clothes. His niceness that I used to find so appealing now irritates me. He wears it like a mask; he wears it well.

His gait is confident, measured: tailored to emit silent messages of his capabilities, his 'leadership skills'. He walks like a man destined for higher things in life, who for the moment is doing his rounds on the training floor; with a resignation that comes from the knowledge that to get to the top of the ladder, one has to start from the lowest rung. The patience of a saint.

I am suddenly overcome by a strange urge to run to him, land a heavy one square on his jaw and scream that he is a loser, a goddamn fake article. It makes me nauseous.

But I see him flash his trademark fake smile, eyes all crinkly and creasing into two thin slits on his face. He croons, ‘Hello sweetheart, how are you?’, and I croon right back at him, ‘I am good, sweetie, how are you?’. I know now that he is fake. Does he know yet that I am too?

Midnight Binge

Working in a call centre does bring about certain less than desirable changes in the body clock. That is anybody’s guess. Well, I am no exception. When I started out on this job I grew progressively weaker, plagued by headaches and my naturally frail constitution did not help matters. I might be blessed with the tenacity of a bulldog, but not its stamina. The long and short of it all is that at the moment I do not eat, sleep or behave in a manner like normal humans do. Waking up at 12 o clock in the afternoon and groaning about the fact that there’s only 2 more hours left till I have to get dressed and climb into the van is not a pleasant thing to do. And I do that every single day, with no exception even on a Friday.

I have also come to believe that normal hunger patterns somehow wither away like a dried up mass of weeds, from us call center animals. Nobody is hungry at the right time. And we all work when we are supposed to eat, eat when we are supposed to sleep and sleep when we are supposed to be doing something constructive like the rest of the world does.

Like yesterday I came home famished. Normally I find a chicken-roll on the table, I warm it up in the microwave and that should be sufficient for a good night’s sleep. But yesterday, I had the usual chicken-roll and two musambis, I still wanted more. Well, it’s just the excitement of a weekend, I thought. But it was not so as I found out half an hour later. Sleep was not about to bless me kindly until I did something about my drooling tongue and mind. So I shuffled into the kitchen and set about making one of the most delicious meals ever. Yum. A huge, I mean huge heap of steamed, buttered vegetables, 10 cocktail sausages fried to perfection and two scrambled eggs. I ate it all. I mean, I am the kind of person who would consider one scrambled egg to be a satisfying meal, but I binged like there was no tomorrow. I was an animal. By the end of it, I couldn’t move. I could barely drag myself to bed and when I did I found myself unable to sleep again. But I ate. Somehow that made me happy. I ate well. I loved it. I yam luving it. I work in a call center. That my bahaana is.