SMALL - TALK AT A WEDDING HOUSE
The following is a conversation among a group of wedding guests who are invitees or relatives of the groom’s and the bride’s families. It is the first encounter and the usual introductions take place in an informal manner.Ravi : Hi!You look familiar! Are you the groom’s colleague?
Prabhu : No, a close friend of the groom’s brother. I’m Prabhu. He
and I work in a publishing house. I’m an accountant in T S
Publications.
Ravi : Oh! Is that so? They are one of the leading publishers, I’m
told, with a high turn over! Your work must be quite
interesting.
Prabhu : Far from it! It is a nine-to-five job, with a lot of paper
work and a fixed salary with no perks. But it is my first
job so I am learning the ropes to gain experience.
Ravi : I’m Ravi. I am with a small-scale industry. We produce
nuts and bolts for automobile ancillary units. I look after
administration as well as quality control, though my designation
is Senior Manager , Accounts.
Prabhu : You must be on your toes the whole day!
Ravi : Not at all! It’s a safe and sedate job especially when you have
a responsible team under your command. Besides,
there are no transfers, no chances of embezzlement and
no bossy orders from the top. Everything works on set
schedules and procedures, so I can go about my work in a
mechanical way till I am ready for retirement.
Kumar : I’m Kumar - Ravi’s cousin. He calls his monotonous job a
sedate one. Not my cup of tea! I’m in the State Fire fighting
Department. I literally and figuratively keep climbing
ladders.
Prabhu : Wow!You are the kind of person the kittens like!
Kumar : Yes!We do occasionally save kittens from trees and dogs
caught in large garbage bins, but more often we are fighting
fires in narrow streets and high-rise buildings.
Prabhu : Interesting! What are your hours of work? Twenty- four
hours? How about your salary?
Kumar : Not always. It’s not a nine-to-five job, nor a part time one.
Nor is it exactly flexi-time.We follow a shift system on
roster but adjust in a crisis with an over-time and often
forego our time-off voluntarily. As for salary, its a
government scale of pay with PF, CCA, HRA, increment,
bonus name it, we have it!
Prabhu : Do you have any other perquisites or privileges?
Kumar : Of course! We are fully insured with medical facilities.
Promotions are smooth and quick depending on our
performance. We have our share of holidays with travel
allowance and earned leave but “priority to the call of duty”
is the unspoken law.
Suresh : Duty is always the priority! I’m Suresh, a doctor - specialist
in Cardiology and my cell-phone and keys are always
within reach!
Kumar : You look too young to be a doctor! And how is your job?
Is it as exciting as mine?
Suresh : Well! ... exciting .. er... yes, in a way. It is as high-risk a job
as yours, because one wrong diagnosis or a careless
movement of the lancet and my career is as good as dead!
Ravi : Do you have fixed working hours when there are no outpatients
or theatre-operations?
Suresh : No, we are not bound by time-schedules, only duty
schedules. And other aspects like transfer are only in
government hospitals and private chain-hospitals.
Promotions .. well, you climb the career ladder on the
percentage of patients you successfully send out with full
recovery. In other words, your career growth is synonymous
with your experience measured by the trust your patients
have in you.
Prabhu : How about you? Are you with Kumar? You look as young
as him!
Gopal : No, I’m the bride’s cousin. I am a trainee at an engineering
unit. I have been appointed through my Institute’s
placement interviews.
Prabhu : Normally trainees are green at their jobs and are bound to
get “kicked around” a bit before they get stream-lined into
a specialised area of work. How is it with you?
Gopal : Well, nothing to provoke complaints, but the boss is a
demanding, tough task-master. He has a reputation of
having sacked thrice as many trainees as he has had
promoted. So I’m already on the look out for another
opening so that I can quit before he dismisses me!
Prabhu : You trainees are paid quite a sum these days ! Thirty years
ago an “apprentice” as he was called then, earned a
“stipend” of a maximum of Rs.100/- per month!
Gopal : Yes, job benefits are sound and having a pay-slip showing
a five-digit salary when we are just out of college, is quite
intoxicating. Besides, we have all other facilities and perks.
There’s travel allowance, over-time pay when we work
late hours; and there are luncheons and dinners galore on
the slightest pretext of a conference. And the work is really
challenging enough, to not burn out with fatigue or
boredom.
Prabhu : So when does your training get over?
Gopal : It’s a six month traineeship, then if I satisfy my boss I am
promoted right away into ‘executive’ position. From
thereon success depends on quantitative and qualitative
project completion. The more impressive my portfolio,
the better are the chances of growth.
Prabhu : All the best Gopal!
Shiva : Hey! Don’t leave me out! I’m Shiva, the bride’s kid brother,
and I am with the largest group in India. It’s called the
UGGI, the Unemployed Graduate Group of Idlers!
All : Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!! ...
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