Skip to main content

Wework

 "An end of an era", as my colleague aptly put it.

It surely felt like it. After almost 3 years of memories, the occupants of the tiny office in Hackesher Markt were to be moved to one of the big, gleaming company offices, like chess pieces in the game of capitalism. After 3 years we would all start on our own ways, an eventuality we all knew was coming, just not on such a short notice. At a corporate level, such a move produced all the right words that provided visibility and hopefully a promotion and an office with a view for someone; strategic resource redistribution, cost optimisation etc etc.

Though to the ones parting, that little office was one of the few solaces in this rat race. It had offered friends in the place of politically correct colleagues, it had offered juicy gossip, offered an avenue to let out all the frustration around toxic bosses and meaningless tasks, offered song and laughter at the expense of each other and the neighbors next door. It had offered community. It had offered identity. We were the fun Berlin group while they were the serious, competitive and soulless London ones. 

And now here we were, herded to the isolated work-from-homes and big office spaces, which had a lot less and nothing more to offer. 

An end of an era indeed.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another Day at the Office

"I am sorry, but are you good at IT?", she inquired with the most apologetic of expression. I gave her an incredulous look. Seriously? This was the second time I was being asked that question in one month and I took offense. It was almost as if the world judged that the only reason my race would be allowed to venture overseas was to fix other people's computers. "No. I am a production engineer", I replied, half wondering if I should clarify it had nothing to do with human production, which my people are also well known for. "Oh. That is a pity. Our printer broke down and we were wondering how to fix it", she said pointing to a piece of contraption that lay on the table nearby. Men being men, I offered to help. On walking over and looking into the inside of the contraption, I saw what most millennials see if they were to ever see the inside of the multiple devices they are perpetually holding onto; abyss. I doubted she would give me a discount f...
Post a Comment
Read more

God of Hope

During my first semester in NUS, I took a philosophy module ( Reason and Persuasion), partly out of curiosity and partly out of a budding interest in the subject. The module mainly covered the dialogues of Plato, on his concept of morality, justice etc etc. Soon it became frustratingly obvious to me that philosophy was something that never really provided any answers, but just lead to even more question. The only notable highlight though was halfway through the module, the professor predictably enroached on the ground of religion, on the idea and the purpose behind religion, existence of God and so on. The depth of the discussion soon started to plant doubts about my own attitude towards religion. All these years, despite being an Hindu, my concept of religion was more that of an agnostic. I believed in the existence of the all powerful God but not in the forms that all the religions presented him to me. Religion to me was simply a human creation, a philosophy,a code of conduct. I ...
1 comment
Read more

Life in the Time of Corona

I can't remember the last time I felt I had this much time. Not that I was never the beneficiary of a balanced life within socialist Europe, but I had squandered much of it away, jumping from the consumption of ever immersive electronic devices, forgetful routines and the maintenance of social relationships. A digital detox felt timely. Faced with a swath of unfilled time, here I was blogging again after ages (does creative pursuits such as writing does not fall within digital detox?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). Time had flown. 2020 is a year that will live in all our memories till the end of our lives, not so much because of what happened, but because of what did not happen. A year that started promisingly with two memorable marriages of family and friend came to a halt as a tiny microorganism proved how vulnerable we humans still were. I remember when colleagues in the office laughed as a Chinese friend hoarded masks so she could send them back home. A month later they were asking her where the...
Post a Comment
Read more