25th Post ... and a rant.

My client wants us to come to office in shifts.7:00 am to 4:00 pm,11:00 am to 7:00 p.m and 12:p.m. to 8:00 p.m.One of the guys does not mind coming in any shift but has asked for the 11:00 a.m to 7:00 p.m shift. The other guy insists on coming in the morning shift which leaves me with the 12:00pm to 8:00 pm shift. Now all these gentlemen expected me to take it quietly and were nothing less than shocked when I said "I cant".3 pairs of eyes popping out of their respective heads, they all recited various reasons as to why they cud not take up that shift. The client says he will have to attend early morn meetings and so cant come in that shift (fair enuf).The second guy says his house is real far away and he needs to use the carpool. As of now come hail or high tide, the second guy leaves at sharp 5 and not a second later. Third guy says he has no problem with any shift “but” (there always is a but when people begin a sentence with “I have no problem with that”) his wife is scared of the dark and cant stay alone in the house when it gets late. And to my incredulous readers, I promise u that this was his exact reason.
And with that, these 3 fine gentlemen sat back and assumed that they had won the argument over me and waited for me to agree meekly. After all I had no meetings to attend, no carpool to catch and I definitely cud not say that my husband is scared of the dark and that I dare not leave him alone. And so it was nothing short of a shock to them when I replied “Surprise!!! I wont”.The reason I gave was that I cud not expect Anup to stay late everyday to take me home and neither cud I expect him to drive back and forth between office and home 4 times a day.
My client tried the guilt trip on me .He said “Anupama, you know, in 2003 I worked for 3 years in the same shift.Do you know which shift?” And unremorseful Anupama instead of meekly saying no, asked most sarcastically “24 hr shift?”. I might as well have not bothered. The sarcasm was totally wasted on the man who righteously replied “No, evening 3:00p.m to 11:00p.m shift”. I replied evenly “Well, ur wife stays at home and…” and was interrupted by the client triumphantly saying “I was not married then.” Ha! Gotcha! And I replied “When I was single I too worked like that. But marriage changes things and I cant work like that anymore”. And that was the end of the conversation that day.

Gentlemen, with all due respect, in spite of the concern u show for ur wife who stays at home,ur wife who is scared of the dark and ur wife who wants u to catch the carpool so that u can spend some quality time together at the end of both ur workdays ,u simply don’t get the point that I too am a wife. It simply does not occur to u that the way u guys like having ur wives home by sundown, working or otherwise, my poor husband may also like to have me home. You just assume that Anupama has no life whatsoever and her first and foremost desire in life is to act as a dumping ground for ur inconvenient office hours. Well, this may come as a total shock and I request u all to sit down and hold tight to ur seats but I do not live to make ur life easy. I am not a dumping ground or standby android for ur inconvenient working hrs.And while I live 15 min away from office and my husband is not scared of the dark, it still does not eliminate my need to spend time with my husband. I don’t work to make ur lives easy. I work for my livelihood. And just cos I do a lot of work, does not mean that u are free to go home. I assure you that you most definitely are not. I assure you that all those days when u left saying “call me if u need help” and I did not call u was cos I thot u needed to spend some time with ur wives and not cos I was a superwoman. I got time off for my extra work then but now am not agreeable to taking time off when u please cos sitting alone at home and holding imaginary conversations with my husband who wud be at office ,is simply not my idea of spending quality time with him. May I remind u that our team consists of 4 married people and not 3 married men and one conveniently-single single woman.

When I suggested rotating shifts, u, second guy, balked at the idea saying rotating shifts is of no use. Well, let me explain it to ur pea sized brain. It wud mean that all of us share the inconvenience of the odd shift and the workload. But I don’t expect u to understand that especially since u are used to sprinting out of office at sharp 5 as though the wolves were after u ,leaving me and the third guy to do the work.And its our combined kind natures that kept us from calling u up even when it meant that we worked late.
Third guy,u have been the best teammate I cud have had and to give u ur due ,u have stayed and shared several late hr tasks with me ,even though at ur house ur wife refused to leave the kitchen , that being the only room with a tubelight and the remaining rooms having light bulbs.Do not think that I don’t appreciate it even when I am unable to sympathise with ur wife’s fears.All I can suggest is that u find some kind of babysitter for wives( the kind they have for kids of working parents) and drop her there when u come in on the late shift,though I agree that it wud be tough to find such an instituition as there are not many wives out there who are so scared of the dark that they refuse to move from one room to another.Frankly,is ur wife underage?
To my client,I appreciate that u have seen reason and have agreed to my request to rotate shifts.
Closing this rant,gentlemen,no amount of sighing in my presence or complaining abt ur carpool will get me to agree to the odd shift.So u may as well spare ur breath,cos I too am a wife.