A “2-minute Judge” and a bunch of baloney.

Very rarely am I inclined to write on any serious subjects. Normally I like to write abt whatever goes through my mind, crazy or otherwise. Recently I was so amazed by an incident at one of our offices in India that I have to write about it .It all started with an obnoxious funny little man and a close friend of mine at one of our company offices. My friend is very popular, outspoken, possesses excellent communication skills and is blessed with a crazy sense of humour which has everyone around falling in love with her. Coming back to the dear (ugh!)man who has unknowingly offended my sensibilities, the “2 minute judge” (based on his claim that he can judge the character of a person within 2 min of setting his eyes on them.Really! Wow!Aren't we a genius!) is the lead of a project and my friend’s friend is working on his team.

My friend, lets call her Zoë, went to meet her friend, Jane, for a cup of coffee. Jane was not in her seat and before leaving Zoe stopped to talk to another friend of her’s, Bobby, who is on the same team,. Zoë teased Bobby as friends are bound to and the entire conversation was in English. This apparently offended our “2 minute judge” and when Jane returned to her seat, she was subjected to a long lecture on the follies of Zoe and here is the Judge’s final ruling on Zoë’s crimes. Guilty on the below counts

1) The judge has spent 4 years at Onsite and yet speaks Tamil at office. Zoë apparently has committed the crime of conversing in English which according to the judge she has no reason to.
2) My friend, inspite of being a girl, walks tall and speaks loud and clear. According to the judge, this is unprofessional and women should walk with their heads bowed, rarely open their mouths and should be seen and not heard..
3) Women should not speak in front of 4 men. Women should not tease their friends, male or female. .Otherwise they will not have career growth. Managers do not like women who talk cos managers want people who don’t talk.

Ha ha ha!!! How funny!!!(Author has tears streaming down her face) Priceless! You are such a funny little man!
Wait a minute,the 2 minute judge was absolutely serious abt all this and even accused Jane of not trying to restrict Zoe’s exuberance.The fact that Jane has known Zoe for 5 years is irrelevant in the face of the 2 minute Judge’s expertise at reading characters like slogans on the wall.
I still am flabbergasted as I write this post. For the life of me I cannot believe that here is a man who acts as a team lead, whose wife works in the same company and he actually had the temerity to say such things standing in a corporate office?Pray,tell me, are we allowed to speak in front of 5 men? Or is the number purely restricted to 4? How abt speaking in front of women? Are we allowed to do that, irrespective of the count? In fact why don’t we start recruiting some cows and cats and pigs? After all, am sure they will definitely keep their mouths shut in front of 4 men. Can’t go after birds, can we, since they keep chirping all the time. Very unprofessional creatures!(Author shaking her head sagely)

And I suppose u are aware that we are a global corporate and not limited to a stuffy office in a side street of T.Nagar.That means that there are people across the globe who work for this company and very sadly,I remind you that not all of them can speak Tamil and as professionals, we are expected to communicate in a language that people from different parts of the country can follow. I have absolutely nothing against Tamil and speak the language fluently myself. But do tell me, precisely how did u communicate with the client when u were at Onsite? In Tamil?......“Tambi, yenna solrae? Business requirement Okva?”…..Thunk!!! And there faints the client.
And as for managers liking women who keep their mouths glued shut, ROFL!!!My husband just fell off his chair laughing. I can just imagine a manager interviewing me get mighty impressed as I sit there dumbly with my head bowed ,twirling the end of my duppatta,while he throws question after question at me.Wow!!He is gonna beg me to join his company.

Me : Dumbly shaking my head with my head bowed and my neck permanently bent.
Manager : ”Please , Anu,please.We need more dumb people like you in our company…um-uh..and I mean that literally”

Huh!!More likely he will throw his shoe at me, pull at his hair in frustration and cry, “Speak, woman, For God’s sake, speak!”.And show me one manager, dude, who has a problem with a smart professional woman and I will show u a company that is going to the dogs. It simply did not occur to u that there are a number of managers in our company who happen to be women,did it?


Being a woman, albeit not a feminist, this incident had me outraged to the point of starting to write a scathing post. But then as I began the post, I cooled down enuf to see the funny side of it. Make no mistake abt this. I have nothing against men and I have worked with several awesome men and admire them. But I do object to such obnoxious men. Worse, I pity them for their caveman attitude even when they work in a software company. Call urself a professional, do ya? And u have the cheek to say a woman who talks well is unprofessional. Piffle! and balderdash! U belong farther back than the age of cavemen…You have to have come from the age of the dinos.

And the funniest part of the whole story? The 2-minute noodles…umm…I mean, the 2 minute Judge had a love marriage .Huh? Don’t ask me what his wife was thinking!!