Free as in free coffee

“What are you upto these days? You have not blogged since July 08!!” Well, if you thought it was a question from somebody very keen on reading what Mithun Varma writes, then you are totally mistaken. But then I ‘ve been hearing this question for some time now, from a person who actually loves every word yours truly scribbles down (You might know him I guess). And I don’t want the person to wait anymore. After all Chetan Bhagat has wrote his next book and what the hell stops me from making a post! I started reading the book today in the morning and was impressed by the title “2 States”. “Shall I write something with the same title?” The person I mentioned above snapped “ Are you shameless?! Don’t you know that this is plagiarism.” If he feels so, I cant deny that fact. “Sorry mate, I wont plagiarize.I will come up with a title when I finish writing this.” So at the time this line materialises on my screen, this post is “Untitled”. I have this uncanny knack of screwing up my first para with totally unnecessary information !!

The point is “I am amazed”. The question that would follow this is “Of whom/what”. And the answer is “I am amazed at the way the demi-Gods at the higher echelons of this corporate world come with policies which are totally beneficial to the employee!!” . For instance, lets take an example “Coffee”. All my life I have been notorious for my coffee drinking habits. “You drink too much of coffee”, “This is too high a number of coffees /day for your age” , “Hey, you should reduce this count drastically. Drink may be 2 or max 3 glasses” “Buddy, this is not good” has been the some of the very frequent statements which I had stumbled upon. And what did I do to improve?! Frankly, nothing!! And while coming to work ,Coffee was something I looked forward to every day. “Free as in free coffee” was my favourite line inline with the fact that “Free as in free beer” was something which I was unable to correlate with my habits!(Fortunately or unfortunately)

This is exactly where my company came for the rescue. They simply introduced a policy where you have to pay for even a single drop of coffee! How can they be so helpful, so careful about employee’s health?!! The end result is that I don’t drink more than 2 cups a day! Something else surprises me more. I bow to the gentleman (or her ladyship!) who rephrased the depressing sentence “From now on pay for the coffee you drink” and coined the words for the mail which mentioned exactly the same thing, but reading the mail you would feel that this is a great privilege. It said about the privileges of having multifarious options as tea , coffee and the many health drinks and a lot more! As only free coffee tastes good (proven by research! ), I decided to stop taking coffee from the new tech-savvy machines which would allow you to draw coffee only if you flash the “card”, which comes at a cost and needs to be recharged as soon as you drain out the money it carries. As it turned out( atleast to my not-so-perfect eyes) the new machines offered only one more addition to the earlier machines that it recognises the card so that you don’t get free coffe. “Didn’t I hear something mentioned about options?!! Didn’t I hear something about health drinks?”.


Looking back at it I find that the abrupt end of the “Free Coffee” era was again something quite unique! Usually curb on something happens in a very slow manner. There are numerous examples I can think of now. When those were implemented I was unaware that it was getting implemented. This slow manner will make sure that nobody feels bad about it. For example , I will analyse the algorithm on how curd served with the meals is reduced. When it starts there will not be any restriction on the quantity of curd being served.You will be allowed to take as many cups as you need. As days pass by they will slightly reduce the amount of curd in the container. This will reach a point where they fill only a half of the cup. People will complain about it and they will allow those who complain to take more. This continues till the point where the size of the cup itself reduces. By this time people would have got used to the cups being half-filled! So now they serve half a cup in the small cups. At the end of it, one fine morning they will say that you are not allowed to take more than cup of curd with the meals. People will complain for some time. But as time goes they will get used to single cup of curd!! Even after all this nobody can complain that they don’t serve curd. They still “serve” curd!!


That’s the tactics and a brilliant one too. This example applies to many more areas (Unfortunately!!) . And the “sweet ,sugar-coated” mails continue to flow in, about the welfare and the privileges that each employee in the organisation is vested with. You are deprived even from the privilege of knowing that you are deprived of many privileges (Whats this?! Recursion?!!). But when you earn your salaries sitting in a/c rooms, you can (rather should) adjust to these sort of manipulations. After all you are a bunch of over-paid (in comparison to other industries) labourers! It has been real fun to watch all these “happenings” from inside the system, being a silent observer of “the art of deception”!

“(Corporate) Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think”.
And I cannot agree more!