The Corporate Ant

I like the coffee in my office. I could not figure out the difference in the capsules. I could not be bothered to find out either. The coffee does me good. I need that coffee. It starts my day at work. The day that starts without the coffee is a bad day.

When I reach my desk, my laptop is on and my outlook is updated. Each day I try to scroll to the bottom of the inbox to go through emails received weeks or months ago. The idea is to spot the pending tasks. And each day, I fail to reach the top from the bottom. Halfway through I will receive new emails with new tasks or urgent tasks. The day then goes on with trying to finish those. And the pending tasks remain pending.

Then I tell myself to not look at the emails and finish my tasks that require me to read and research. I convince myself to give that task 100% attention and not check my emails every 3 minutes. If something was very urgent, the people concerned will call me, so I need not refresh my outlook frantically. But as I read and jot down notes, my Blackberry light blinks.

The Blackberry is not a mobile communication device. It is an organ that is not physically attached to my body but mentally connected to my neuro system. As soon as the light blinks or a beep is transmitted to my ears, my hands pick them up. It is an unconscious action; like how I would flick my hair to the back of my ear when it falls on my face.

An email notification would catch my eye and that will divert my attention from my task. Once again, another forever pending task pushed aside.

And this goes on till one day that pending-for-very-long task becomes urgent because my boss asks about. Then I take another cup of coffee and rush through work chanting “stress, stress stress” all through long.

That, my friends, is the day with the corporate ant.