Caffeine Effect!

So you wake up wishing you were still asleep, the frown telling loudly to anybody in the vicinity ‘don’t you dare talk to me right now!’. You move from bed to the wash basin with only one thought in mind-the steaming mug of coffee that promises to awaken your senses. You quickly brush your teeth with eyes barely open and use the toilet mechanically. Then the pupils grow a little larger as you reach out for the mug. You take it to your favourite spot, grab a page of the newspaper and settle down. Then your eyes slowly open as you sip on that bitter liquid. Now you feel life and energy slowly begin to seep through you. Ah! The bliss.

Then you go into the thrilling part of the day-getting ready for office. You run about stepping on each others feet, screaming at each other for taking up an extra minute in the bathroom, spilling water, forgetting towels, forgetting to turn off the cooker until it screams hoarse and finally you come out and breathe a sigh only to realize you have closed the door with the key inside. Damn! You take a minute to thank god for good neighbours who insist on having a spare key to your house just in case such situations happen.

Once you reach office you run in as if your life is at stake. You slide to a stop beside the bio metric machine, press your finger down with all your energy as if you are planning to break the machine and final let out your breath when the machine shows that you are safely in on time. Suave!

You then walk in coolly calling out greetings and dishing out your smile everywhere. Opening the laptop you find you have some 30 mails to course through. You flag off 80% of it choosing to work on them later and reply to the ones that do not require much thinking- after all you have the entire day to think and respond to all those mails.

Then the talks begin. A colleague begins talking of the news or asks you about last eve or tells about how he spent last eve or it is about a mail received by everyone at work or a client and how he is a pain in the wrong place blah blah blah... This goes on for half an hour before you start looking at your watch. No, not for the colleague to stop talking but hello, its tea time…the chai wallah should be here any minute but he’s not come yet. You work a bit, look at your watch, convince yourself that you need to move about and get some blood circulation in your legs, walk to the door and look both ways to see if the chai wallah is coming. The minute he comes you are out of your seat having chai, talking to colleagues. You tell them how you were just waiting for the chai to begin your days work in all earnestness.

By the time chai is over you realize you have lots to do and the deadline is today. You longingly stare at the task list willing it to vanish but no, it will vanish only when you finish the work. With that realization you begin the work in a frenzy. Suddenly someone asks if you are not going for lunch. You look at the watch and give a satisfied smile because you have worked for 45mins successfully with focused concentration. Then you look at the 10 page document you have been QC ing. The smile fades away when you realize that you are just in page 2. ‘How is that possible?’ you wonder. Choosing to think of it once you are back from lunch you head out.

Laptop again after lunch? Nooooo…well, you have to work right. SO you open the document. Your eyes look at the document while the mind wanders to the cosy bed in your house. Slowly your eyes droop. Then giving up on the document you convince yourself that a power nap is essential for enhanced productivity and take a power nap that you suddenly wake up from, after 20mins, by the brain that realised you were drooling. Yuck!

Time to freshen up! You come back to your seat and look at the document and your watch again. You judge that there is approximately an hour more for the chai wallah to come for the evening tea. You pull your mind back from chai and tell yourself that you are going to finish at least 5 pages of the document before chai. Every 5 mins you look at your watch and it surprises you every time to find out that only 5 mins is gone by when it seemed like ages since you last checked your watch. As the chai time approaches, your work slows down and the mind wanders to the cosy bed again. You tell yourself that you need to have your full concentration to complete this document and it will not be possible if you feel so sleepy. Chai is the only thing that can wake you up from this stupor. So you quit attempting to work on the document and walk up and down waiting for the chai, reading the newspaper and disturbing those who seem to be working.

Finally chai! It is 40 degree Celsius outside and yet the piping hot chai seems irreplaceable. Once again the caffeine wakes you up and you are determined to attack the document. When you open the document you panic. You have only an hour and a half left at work to complete the document. How are you going to finish it?

You do not turn this side or that and give all your energy to that document. Slowly someone packs his bag and leaves. You panic again. Man you have just another half hour left. Even though you are looking at the document now, your mind is cursing the one who just left saying how some people act as if they are working in government offices and leave work sharp on time. The other half of you is saying bye to the others who are leaving and cursing your boss for giving you so much work to do. So much work, that it is making you stay back to complete.

Cursing, you double up your speed merely glancing through the entire document and adding one or 2 comments here and there. You then shoot out a mail to your boss saying you tried your best but can do a better job if you were given a little more time to complete it. The boss takes pity on you and says you can give it in tomorrow. Letting a sigh of relief you pack your bags and move to the bio metric. You stand near it and talk to your colleagues for sometime asking them their plans for the eve and then press your finger on the machine. You leave office with a smile thinking of the steaming mug of coffee that awaits you after a long tiring day at work.