Mogambo

A young executive was nervously biting her nails. It was the detailed design meeting. She had to present the exact design of the new service requested by the client. The team lead was a micro managing maniac. His quiver was full of queries coated with instant poison. It always jammed up the nerves relaying data to her brain. She would start mumbling jargon she hardly could mouth. This was going to sink faster than Titanic and he was sure to needle in that he had warned her of all the icebergs. This was a tricky service. They had to keep all other services undisturbed and connect this new service with those. He had been asking for updates on the design daily. Bloody Mogambo. They had a name for him since he had a habit of saying “That makes me happy” when stuff got done. Mogambo was the king of evil villains and “Mogambo Khush Hua ” was his eternal tagline.

She had always given him some thing to chew on. Now there was to be detailed explanation of functions, sub services, sub modules. It was not that she didn’t work on it. She had done a good amount of hard work but she couldn’t tear herself away from a new attraction. Aman. He was the stuff Yash Raj was made of. His dimpled smile. The way he coaxed her to the canteen. The way he complimented. Even in the gloom of the huge impending doom Aman was like a fragrant breeze soothing her nerves.

She closed her eyes and tried to recall all those ice creams…all those pizzas and burgers. He had so much time. She had wished that they both were in the same project.  Maybe they could have finished this horrid detailed design in some cozy café.  All those days were magical. Aman had told her in the morning chat over messenger that he had some thing important to tell her. That would make up for the shootout about to begin. She tried to pacify herself. This was just a job. Aman was a lifetime. She had used her time wisely. He was perfect in all ways. She just couldn’t bring it up to feel guilty about not using her time for her work. Not a problem if her appraisal was screwed over this. I can face any crap life would throw now that Aman was there, she comforted herself.

She looked at the time again and gathered up her prints. Mechanically she walked up to the conference room. How could I blow this, a question darted in the back of her mind. She passed her team lead’s cube and saw a big poster in bold letters “WORK IS WORSHIP”. That guy really lived it. Not such a bad thing. She felt her stomach cramping.

Slowly others piled into the conference room. She sat by the whiteboard. Depression flooding slowly.  Aman couldn’t keep her dry anymore. How could he pull me away from work? He knew I had this big task, yet he wanted all those long discussions. How could he not care about me doing well at work? A seedling of resentment raised its head.

Enter Mogambo. “Are we all here?” he asked. “Yes, the whole team is right here. Shall I start then?” she gulped even as she tried to keep a brave front.

“Yes we shall start but I am expecting another team to join us. There is a major change. I am sure you worked too hard on the design but it appears you may have to tweak it some. There were some suggestions about merging another service with this one and yesterday night the client has given the nod to it. So we have to rethink the design with the other service functions. They already have some components which we can reuse”, he ended. Never did his words elate me so. Dare I ask that this meant I was off the hook for today? “That means we have to redesign from scratch then ?” I asked trying to mask the joyful jingle rising inside me.” I am afraid so” he replied. “Don’t worry. We can try to reuse some components of your design. But we have to reason it out with the other team.” he replied.

Really? God alone knows what is there to reuse…reuse..ha ha when will this guy stop ? I was no longer humble and bowed down. In walked the other team and I spotted Aman with his dimples. I could have broken into a jig.

 The teams got introduced and then Aman’s team lead took over “This is definitely a  most interesting project. But I have some important assignment I was already committed to take up in Munich. So I will sadly not be around here to push you all. Aman will how ever see to it that everything sails smoothly. He is taking over the lead role while I am away. “

Mixed emotions flooded in. Aman was applauded and pushed to the center stage. “Thank  you Ravi for your confidence in me. I will not let you down. I believe that both our teams could work great together. We may have to push ourselves a bit more.   We need to give every second of our time to our work. Entertaining ourselves in office hours will not be tolerated. We cannot take our work lightly. We have to gear up and out perform everyone else if we expect to be rewarded.” he concluded.

Did he throw a glare in my direction, she shuddered.  Her wish was granted.They were going to work on the same team, more or less.  But he had turned into Mogambo.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda