Monday, June 13, 2011

Hair and there... Wise-crack from an ordinary day

Bad hair day turns out to be the day when I was noticed most. The usual morning rush and migraine stroke didn't leave me much time to wash hair this morning. Result: I landed in office with olive oil dripping from my hair.


I hoped to lie-low and just be confined to my workstation all day. Just then an urgent department meeting was called. My super-boss introduced us to his successor and everybody stooped ahead for a generous hand-shake with the new guy. With dismal smile of my face and oil-soaked hair I also welcomed him. I'm sure he nick-named me 'oily', 'greasy-looking' or any other phrase that suits this description in Japanese. (PS: my super-bosses are Japanese)

"What an impression," I yelled at myself and walked back grudgingly to the workstation. In next hour, we got a mail about formal lunch in the honour of my new super-boss. Entire floor was invited for the fiesta... "humiliation" was the only word running on my mind then.

I got along with three other female colleagues, who in turn give me 'oh-there's-something-wrong-with-your-hair' look. Of course in corporate squares such things are never mentioned directly, your looks say it all. I quickly put up false attitude and pretence, but sub-cautiously I tried to hide myself in the crowd, I tried stay behind of others, I tried to walk next to the wall and tried out ten more cheap tricks to make myself invisible.

Horror struck when I found the cafeteria full of dignitaries and expat officers, of course including all top-bosses. The MD called for everybody's attention, introduced new super-boss, thanked the present super-boss and called for quick introduction with prominent people in the place.

Department heads stood up for introductions, suddenly I heard my immediate-boss's name. I froze, she was sick and hence out-of-office. I stepped forward to tell everybody about the situation, the present super-boss called me to explain 'little' about our team. With oily hair I marched ahead, managed an impressive speech about internet, websites, social media etc. I step down and more introductions continued.


The generous new super-boss took over the stage. He didn’t remember most names, so he used generic references to thank all people there. And then he lobbed a bomb at me, he thanked me referring to me as "the lovely lady with stylish hair-do" - I had just waited for this moment. Wanted to die-that moment but thought about my parents and discarded the idea. Now, everybody's been teasing me with this incident.

PS: Many here think that new-boss is impressed with my hair-style, wish I could tell him the truth.

(This post is a work of fiction, it doesn’t have references to actual people)