EPA

“Shalabh tu bhi ja raha hai?”(Shalabh, are you also going?), enquired my manager as I was staring in disbelief out of my window, trying my level best to divert my mind from what transpired behind me. I sit at the flag end of my floor overlooked by a huge window. And behind me were 3-4 guys changing– the process which usually begins with one taking off their clothes and then hopefully ending with them adorning some other set– from their office wear into their fitness session wear. Now what perplexed me was why change from their office wear to fitness wear when there was hardly any difference between the two, and even more baffling was why on earth did they choose to do all their shenanigans near my commodious cubicle. Why ?

Still wearing a surprised look I answered “Nahi”(No).

“Ok, we shall close your EPA then”

Ten minutes later I trudged behind her towards the conference room wherein we were supposed to meet my other manager, which was kind of like a “Surprise!” as I thought only this manager, the one with whom I marched along, was going to do my EPA. And yes I have two managers, lady managers, stop feeling J now.

EPA stands for Employee Performance Assessment and Development(its not called EPAD because some wisecrack HR realized it would then blatantly suggest Employee Performance Assessment and Doom). In my case it probably is Early Performance Assessment and Development since I just recently joined.

Two ladies seated in front of me.
I, seated in front two ladies, in a closed room.
“Was I looking prim?”
“Did I smell nice?”
“Was is suffering from halitosis?”, were a few of the three patent thoughts that raced around in my mind. I mean, its not like I find myself seated in front of two powerful ladies, who aren’t bitching about each other, if I may add, in a closed room every other day, and I don’t think such hap is ever going to besiege me in the near future, so its pretty understandable that I wanted to be at my prime.

“How are things?” , asked one
Immediately I was at ease. For the first time the female made the first move!
“Fineeee”, I burst out with a huge smile and a strong gush of breath that disproved Newtons’ third law as I didn’t move an inch. One of my doubts was killed as they welcomed my “finee” with a smile. By breath was fine! Ahhhh

Then she continued with her corporate diplomatic talk, I hate it when girls get all diplomatic and stuff, and worse yet, she even used the word diplomatic while her fingers quoted it!

Finally the bell rang. It was the other lady’s chance to speak. I just love this form of dating.
She just nodded and probably due to the nod a couple of “goods” slipped out and looked towards the other lady to take over. I almost let out a cry and then she realized she had to mention another point.

“The testing and delivery also was good”.
Yea! Now you’re talking. I spent my whole bloody Valentine with the stupid switch in some forlorn frigid corner of the lab, monkey testing some silly feature which I had to roll out soon. And it better be commended even though it might fail later.

Finally the two ladies begged leave of me and while departing they leaned forward and looked me right in the eye, while my eyes flitted from one lady’s eye to another, as they tried to scare me by telling me tales of how big and critical the work I am doing is, and scare me they did.