PITA (for the uninitiated it's-Pain In The Ass!!)

I pride myself for being in control. Arggg but I can still be a molten lava from inside, specially when I’m a mute participant to a one sided conversation which sucks –or it’s a real PITA (a new entrant to my vocab chest—to be honest I was looking for ways and means to use it , never knew that I’ll get a chance so soon!) . I cannot remember when I snapped last. Nevertheless, I am mentally fused – more so because ‘my boss’ reward for a job well done is more work!’ The dreaded moment was a 2 hour long conference call in which my boss spoke of the need to “engage” new talent, rambled through 40 minutes of impenetrable jargon to set up “new methodology” to “give a new look to the section of magazine we own” and reached the less-than-startling conclusion that last five issues need a thorough facelift. I could not comprehend a single thing she was trying to tell me.

At some point, I lost it. I began ranting in the meeting room. I hurled the lastest issue of the Conde Naste traveler across the table, muttered in the loo, and sent befuddled e-mails to colleagues. I’m fine now. Once unburdened I found I was not alone; even my colleagues couldn’t give intelligible explanations about the meetings agenda or outcome. Atleast I’m clear of one thing which I need to do –ie I’m told that we should seek recruits and I need to give a guideline to the HR.Can anything be more painful than this!!!

Well well well, I followed my usual technique of… 123 deep breath…123 deep breath and came up with my own list for the HR.…this is what the checklist looks like :

1. Grammer: This refers to the resume of the candidate. Well I want to scream aloud and say that please reject resumes with doodles and exclamatory obscenities scrawled. Heck! A writer ought to know this.
2. Style: If any resume looks like a manuscript – reject the candidate. The author is definitely a boring twit .
3. Audience: If u think that it would kill the candidate to write something an aspiring traveller might actually read? please ask him to apply for a job in Timbaktoo .
4. Terminology: If any applicant desires to invent a new term to describe any part of his/her work in an incomprehensible lingo –Refuse the person.
5. Citations: I insist that you keep the DK styleguide for language referance and all citations…and double check the candidate’s work. Not because I love it, but because it annoys my boss to see parentheses in the middle of text she’s trying to read and the text goes through me! For christ sake—spare my eyesight!!
6. Satire and Irony: When a candidate successfully crosses all benchmarks set by you, and finally takes the interview, please make sure that the person is not a dumbwit. If he/she does not understand satire, or confuses irony with cynicism, shoo them.Ask them to try therapy ... gin ... a warm bath ... anything! Except travel writing