Do you have any friends?

"Do you have any friends?"
This is one of the stupid questions I faced in recent months/year after,
"How many Girl friends do you have?",
"Why don't you have an orkut account?" and
"Who is that girl?"

For all the latter questions, my answer is a constant smile and most times it goes loud. That speaks for itself. Though I consider those stupid questions, I enjoy facing them. But for the first time in my life and the only time, I got bounced back when my colleague at my ex-organisation asked me if I have friends or made any in my entire education life.

It really did hurt me. I'm known for the friendliness I shower, for the fun I share,  yet here is the stupid question that made me decide to quit the company ASAP and I did it in less than 3days from then.


He: Hi bob!
Me: Hi dude. wassup?

Silent. We stuck to our monitors. While he was busy working, orkutting and facebooking, I continued with my multi-tasking that included twitter to my self to-do lists to freelancing. And after couple of minutes,

He: Do you have any friends?
Me: Nops. Not any in Bangalore.

He: In general? I mean do you have friends in college or..?
I got his sarcasm. I smiled in vain and after few more minutes of me trying to read some articles and reviews of books on php at amazon.com, I decided to give him an answer.

Me: I have friends beyond the number you can think of and few well wishers who sincerely pray for my happiness and well being. You need to see me in college to believe and digest that.
After few more seconds that past like minutes,
Me: Why did you ask that?
He: Nothing. Just wanted to know.

We never made eye contact all through the conversation and both of us were looking at the monitors and speaking. He sits beside me.

Me: You are the first person to ask that.
He: Wait for few more days and the entire Net-Ops team would start asking it one after one.
Huhh.. Hell.. I muttered. What do these guys think of me? I do not care this fcuking job and now added the people around here.

He: You do not compromise man.
Me: Sort of. I do not on most things.

He: Most things? Call it all things dude. On each and every thing and on every occassion. You do not compromise.
Me: Well, If that is your say, listen, it is your perception of my life and I have no issues with that.

He: You have issues with nothing.
His words were really testing my patience. I smiled to and tried to kep myself cool and not over react. I know, If I lose my emotion, I only prove the worse.

Me: I said it's your perception of me and my life and I do not fcuking care of what it is. Every one have their own opinions and I let them.

He: Life teaches you man.
Me: Life taught me hard enough.
He: No, you think it did. But teaches you soon enough.
Me: If I deserve more lessons, I welcome. Let life teach.

He: Why do not you compromise?
Me: I do, if I think it damn fits the need. In fact I did on most occasions. If you think saying a sorry and nodding head to whatever you say that's against my things and what I believe in, then I'm sorry - I cannot compromise.

He: You hurt me most times.
It did hurt me again. I heard on more person say this to me and I felt I'm lost. I stopped my works with PC, closed my eyes, reclined back to my chair ad lost in past for a while.

I thought of apologizing to him for the unintentional deeds for which he got offended. But, I did not. Why should I? There's no mistake of mine. Why do people get offended why we refuse to do something or some sort of help 'cos we do not like it? I tried to make assumptions of recollected all the pas incidents in the office between him and me. There were many occasions he asked to do a thing in a particular manner but I did it in the way I believed is true. He got offended and expected a sorry. I know, a sorry can cool the things out. But then, why should I apologize for no sin of mine?

He believes in the statement "We have fixed the issue.. blah blah.." is correct in all senses and, "The issue is now fixed.. blah.. blah.." is wrong.

I was working in client support dept then which they proudly call network operations, in corporate style - NetOps.

There were many such incidents and he being a 6months senior to me in this work, expected me to reply as he ordered and meet his expectations. F was only word I muttered on every such instance. But I never did and hence started the conversation after few of such hard days.

I came back to my senses and decided the faster I quit the job there, the better it would be for my social life.
In a week's time, I found myself working for a corporate in Hyderabad.

Bye Bye NetOps, bye bye JS, Bye Bye Bangalore.

PS: I'm thinking of resigning this job after I get the courage to choose the path and lay it of my own.

PPS: Thanks Vaibhav.