At 10:03 on Monday morning, Rahul received a Teams message from his manager.
Vikram: Hey Rahul. Quick call?
Rahul stared at it. In corporate language, quick call had roughly the same emotional energy as your girlfriend saying, We need to talk.
Nothing good had ever followed either sentence.
He considered pretending he hadn’t seen it, but Teams had already betrayed him with the little green circle beside his name.
Fucking technology.
The call started thirty seconds later.
“Hey Rahul! How was your weekend?”
“Good.”
“Nice, nice. Mine was hectic. Anyway, just wanted to quickly align on something.”
There it is. Align.
Rahul had spent six years in corporate life and still wasn’t entirely sure what people were aligning. Expectations, deliverables, stakeholders, priorities. There was always something somewhere desperately waiting to be aligned.
Vikram shared an Excel sheet.
“Can you see my screen?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
Three seconds passed.
“Rahul? Can you see my screen?”
Rahul looked at the Excel sheet occupying most of his monitor.
“Yes, Vikram.”
“Perfect.”
Strong start.
Vikram scrolled to row 347. “So this column here. We need to populate it. Around eight thousand rows. Should be fairly straightforward.”
Rahul had learned that whenever somebody who wasn’t doing the work said fairly straightforward, you were about to get fucked.
“What’s the logic?”
“That’s what we need you to analyse.”
“So we don’t know the logic?”
“No, no. We know the logic.”
“Okay. What’s the logic?”
“That’s what you need to identify.”
Rahul stared at him.
There were moments when language stopped being an effective method of communication.
“We were hoping to get this by EOD,” Vikram continued.
“Today?”
“Yeah.”
“Eight thousand rows, using a logic I need to identify?”
“Correct.”
“And we don’t currently know what that logic is?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that.”
“What do we know?”
“We know there is a logic.”
Rahul slowly turned towards his balcony. A pigeon sat peacefully on the railing.
No laptop. No Teams. No stakeholders. No fucking alignment.
For the first time, Rahul felt professionally inferior to a pigeon.
“Do you foresee any challenges?” Vikram asked.
Yes. You.
“The timeline might be challenging.”
“Understood. What timeline would you be comfortable committing to?”
“Wednesday.”
“Hmm.”
The corporate hmm. A beautiful little sound meaning: I asked for your opinion, and unfortunately you gave me the wrong one.
“The business is expecting it today.”
“Then why did you ask me for a timeline?”
Silence.
The pigeon flew away.
Coward.
“Let’s do one thing,” Vikram said. “Give it your best shot and we’ll reconnect at four. Anything you need from my side?”
“Yes. The logic.”
“Right. Can you send me an email with exactly what you need?”
Rahul muted himself.
“Motherfucker.”
He unmuted.
“Sure, Vikram.”
The call ended at 10:17.
Rahul opened Outlook and stared at a blank email.
How do I professionally write: Please tell me what the fuck you want?
At 10:19, Teams pinged.
Vikram: Small correction. It’s actually 23,000 rows.
Another message followed.
Shouldn’t make much difference.
Rahul closed his eyes and briefly contemplated every educational and professional decision that had brought him here.
Twenty-three thousand rows. No logic. EOD.
Fantastic.
He turned towards the balcony.
The pigeon had returned.
Rahul looked at him. The pigeon looked at Rahul.
“Referral hai kya?”