Thursdale

A hard day at the office wasn't measure by how much code was designed, reviewed, or added to source control. Any conception that a busy day would involve actual work was severely misguided. The method Dale used to measure how intense his day went was to count the number of emails he sent. Or alternatively he'd check if he'd stayed at work past five.

It wasn't that actually working was too challenging or too drab. If Dale told the truth he'd say it was his favourite thing to do at work. The occasional puzzles to solve, solutions to be implemented and added satisfaction of a job completed were fulfilling, and in a different way than being invited to a team lunch for one department and team drinks for another department on the same day was fulfilling. But white collar workers aren't bred to spend all their time working. Their duty is instead to spend most of their time passing work around via emails like a pinball, bouncing from cubicle to cubicle and shore to shore with attached discussions about what work needed to be done, but never with an impolite accusation at whoever needed to do it. Merely the suggestion to investigate it and then most likely pass it back.

That's not to say that passing work around is in itself a difficult task. But for someone as socially impotent as Dale an increase in the volume of emails equated to an increase in a days mental effort.
'Is Chandra Singh a dude or a chick?' Dale asked me.
'No idea.' I replied. 'Just start it with "Greetings".'
'Can't do it.' said Dale. 'I need to refer to them with an assignment, as in "I need him, or her, to do this work for me".'
'Don't worry; we have online tools for this kind of thing.' I laughed.

A few minutes later Dale still had no answer.
'Google India image search comes back with mostly women for "Chandra" but it's pretty much all dudes for "Chandra Singh.'
We both pondered.
'I'll just tell them to get Russell Shah to do it.' Dale decided.
'Ah, poor Russell.' I said. By this stage of the project Russell was probably getting seriously overburdened.

Dale stared at the open email composition window, left now with only the most important detail, the sign off. Company policy dictated the structure and formatting of his actual signature. Thankfully, however it did not clearly specify what word he should write above his signature, followed by a comma.

'This is me telling them to investigate' Dale considered aloud. 'So I can't use "cheers" really. And they don't work for me so I can't use "regards" either.'
'Thanks?' I asked him.
'No,' he frowned, 'I used that yesterday.'
After six minutes of nothing else Dale decided that "warm regards," would add a friendly informality which he thought may help with his relationship with Russell given the amount of work he kept giving him. The send button was his flipper and he bounced all of the work he'd been given for Thursday into pinball limbo.

'What time is it now in Chennai?' Dale asked me.
'7:50 in the morning, won't be anyone there for a while'
'Sounds like we've got time to get a coffee then.' He said.
We both chuckled. There was always time to get a coffee.
'Might get a muffin too!' Dale didn't chuckle again, just nodded solemnly.

I locked my desktop. Dale turned off the 'Free Shot' light above the drain.