Sorting Out Sid Read Online Free PDF

‘poor-bathroom-hygiene-related’ diseases in the country. It was actually about as far from all the creative careers that he had dreamed of as a starry-eyed youth, but at thirty-six he had sort of accepted that this was how his life was going to be.
    Work Sid was always supremely cheerful. Sid found that no matter how lousy things were in his personal life, it really helped to put on a fake smile and pretend that everything was fine. ‘Fine, FINE,’ he would say in a booming voice whenever anyone asked him how he was. For variety, it was sometimes ‘Good, GOOD’. He would have the opportunity to say it again now. His boss Akash was approaching him, wiping his hands on his trousers.
    Akash had just emerged from the loo, and Sid hoped that he had washed his hands well, because Sid knew that it being a Monday, Akash would shake his hand. Akash considered it a highly motivational boss-like act – to welcome each member of the team back into the office on Monday with a formal handshake, as if it was the first time they were meeting. Sid hated Akash from the bottom of his heart. If there was anything he hated even more, it was this hand-shaking, particularly after loo visits.
    For some reason, Sid had been given the desk right next to the men’s room. This particular floor, which had the bulk of middle-to-senior management, was rather shabby and poorly planned. You would think they would have tried to make the office surroundings sexy, to make up for the toilet-focussed work content. But quite the contrary. And Sid’s desk, if anyoneasked for his opinion, was the least desirable location in the office. He would often be distracted by the sight of a male colleague rushing towards him at top speed only to find that he was really just running past him to the loo. After a while the colleague would emerge looking relieved and with the air of someone truly carefree and unburdened. He would then invariably loiter over to Sid’s desk and waste time by asking intelligent questions – ‘Aur? Kya ho raha hai?’ Sid had taken to keeping a hand sanitizer and a big box of tissues placed prominently on his desk.
    Today, however, Akash seemed a little distracted and didn’t reach out for Sid’s hand. He just said, in an absent-minded manner, ‘Hi, Sid, how was your weekend?’
    Sid replied, ‘Fine, FINE, boss,’ with a lot of fake enthusiasm, gearing up to narrate various made-up funny incidents that had happened over the weekend. But Akash seemed to have some other agenda on his mind because he cut in almost immediately with a ‘Good, good,’ and hurried on to say, ‘So, listen, Sid, I kind of forgot to tell you last week – tomorrow is Tuesday.’
    Sid waited politely. He wasn’t sure if it was meant to be a joke or whether his thick-headed boss was just being his thick-headed self. After a while it became clear that the boss wasn’t planning to clarify any further. Instead, he was looking at Sid expectantly.
    Sid cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me, boss? Tomorrow is Tuesday … wouldn’t dream of contradicting you, of course … but, anything special about this Tuesday?’
    ‘Well, of course,’ Akash said, not registering the barb in Sid’s statement. ‘Tuesday is the day I have the LT meeting, you know…’
    Sid did know that. Akash very proudly went in for the Leadership Team meeting every Tuesday morning. He was extremely kicked to be a part of the most senior team in the organization, although how he had got there despite years of non-performance was anyone’s guess. This was about the only thing that Sid hoped to actually learn from Akash someday.
    ‘Yes, boss … and?’
    ‘You see, this time, basically, it’s like this,’ Akash hesitated, ‘Rakesh wants to see our annual plan and strategy for next year. So I need you to help me polish up the presentation.’
    Sid snorted inwardly at Akash’s casual use of ‘Rakesh’ for the group CEO. Probably never called him anything but ‘Boss’ or ‘Sir’ or