The Laws of work: What your boss never told you!

It occurred to me the other day when the computer was down, the phone was ringing off the hook, and the deadlines were whooshing past me that there must be unseen forces governing offices and creating laws of probability to make us crazy!  Won't it be a easier if we just knew what these laws were? My experience over the years has taught me that the following rules apply to all kinds of work and to just about everyone who wants to succeed at work:

1.If your day is going well, don’t check your email: It's true

2.The better you do your work, the more work you will be given to do: It's true

3.Nothing can ever be done in the amount of time allotted to do it. It's true

4.Time management is another of the tasks that you don’t have time to complete.It's true

5.The closer the deadline gets, the more complicated the project becomes.It's true

6.If you suggest a good idea, you will be put in charge of implementing it.It's true

7.Your report is never so good that it can’t be improved, or so long that it can’t be longer.It's true

8.Computers will only calculate the information you give them.It's true

9.A four-day week with a holiday is longer than a five-day week. It's true

10.If you take a day off,  work will multiply until you get back.It's true

11.The right decision and the wrong decision are both better than indecision.It's true

12.There is nothing more satisfying than a job well done; except one assigned to someone else.It's true

13.Meetings are a waste of time - but an approved and essential waste of time.It's true

14.When everyone understands a policy, it’s time to change it.It's true

15.The more details in directions, the greater the likelihood they will not be understood.It's true

16.If someone sends email to keep from calling, they will call to see if the email was received.It's true

17.An error is never noticed until after the email is sent.It's true

18.Technology will always create as many problems as it solves.It's true

19.A stapler always jams and runs out of staples at the same time.It's true

20.When everyone understand the new computer software, it will be upgraded.It's true

21.Nothing gets done as fast as it does on the day before going on vacation.It's true

22.The telephone will always ring when you are totally absorbed with something else.It's true

23.The primary function of office workers is to ensure that paperwork is never completed.It's true

24.The easy jobs always end up taking more time than the difficult ones.It's true

25.After everything is done, we will still worry about whether we’ve done everything.It's true

26.The computers worked better before they were upgraded.It's true

27.Never say anything in an email that you do not want forwarded all over the office.It's true

28.The more important an email, the greater the probability that it will not go through.It's true

29.No matter how busy someone is, they always take time for lunch and smoke breaks.It's true

30.Problems always develop at the end of the day, never at the beginning.It's true

31.The day you have evening appointments will always be the day you can’t get out of work on time.It's true

32.Projects are never cancelled until they are nearly completed.It's true

33.If you misplace it, you will need it; if you find it, you will forget what you needed it for.It's true

34.If it’s been a great week, something important didn’t get done.It's true

35.When all else fails, remember you can fix any machine by turning it off.It's true

36.If you wait until the last minute to print, the printer will always jam or run out of paper.It's true

37.Documents always make more sense before being revised than afterwards.It's true

Helpless self help books!

I was reading a magazine in the airport the other day and noticed some suggestions for self-improvement. While these suggestions were good, as far as they went, they just didn’t seem to quite cover all the alternatives for me.

Eat light and read something inspirational. (“Why not read something light, like a Dilbert cartoon, and eat something inspirational like a chocolate?”)

Be organized and make a to-do list.(“ If it is worth doing, I somehow feel I should just do it instead of spending my time making lists”)

Count your blessings.(“ If you can’t think of any good ones, is it okay to count troubles? Or maybe I could just count sheep and go back to sleep?”)

Get advice from others. (“If anyone has trouble with this one, my aunts, uncles, neighbours, colleagues would be glad to help.”)

Think of something you would like to stop doing. (“I just have a feeling that quitting my job is not an option here.”)

Be creative.(“ But not while driving in rush hour traffic! There are times to be creative and times to conform.”)

Exercise. (“I suppose watching an aerobic video on youtube does not count, regardless of how much it wears me out.”)

Write down negative thoughts and then tear up the paper. (“Well, there goes next blogpost!”)

Visualize yourself the way you want to be. (“ You’ll still be old and fat; you just won’t have to admit it to yourself.”)

Don’t give up. (“Yes, if you sit in traffic long enough, eventually you’ll get home - unless you run out of gas first, that is.”)

Reward yourself for saving money by getting something you really want.(“ But what I really want is to spend the money instead of saving it.”)

Plan a vacation to have something to look forward to. ( “I get no time for vacation and looking forward to 5 p.m. is good enough for me.”)

Just as I suspected, it’s totally hopeless. But think of the money I’ve saved by staying just the way I am. Maybe I could use it on something I really need, like more self-help books, for better ideas!

Bored.

Remember when it was actually possible to spend a boring afternoon? We were forced to find creative ways to entertain ourselves, things like reading books, listening to music or just daydreaming. Not anymore.

Could it be that we have become so overly stimulated that nothing truly entertains us anymore?

We cannot stand to be bored long enough to dream or think creatively. We rush to push the panic buttons before boredom sets in. Nowadays, people seem to believe that there is an inalienable right to NOT be bored. We have television, radio, computers, video, tapes, CD's, movies, cell phones, digital cams, and DVD. Heaven forbid that anyone should ever spend any time being bored.

Somehow, our gadgets are not quite as entertaining as they used to be though. Hundreds of channels but we still we can't find anything on television worth watching. Thousands of websites, but we surf aimlessly from one site to another. We have also become multi-taskers, eating, watching TV, working on the computer, and talking on the cell phone all at the same time. The more stimulation we have, the more we seem to need. It keeps us from being bored.

Could it be that we have become so overly stimulated that nothing truly entertains us anymore? We are always looking for something better, something more interesting, something more exciting - something less boring. There is too much to see, too much to do, too much to entertain us, too much competition for our time and attention. There is no time to watch a sunset, go for a walk, feed the birds, or rediscover the thoughts, meditations and dreams of our own mind. That's BORING!

We are filled with the voices, thoughts and words of other people, with values different from our own. The more we absorb, the more alike we all become, and the blander, more uniform and more boring life becomes. Soon nothing will be stimulating enough to keep boredom away. We will sit among our electronic gadgets, surfing from channel to channel on the television, pushing button after button on the remote control, clicking from site to site on the computer, reading email after email as we look for a something we've not seen or heard a hundred times before. In fact sometimes we don’t even wait for a song to finish.

Strange our how our minds never died from boredom in the past. Is it really so likely that they will now? Nothing is entertaining enough. Nothing is worth our time. We seek more and more of the very thing that is causing our demise. We are stuck in information overload. Perhaps it is time sit back and just do nothing for a while. Perhaps we need to take a little time to clear our minds and just be bored. Maybe, just maybe, a little old-fashioned boredom is not such a bad thing.

Single Suroshree walks into a bar!

After a certain point in a single woman’s life, a conversation involving the woman and her mother, only involves two things. 1. Your plans on settling down and 2. Your plans on settling down.  Naturally, you get terribly exhausted of buying time for yourself and you realise that before you can settle the question to settle down , you need someone to settle down with. Since, sitting at home and waiting for prince charming hasn’t brought you much luck, you decide to wear your hunting boots, dress to kill your next prey and set out on a little mission impossible your own.

 But hunting isn’t easy, mostly because you don’t know where to hunt. It is then that I began to wonder just where it was that all the eligible bachelors hang out. I tried spending as much time as possible at hardware stores. That seems like a "male place," and the advice books all said that I must attempt to create “social opportunities.” However, I could only lurk around the nuts, bolts and screws for so long until I began to be suspected of shoplifting.

Finally, I came up with a bright idea. Guys go to bars to meet women. After trying everything else without much success, curiosity won. I took the low road and decided it was time to hit the bars. By now, I had developed some poise in meeting people, not to mention my hardware expertise, and I felt pretty confident that I could handle most situations.

Now some women tell me they have fun going to bars, meet interesting men, and have tons of fun. I wish I could find that bar! Whenever I go into a bar, I seem to magnetically attract the attention of every creep and/or a wannabe songwriter in the joint. I don't know if they have radar or if I have “fresh meat” written all over me.

Before my eyes can even adjust to the dim light, I am approached by an overdressed rapper-wannabe look-alike, complete with his bling. “Wanna dance?”  Well,I came to meet ‘new’ men and unless I actually ‘met’ them, I wouldn’t ever find the perfect guy, right? Besides, why refuse and hurt someone's feelings? So, I agree and we go to the dance floor. All the decent looking sorts in these places are invariably busy with other women. Rapper, it seems, comes here often and knows all the ropes. He glides too smoothly to the music and dances way too close.

After the dance, I excuse myself and hide in the ladies rest room for a while to regain my composure, then decide to venture out and look for a table in a dark corner where Rapper can't find me. Trouble is while I am losing Rapper, there’s a ‘Rockstar’ who spots me and start to move in.

“Can I buy you a drink, babe?”

I'm not a “babe,” but why argue? He wouldn't understand anyhow.

“Well, actually, I've already ordered one.”

Rockstar is unfazed, sits down at my table without an invitation and begins to tell me the story of his life, all about what a lousy bitch his last girlfriend was and he’s so done with all the casual relationships and is looking for a ‘meaningful. Of course, in about five minutes of conversation, it is possible to see why he has been dumped so many times. He's a loser. My interest strays.

The bar is smoky, hot and stifling. The music is too loud, the drinks too strong. Is this what I have to do to meet someone, I wonder? Maybe I'd rather be lonely! But, I've already paid a cover charge, so I stay. I smile, I dance and I listen to all the ‘rockstars’ and all the stories and hear about all the disappointments, the failures, and the lost loves.

After a drink or two, Rapper begins to look a lot more pleasant and maybe it is not such a bad place after all. I think I’m being too particular, too critical. Maybe I could actually date one of these guys – if it were just not for the cologne! The smell of Axe Effect is overwhelming. Does that stuff come in huge tanks?

If I could meet just one decent man with a scent from the men's section of a good department store instead of the special from the local ‘kinara store’, I'd be his!

After a couple of “hunting expeditions” to the bar, the stories and guys all start to blend together like a Nickelback song. I try to sort them into categories that my mind can comprehend: jerks, losers, and assholes. So many ruined lives, so many lost dreams - so many unemployed men!

The men who are half-way decent are usually married - but separated, at least for the night. Eventually, I realise that it's easy to meet someone here; but difficult to meet the type of person I want to meet.

Eventually, I take the back exit and leave. My mother will be so disappointed again. Now on to my next hunting expedition.

Fresh air never smelled so good!

The Indian grandmother

For your grandmother, you will and shall always remain a stick figure. Seems like you can never have enough of her aloo parathas and rajma chawal!

We have never have any time!

There are no prizes for guessing that, we Indians are an impatient lot. If being impatient was a sport, we would win a gold medal at every possible tournament. It’s probably an important component of our blood that separates us from the rest of the world.
It’s like we’re all genetically predisposed. We don’t have time to wait for the elevator. We don’t have time to wait for the red light to turn green. We don’t have time to wait in a queue. We don’t have time to wait for the bus to stop before we can get on to it. We don’t have time to wait for the plane to halt, before we can unbuckle our seat belt. WE JUST DON’T HAVE TIME.

Don’t you get it? We are always in a hurry.

It starts from the word go. From the moment we wake up, we’re in a hurry. Once we’re up we realise we have to hurry or else we’ll get late. It is pretty much an everyday scenario. No matter how early we wake up, we’ll always be in a hurry. We skip breakfast because, of course, we’re getting late and hence are in a hurry. So we’ll just eat in the car, while we’re talking on the phone (even if it’s illegal) about things that cannot wait till we get to work.
And, you realize it’s not just you. EVERYONE driving on the road is in a hurry, too. You wonder if it’s because they love their job a bit more than you do. Maybe they want to catch 15 minutes extra just so that they could work a little longer? Who knows? Either way, one must learn to hurry up in the company of other people who are in a hurry especially while driving on the road. Or else, get ready to face dirty looks, abuses and get horns blown at you to get out of the way; as is a common sight at every road, early morning on a weekday. So, we speed, because we are in a hurry. We risk accidents, injuries and speeding tickets and drive as fast as we can because we just can’t slow down. There is no time to slow down.

Once we’re in office, we know we have to hurry through the day. Not because we feel overloaded with the amount of work we have or because 9 hours is not enough for us to finish the work but, because we have to somehow make it to lunch time. Remember we didn't eat much breakfast because we didn't have time? So we grab ourselves some fast food, the most popular kind of eating out because it doesn’t take as long and since we never have any time to really cook any food at home ( especially because our mums are not living with us anymore and she had all the time in the world ). So, we risk a heart attack, our cholesterol levels, blood pressure and binge on FAST food. But, we don’t have time to think about that because we are in a hurry.

So, we somehow manage to hurriedly finish 9 hours at work and now we must hurry up and leave work because we don’t want to get stuck in traffic. We are the same people who are in a hurry to get to work in the morning and now are also in a hurry to get back home at night. And you thought we liked work. Truth be known, we only like being in a hurry. What do we have to do at home? Probably nothing.
But before we get home we have errands to run, which we must hurry up and finish because we are so exhausted from all the hurrying up through the day that we must hurry up and get back home.
Honestly, I realise that we are really living life in the fast lane. For some of us, even that is not good enough. We send out emails instead of posting letters. We send out quick texts instead of making phone calls. We don’t have time to answer the phone so we let the voice mail get it.
And, we still don’t have any time. No matter how much time we save, WE NEVER HAVE ANY TIME.
Obviously, I have exhausted all my time writing this new post; which only means I must hurry up and finish it off so I can utilize my time doing other things. Now you hurry up and read this post.

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor!

The Grammy GIF awards

You may not have woken up way too early to catch an award ceremony that you don't care about too much, but I did, because I care about things I shouldn't care too much about.

However, more than the awards , it was the blink and you miss moments which make it more fun than anything else. So I put together some of the gif s from today morning that the internet is going crazy with.

Don't blink.

You might miss it:

P.S. Who is under those Daft Punk helmets?

" Looks like I am never ever ever ever ever ever ever winning a grammy tonight".

The real contenders of the evening : The Hat vs The Helmets

Kevin Hart clearly not over Beyonce's performance. Obviously he still misses 'single ladies'

It's all in good humour for Pink!

Never a bad time to check if something's stuck in your teeth, Madonna!

And of course, She's got the perfect loser face all ready, after she loses the 'Album of the year'.

That's all for now folks! Do stay tuned for more.

5 types of drivers on Indian roads

“A man’s true character is measured by the way he drives”- Suroshree Dasgupta

Relax, I have done my research and no one else has come up with this quote yet. So it’s safe to say that it’s mine and I came up with it because past experience has taught me that, it is true.

I like people. They are generally very nice. Except when driving on the road. The road turns everyone into something else. It’s like the blast of a test detonation of a gamma bomb that eventually turns us into monsters. The steering wheel and the driver’s seat transform us into a deadly combination of Jekyll and Frankenstein, waiting to turn into Hulk. Truth be known, the road brings out the Hulk in all of us, waiting to erupt into a hyper-aggressive, brutal, cunning and scheming monster; in the form of the following 5 Drivers (feel free to add to this list):

1. The multi-tasker :
I am going to stereotype this one and just assume that it is mostly women. So, let me get this one straight out of the list. It is extremely important we discuss about the multi-tasker. She may not be particularly angry but, boy, she has a lot of pent up energy, which she chooses to release while driving. So texting someone, calling her boyfriend, combing her hair, changing her display picture, updating the status, setting up meetings, EVERYTHING has to be done while driving. Might as well give her a weapon of mass destruction and call it even.

2. The ‘territorial drivers’:
Includes the bus, trucks, tempos and even SUV drivers. They probably believe that they own the road and in fact the entire city. Surely the ones who suffer from the ‘mere baap ka road hain’ syndrome, they'll gladly take over the whole road as they steamroll forward and marginalize everyone else, including the wrong-way cyclists and the annoying bikers. But three wrongs don't make a right turn.

3. The lane changer:
This guy swerves in and out of lanes, hopping like a metal frog between cars, trying to get in front of everyone. Sometimes they dance from lane to lane without a thought or use of any indicator as if they are in the middle of a video game. So, eventually when you come to a red light and you notice that he has only managed to cut only 3.2 seconds off of his drive time

4. The ‘incessant horn-blowers’:
One species, our country has an excess of and seems like we cannot expect them to be extinct anytime soon either. Their entire machismo depends on their easy access to a pointless, deafening horn. These cannibalistic cretins will beep for no godly reason other than to torture you while reminding themselves and everyone else around that they exist. 

5. The ‘I’ll walk whenever/wherever/however I want to-people’:
Jay running is their passion, which is not the worst thing. But they don't even look around as they do that, too focused on the music they're listening to, the call they are on, or in deep thought about their very important suicide mission. I have no problem at all with their apparent death wish, but do they have to jeopardize everyone else’s life too?



I know the list is endless. There are the wrong-way bike riders, the slow pokes, the perpendicular turn-takers or the random turn-takers and many more, but I’ll save that for another post. For now, I am pretty mad at these 5 drivers I met on my way to work today. I might ram into one of them if they don’t mend their ways, soon.

The road makes me angry.

Drills and drones of a Dentist

What do you HATE about dentists? What part of it bugs you the most?

The drill and drone of dentists

Ask anyone and the following is the response you’ll get:

“Everything!”

If you’re a Dentist Hater, I’m sure you have your reasons, and yet I’ll bet it’s not actually dentists you hate. It’s all the stuff a dentist does that creeps you out like the drilling, filling, and billing parts.

Who can blame you for that? A dental chair can combine the sum of all fears… with pain, needles, doctors, confined-spaces, loud noises.

It’s no big surprise so many people hate going to the dentist. Hating dentists comes naturally to many people. Some people hate dentists because they are Dentists, some think dentists are meant to be hated. A few hate them because others do so. But, an important aspect of this is why people hate the dentist. I have tried to figure it out and I think there are a few genuine reasons for people to hate or be afraid of the dentist.

1.The PAIN!

“Is it going to hurt?” That’s the question on everybody’s mind whenever they sit in a dental chair. It’s obvious why it is easily the most common reason that people hate dentists. You might have never undergone a dental procedure, but hearing all those horror stories of pain can make you hate the dentist. You could also have a previous horror encounter with the dentist and hate them after that.

For me, it’s mostly the horror stories and the mental image.

2.The DRILL!

The drill instills fear in everyone. Suddenly you start picturing yourself in a gory movie like SAW or something. The sheer sound of it is something similar to a drill machine and letting someone put that thing in your mouth is not in your comfort zone. This weapon of destruction with all the noise vibration and spray becomes a focus for their anxiety. When we hear that sound, their sweat starts to pour.

3.The Clinic!

I honestly feel there are shortcomings with the clinic itself. I don’t like the look of it, or the sight of dental chair/instruments makes them feel nervous. A few people say they hate the smell of the dentist’s office. With any measure of anxiety or fear, your senses are put on high-alert. You become hyper-aware of sights, sounds and smells.

4.It’s INVASIVE!

Dentistry is invasive. They’re right inside our mouth performing some heavy gum-gardening and tooth-carpentry.  This can definitely feel like an invasion of your personal space. Surely feels for me!

5.The LECTURES!

Last but certainly not the least, it’s the lecturing.  If you already feel guilty or embarrassed about your situation, the last thing you want is reasons to feel worse. You don’t need to be scolded into submission, admonished like you’re a helpless child or assaulted by irrelevant factoids until your eyes glaze over.

Going to the dentist is stressful enough without the people who are supposed to help you piling on more guilt and blame. Who needs that? Why pay good money and be made to feel like crap?

Regardless, it is something we can’t avoid and if we do, we can forget about making friends. The bad oral hygiene is going to keep them away forever. So, hate Dentists or love Dentists, you just can’t ignore Dentists.

What's in the bag?

As all ladies know, we must have a purse to put in our "stuff."

It’s amazing how much those small things can fit!

The amount of “stuff” needed depends on the individual, but all of us need something to carry it in, whether large or small. There was a time when I used to think that I didn't need a purse. I could get by just fine with keys and a cell phone, I declared.  But I was wrong. I needed things at home and things at work, and what if I was not at either place or needed something both at home and work? You can see the problem.

Most of my friends will tell you I’m not a girly girl. I hardly comb my hair. I hardly wear makeup. I don’t plan outfits way in advance. I hardly ever wear earrings because I keep losing them anyway. And I can easily walk out the house without looking in the mirror. But the one thing I do share with most women the world over is the tendency to put a tonne of “stuff” in my handbag or purse, whatever you may call it.

I used to be one of those women who’d only buy those ridiculously large tote bags, because well they could fit anything. Then after my mum kept telling me to clean up the mess my bag was always in, and every bag meeting its demise due to busted straps caused by too much weight, I told myself, “Really, you don’t need most of the things in there”, and I switched to clutches. Problem is, I stuff those too. It’s amazing how much those small things can fit!

Seriously though, women compulsively like to put totally unnecessary items in their bag, things that we think is ‘important’ to us. But do we really need to keep two bottles of nail polish of the same colour in our bag? I’m not sure. The word important is subjective in itself, so if a puppet of Sponge Bob is important to me, it goes in. See, what goes into a woman’s handbag is dictated by what said woman thinks is important for her to carry around. So each woman’s needs differ based on her lifestyle. If she drives, her shoes might not go in her bag, because they can go in the car. If she’s into her looks, she’ll definitely have a tonne of make-up items. You get the drift, right?

But, honestly, I think most of us end up filling up our bags just so it won’t look empty. A big, empty bag is not fashionable. I’m no fashionista but even I know this. A woman’s handbag is a fashion statement. It’s an extension of her personality and sense of style. Regardless, she knows that some spaces must be filled, because it’s not necessarily about functionality. Stuffing your bag is about completing ‘the look’. It’s not that we plan to have all that stuff. Honest. Some of us just never clean out our bags, so stuff builds up over time. I’m guilty of this and I have no qualms in saying that I’m one of the messiest women you’ll ever meet.

If you really want to get an idea of how a woman’s mind works, all you have to do is look inside her handbag.

We need to talk

In any relationship between two people, when one of them demands to have “the talk”, you know there’s trouble in paradise.  Whether it’s your father who wants to sit you down and have “the talk” about the opposite sex or your boss who wants to have “the talk” about how he wants to fire you or your girlfriend who wants to have “the talk”, when she pretty much wants to dump your a**, you know YOU DO NOT WANT to have THE TALK. Unfortunately though, it is that time in my life too, that I need to have the much dreaded “talk”. This time with my true companion on the road and my only friend that I need on every journey I embark upon.

My Car.

If I ever had a high maintenance girlfriend like most boys who complain, I’m pretty certain she would be a lot easier to handle than my companion on four wheels. So, I decided that I have “The Talk”.

Dear Car (that actually belongs to my mother),

I am sorry for doing it but you had left me with no choice and I needed to set things straight. So, here we are having “the talk”.  I tried to avoid it but I couldn’t hold it in any longer and you needed to know, because we were both in this together.

You can’t move without me and I can’t depend on anyone else other than you. However, lately it started to seem like a more one-sided relationship. I was giving more than I could get.  Trying to satisfy your insatiable appetite for the very expensive petrol was getting too difficult for me to handle and unfortunately I had nothing to show for keeping your tank full except for a few kilometers on the road. Life was starting to be measured from one trip to the petrol pump to the next.

It’s like you’ve figured out my weakness. Even when I want to give you a silent treatment, I cannot because I simply cannot do without you. So, sometimes you take advantage of that. For example, even when there is nothing wrong with you, you have to go in for service. Even a girl like me, doesn’t visit the parlour unless there is something she really needs to do. And, you would think that with modern technology they could figure out a way for cars not to need maintenance when nothing is wrong.

All you want to do is make me spend my money on you. I am always trying to fix something. Its either the brakes are too squeaky or something quits pumping or something falls loose. There is never an end to it and the best I can do is hope that you will continue to run like you first promised, if I keep giving you what you want.

With time I have also noticed that you have stopped trying to reinvent yourself and that spark is just missing. I see too many of you on the road and it bothers me that each of them are like clones of you. Nothing sets you apart any longer.

Also, I may have never told you this, but infidelity is a big issue that I live in the fear of, constantly. I am always worried that someone might steal you away from me at night or even in broad daylight and there might not be anything I’ll be able to do. I have tried to lock you down in many ways but it’s something I hate doing.  I get the feeling that you won’t even hesitate when someone would just sweep you away. Isn’t that right now?

So, tell me what should one do? What choice am I left with but to let you go? Each minute of my life is spent worrying about you. You occupy a big chunk of my salary and there is nothing I save. How is this relationship going to last if one us has a constant worry on their minds?

Maybe it’s best we part ways. You need to find someone else who is going to take care of your needs because I sure as hell cannot do it anymore.

Love,

S

Am I smarter than my smartphone?

Dear Diary,

I lost my phone today. . . again. I think maybe I am not smart enough to have a smart phone. I am a loser. I always put it in my pocket so it will be handy if it rings. I dug and dug in my rucksack, but it wasn't there. I was not too worried. I must have left it at home. Damn it! No checking email at lunch today or stalking my friends on Facebook, the whole day (It was an aggravation, but I would survive).

As soon as I got home after work, I looked in the pockets of the jacket I wore the day before. No phone. Well, maybe I left it in my pants pockets. I searched them and all the other pants in my closet, just in case. No luck.

Call the phone! It will ring and I can find it (I said to myself). I called it but it was switched off! What could it mean? I was panicking and sweat started to trickle down my forehead. Either the battery was dead or someone had turned it off. My heart sank. However, some of these phones have this fancy app on them called ‘Find Phone’. It picks up the phone's signal and tells you the location of your phone. I clicked Find my Phone but it only found my iPad, the one in my hands.

Apparently, ‘Find Phone’ only works if the phone is turned on (wrong time to discover that). Last time I lost the phone, the app located it in the car. The car? That's an idea. I went outside and searched the car. It wasn't there. This time I had really lost it. Maybe someone would find it and return it? Yeah, right, someone will turn in my really expensive phone? Why did I have to buy a smart phone?

I'm not smart enough to have a smart phone. That’s it!! If it is lost, I am going to do without a phone. (I know I am telling a lie, but it makes me feel better).

Sometimes phones turn up later. We found my last phone behind the bed a month after it was lost. The bed? Did I look behind the bed? I looked again, also under the bed, and under the blankets, sheets and pillows.

I was starting to panic. "I lost my phone," I told my mother.

"Is it in your bag?"

"No"

"Did you look in your coat pockets?"

"Yes"

"How about the car?"

"Yes"

She continued naming off all the places I had already looked. Sometimes something turns up where you have already looked, so I looked again. How often have I found my lost debit card in my wallet, right where it was the entire time it was lost?

In desperation I looked everywhere, under the sofa cushions, under my desk and even in the refrigerator. No use, I'm a loser. It's gone!

So, I did what I always tell my friends and family to do. "Sit down and think back to every place you've been since you had it." I looked in the bathroom where I made a pit stop, in my sister’s room where I sat for a few minutes and talked to her. Then I had changed clothes into something more comfortable - wait a minute. Where are those clothes?

I searched the dirty laundry, no phone. But no dirty sweat pants either. That's odd! I've lost my pants too? How could I lose my pants? If I can find my pants, I can find my phone, I'll bet. Then I remembered the hook on the back of the bathroom door where I hung them when I took a shower. I ran to check.

Yes, the phone was in the pocket. I found it!

The phone was dead as the proverbial door nail. When I put it to the charge, the alarm sounded to tell me it was found, as if I didn't know.

And that's the story of how I outsmarted my smart phone. . . at least this time.

Until the next.