My
colleague had said something about Pappu a few months before I met him. I did not
remember it when I met him at the reception of the hotel I was staying in. He
was sitting on a couch staring into his tablet seriously. Pappu looked up at me
with a smile when I called his name. The hearty handshake he offered nearly
crushed my palm. He asked me to sit
beside him on the couch. Pappu’s huge
frame had already occupied three fourths of the couch and I could fit into the
remaining space. By the time I settled down Pappu's focus went back to the tablet.
He typed something into the tablet, waited a moment and cursed. He threw the
tablet into his bag and informed me that the cab was waiting.
I
spent most of the day in the rear seat of cab stuck between Pappu and an
equally large colleague of his. One of the cabs was a Maruti Ritz and during
that journey I a few of my cells must have fused into each other. At the end of
the day, I got a good understanding of the phrase “tired to my bones”. Through
the day Pappu repeated, many times, the routine of staring at his tablet,
entering something, cursing and finally throwing the tablet into his bag.
Though curious about this routine I chose not indulge in any unnecessary
conversation with Pappu.
When
we reached the room, Pappu’s equally stout colleague questioned him on his
routine. Apparently Pappu had forgotten the tablet’s password and was attempting
to find it. He had not used the tablet for a couple of months and now had to
get some data out if it. He thought the password was admin123 but it did not work.
“Did you take care of the caps lock?” asked the colleague. “I have been on this
from the morning and have done all that shit” was the annoyed response. The
colleague took out the tablet from Pappu's bag and extended it towards me
saying “you are the techie; you solve this”.
One more instance of people abusing me in the name of being a techie.
I
switched on the tablet to find that it was Windows 8.1 tablet. I sheepishly
typed admin123 box and was instantly informed “wrong password “. I saw an
option called “Reset password’ under the password box. I clicked it and a window
popped up requesting me to insert a USB stick. I took out a USB stick and
inserted it into the tablet. Pappu informed me that the process will not work.
Sure enough the USB did not contain a password utility that the operating
system required. I called a friend and explained the issue. While I waited for
a response from my friend, Pappu grabbed the tablet and started typing into it furiously.
I
received a mail from my colleague with a link to download a utility to crack
password protected Windows 8.1 devices. I clicked the link to start the
download. The hotel network was patchy and I had to press retry a few times.
Finally one of the attempts went further than the earlier ones. When the
download reached 80%, Pappu stretched out the tablet towards me. He had succeeded
in logging into it. For a minute I did not understand but then I realized he
had broken the password. Pappu was looking at me with a victorious smile.
“I
tried many passwords but they did not work. I got frustrated and typed gotohell
but it did not work. I then typed jaisriram and it worked”. I was not sure if I
was annoyed or amused. I terminated the download, shut the laptop and informed
the two of them that I planned to sleep.
When
I recounted this incident to my colleagues, one of them identified Pappu. They
had attended a meeting at a large MNC. As they walked out of the office after
the meeting Pappu had noticed the life-size name and logo of the company by the
security cabin. An excited Pappu exclaimed “time for a selfie”. As he readied for
the selfie, one of the security personnel came running and requested him not to
click. Pappu responded with a “come on yaar”. The security guy did not come-on.
“Just one selfie yaar. No one will see”
said Pappu.
“No
sir. It’s not allowed”.
“Come
on yaar. What is wrong with a selfie?”
“Sir,
it is not allowed.”
“Hey
no one will know. Don’t worry.”
“Sir
I will lose my job.”
“I
will find you a new job.”
“Sir
pleeeease” pleaded the security.
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