Sleeping Duty

By 24 commentsBlog, Rantings, , ,

I was reading the post by Smita on her escapades which she attained by sleeping her way to glory.
So after reading I actually reminded of one of the incidents which happened to me when I was as she puts it “Catching the Precious Winks in Office”

Generally I am not the kind of person who would sleep during the day, but then some days are just not normal. This incident happened on one of those kind of days and till date it has been one of the most embarrassing moments in my life.

To give a little background we had a closed knitted team in the office, all of us bachelors and around the same age group with a difference of 1 or 2 years. Since I had recently moved to Hyderabad for the project I did not had any other friends in office so I generally used to hang out with the team folks joking around having fun. On the project side I was leading the team and I had made good rapport with the people reporting to me. My boss was based out of Bangalore so I was the one who was solely responsible for the day to day activities of the team.

So one of those days I had an awesome weekends when we did all the masti and fun watching night shows, having midnight buffets, driving on necklace road and sitting across Hussain Sagar lake only to return back home at 4:30 in the morning. On Monday we had a Vedio Conferencing scheduled at 8:00 in the morning with the client. So essentially the sleep deprived me somehow surviving on my coffee went through the meeting.

Finally I sat down at my desk and started working on something, and I don’t know when I slipped off into the oblivion of deep sleep with my face on my palm cup and my elbow resting on the table. I don’t even know how long it was before I heard something. It took me 5 seconds to realize where I was and what was happening.
Coming back to senses I see the most dreaded scene, my whole team was standing around my cubicle giggling and laughing. That was so embarrassing, I was supposed to be the one to set examples and I was the one who was to act like boss and here I was acting like a sleeping beauty in front of almost everyone who reports to me. I just felt like “Yeh Dharti fat jaye aur main isme sama jaaon” and not to mention that this was the first assignment where I got to be the boss.
I finally gave them flimsy explanation which on retrospect was all the more idiotic because I did not owe an explanation to them 🙁 and then proceeded towards the loo. One look at the mirror my face had imprints of my own fingers which looked like I have been slapped tightly by some girl trying to score with her, the clothes had been crumpled and disoriented like I had chosen Recession hit Investment banker as my adult Halloween costume theme.

Can you believe it I am writing this blog post again at 1:30 in the night when I have a conference call in office tomorrow at 8 in the morning. Damn I don’t get it, Do I?

24 comments on “Sleeping Duty”

  1. Tanvi Reply

    Hi…OMG…hilarious.

    It used to happen to me a lot of times and I used to go and catch these precious winks in the (embarassed) loo…We used to call it power naps…15 mins of those and u can survive for 4-5 hrs easily.

    But hope the team members have got over the scene…or do they still laugh remembering that?

    • Prats Reply

      @Tanvi: ha ha ha we all do right?? I don’t know I shifted to Pune the project was over and the team got dismantled. I just hope they have already forgotten it 🙂

  2. Smita Reply

    lol!!!

    Happens to most of us!!! In college I used to proclaim that I never sleep in class (And I didn’t) but then there would be days when you don’t even now and u doze off!!! 😀

    Your situation was embarrassingly humorous 😀

    • Prats Reply

      @Smita: Well as great people have already said “Tragedy of One Comedy for all” so embarrassing for me and humorous for everyone else. I still sometimes wonder what my team mates would think of me 🙁

  3. Sri Reply

    haha ROFTL , where were u these days, a good post from u after a long time 🙂

    I can relate, taking late night fun and doZing of at office, haha although i never really got caught or did that , but once i slept in the toilet at the office, that was after i came back from holidays in the overnight flight back here, and i had to work that day, i went to pee and after the flush sat on toilet seat and actually dozed off!! after may be like 10 mins, i woke up and felt so ashamed of myself! LOL

    • Prats Reply

      @Sri: I was traveling a lot lately some functions and all. Would be more regular in posting henceforth.

      I know the Loo is the best place to do it, specially in the IT companies they have really clean and well maintained Loo.

      Henceforth i prefer the same place for taking power naps 🙂

  4. Sri Reply

    //One look at the mirror my face had imprints of my own fingers which looked like I have been slapped tightly by some girl trying to score with her, the clothes had been crumpled and disoriented like I had chosen Recession hit Investment banker as my adult Halloween costume theme.
    //

    Top notch ur style

  5. adee Reply

    lol
    i do it daily man!
    even after 7 hrs of sleep 😀
    think of my predicament
    i toh tell everybody not to disturb me as i’m taking a 20 minute cat nap
    i’ve slept on my desk, in the films department upstairs, in the cab while going for a meeting, in the cab while coming from a meeting, while being in a meeting :D, while talking to boss, while talking to juniors, everywhere apart from the loo!
    someday, someone will find me sleeping there too 😀

    • Prats Reply

      @Adee: Man aren’t you damn lucky one you can sleep anywhere you want to and then you haven’t slept off in the best place in office???

      You serious sleeping while talking to your boss… Man that story should be told

  6. Poonam Reply

    🙂 But if you put the ‘setting example’ bit aside, a close knit team would be thrilled to have a unassuming human as their boss. Its endearing actually. 🙂

    Though I have done things like waking up late in my current job, I have never fallen asleep at work. Thank God!

    In current jib I try working from home next day if I have not slept well last night. That way I can finish work and rest too.

    • Prats Reply

      @Poonam: I don’t but it was really really embarrassing. I just felt like hiding my face somewhere and not meeting those people again in the day…

      On the work from home thing you are very lucky your company allows you to do that, our company doesn’t allows us to work from home 🙁

  7. saikat Reply

    It happens. When I got my first job I was put into night shift as I had to moderate an active US forum. I used to give tuitions to local kids before employment and as it was just the first month of my job, I still had to take classes after returning home in the morning. And the same thing happened. I fell asleep while taking class and when I got back my sense I saw that all of them were looking at me quietly – fortunately, they were not laughing, it seemed that they were sympathetic to me!

    • Prats Reply

      @Saikat: Man that wd have been a bit weird for you… On lighter note they would have said “the subject is so boring that the teacher fell asleep while teaching it” what say?

      • saikat Reply

        Yes, I also thought the same thing that time 😀 I was so embarrassed…I used to share friendly relationships with my students – we were friends, we used to visit museums, science fests together – it was a part of my teaching practice…I think I was a good teacher; and then such an action! Oh God 😀

        • Prats Reply

          @Saikat: Man I understand that would have been embarrassing but then as a student nobody minds cracking a jibe on a teacher no matter how good he is right? Its an integral part of a student teacher relationship 🙂

  8. ruSh.Me Reply

    It used to happen during my training days.. Imagine, Summer of Jaipur, Lunch at factory consisting of Chhas, rice and spicy Rajasthani food.. Who the hell won’t feel sleepy.. Like always, we were battling ‘pyaari nindeeya’ and had just put my head on the table, my MD sneaked up behind and announced, “I know you all love Rajasthani food and we are proud to serve you well, but kindly, reciprocate by concentrating on work.. ” 😀 He wasn’t angry or serious but we got the message!! 🙁

    It depends how relaxed your office atmosphere is!! 🙂

    • Prats Reply

      @Rush.me: Awww actually the work environment is huge deciding factor in how ok people are with these kind of things. I have a friend in whose office actually the culture is okay to take 15-20 mins power naps if required.

      However the culture in the core industries like manufacturing etc is not quite liberal to accommodate things like that, may be because of the distinction of the work profile of Blue Collared & white collared jobs.

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