White Ogres

The organization like any other had a distinct hierarchy, one that was in place without assertion or enforcement. It was widely accepted that hierarchy ensured decorum and decorum ensured hierarchy.

The office was on the first floor of a building facing no where in particular, overlooking nothing in particular and seating a cramped army of silent workers made to toil under the false illusion of importance. As one approaches the building, one is overwhelmed by the sense of importance and business. By the time one reaches the first floor, one regrets having come at all. The mailman never stopped to chat with the watchman. The watchman rarely stepped into that all-so-important shrine. Janitors and window cleaners dreaded the office. On a bright spring afternoon, while the sun shone with a dentifrice smile and Jacaranda and Oleanders bloomed with youth and life and little children grew red and sweaty with playing all morning, the office worked with solemn vigour as if bound by a promise to deliver the latest, the best, the most terrifying "whatever" that the office was in the business of making or providing.

The office was managed by a team of well fed individuals. Each had in his or her lifetime achieved great acclaim and wealth. Each had, by degrees, attained a sense of self importance and indulgence typical of those who have attained wealth and acclaim. They each had a cabin that lined the periphery of the office floor. Each cabin was fitted with a glass door that allowed the inmate to monitor quietly from within, the activities of the workers outside. By virtue of the fact that one was a manager, one was entitled to a window in his cabin. And by virtue of hierarchy, windows were the sole property of the managers as was also the sunlight that streamed in.

And why would they not take all the windows? They liked to bask in the sunlight, warming their toes. In their contentment they waved their hands about, dismissing each and all...daily mundane decisions that were taken with a sense of righteousness. Sometimes when they got tired of warming their toes, they left their cabin doors open and tuned in their idle radar-stations-for-ears to the sounds emanating from the workers outside.

The workers worked in the central portion of the floor, a happy and pale lot whose words occasionally rose to the level of a buzz. There was the diligent worker. The stylish one. There was the flirtatious worker and the quiet one. There was the over enthusiastic worker as well as the lazy one. This diverse group of workers formed a collective that did the work for the organization.

The Bumble Bee headed the office. Among other things, she professed in the art of dressing horribly, uttering unwarranted exclamations and above all, the ability to appear concerned while giving a damn really. Bee was after all the most accomplished of the group of toe warmers.

"We are convened because we will have visitors from the Prime Echelon. They shall be here for a week. By then, I want all the books taken care of." Bee was in her element.

"Yes. I shall personally take care of them. And the guests as well. As long as I am here, Prime Echelon shall never know of our ways here."

That was Stubble Wee. A wee little man who spent his time fixing and mending numbers so that everything tallied perfectly for Prime Echelon to see. He was a proud man who found pride in ever word he uttered. When someone asked him the time, he usually replied with the utmost condescension, "The time is busy...is there anything you want".

"Just the time will do."

"I have no time to answer that question."

The meeting was a Monday meeting, one held in the big, sunlit conference room over coffee and recliners with cushioned heel rests at the window sills; to warm toes ofcourse.

The Bee continued with a slurp of her coffee mug. "I believe we have to start working on next year's budget. I expect managers to give me requirement reports. Also, our visitors will make an announcement."

"What is the announcement?" Yet another puny creature spoke up. His name was Thi and known by all workers on the floor to be the greatest gambler and poorest loser there ever was. Thi excelled in the art of cover-up-by-sucking-up. A good amount of his daily time was spent in Bee's chamber where he sought to charm her with many flatteries. Some so completely far from subtle that they could easily qualify for inclusion in the first chapter of "Sucking Up for Dummies" if only it were written.

"I mean, you of course know it and have saved it for us to disclose on an appropriate occasion. But Bee, I cannot help but read your radiant smile, so cleverly suppressed to guess that the announcement will be something big and great. Isn't it?"

Bee smiled, inspite of herself. They are shelving one of our projects and the resources will be reassigned. Ofcourse, Prime Echelon sees it as extra burden for all of us; what with all the extra work of explaining to the affected workers, continuously reinforcing the force field of importance and closing all gaps so as to achieve seamless migration to the new project. So you see, all of us are entitled to a fat bonus for our extra work."

A general chorus of agreement and excitement followed. At this point, as is usually the norm of the toe-warmers to try and gain extra brownie points for being practical, Con Tri seized an opportunity that all others always failed to beat him to.

"I believe we should give a demonstration of our prototype. It will display our commitment to Prime Echelon and also allow us to ask for more funds for next year", Con Tri spoke in his nasal voice. He was a stout, bespectacled man who spent his time worrying that he would soon run out of things to worry about. "I humbly submit that in the best interest of our office and its decorum, we prepare beforehand what to tell our workers once the announcement is made."

Everyone agreed; some grudgingly. Wee went into paroxysms of contemplation wherein he was already making mental calculations of how much to spend on the guests and how much to show on paper. Thi was racking his brains to say something extraordinarily flattering to Bee to dampen the effect of Con Tri's very obvious observation. He opened and shut his mouth like a fish.

"Ok. Ok. Don't get all excited. We have to set an example for the workers, which brings me to the matter of the email we all received on the matter of the two notorious workers found to spread laughter and fun on the floor. I say, if this is not checked, we shall have a mutiny in our hands."

"I say we discipline them at once. Laughter is bad for the workers and so is fun. It creates disturbance in the importance field and we have to make adjustments to reinforce the field so that no worker feels unimportant. Decorum is sacrosanct and don't we know how much effort Bee has put into maintaining decorum." At this point Thi would have continued had he not run out of breath. But he was congratulating himself internally for finally coming up with that "extraordinary" lick.

By this time, everyone had changed position to sun their backs having had enough of warm toes for one morning. Their meetings were long the accounts of which occupied a substantial part of their weekly essays that they were going to submit to Prime Echelon as Weekly Status Report.

Outside, a different conversation was going on. Two workers were talking.

"What do you reckon they are talking about?"

"It must be Thi reciting poetry to Bee", the other chuckled.

Hearing the sound of someone having fun in a morose office, one more worker approached them.

"I hear we have visitors from Prime Echelon. They do not visit unless they have some important development in the company to announce."

"I don't think there is much to worry about. Our White Ogres are in meeting now They will take care of things. I wonder how that Wee gets away every time with his accounts, all made up and fabricated."

"That I give that Wee...that weasel!"

"Come on! We aren't married to this organization. The ogres have to do some work to justify their cabins with windows and sunlight. For all you know, the ogres from Prime Echelon are visiting to announce some kind of reorganization."

"Not again! This is the 3rd time this year."

"Hey, I like to reorganize my home furniture too you know...gets boring after sometime. Look at the bright side...We get to see Bee trying to be fashionable."

A general guffaw followed. Then everyone retreated to their work place. The force field of importance had been reinforced. The White Ogres had seen to that.