Profession of Waitresses decodified

Waitresses have earned various sobriquets down the ages: divine, supreme, enchantress, mistress of my dreams and even a censored or beeped word that refers to an illegitimate child if one were to believe a stereotypical joke attributed to the Sikhs or Sardarji’s as we have come to know them.

O! east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet or so said Rudyard Kipling in one of his immortal poems, waitresses have certainly done their fair bit in dispelling their myth; they have donned miniscule mini skirts, long and flowing gowns, pinafores and flowing skirts, caftans, sarees or even flaunted their mammaries when the occasion has called upon them do so.

A thick or even better impermeable skin or hide, infinite patience, felicity with the most commonly spoken language within a country, passable visage, erect or upright body structure, impeccable manners, inherent ability to get downright dirty, stand for hours on one leg if required, brush off or condone sexual innuendos or overtures by desperadoes and last but not the least rudimentary self defence skills are desirable qualities in both budding and established waitresses.

Meeting orders, serving customers with a smile, taking orders, cleaning tables and floors (if required) and making customers feel at home is what most if not all waitresses do. The pay might not be earth shattering or bring the roof down, the hours are long and undulating, the job is primarily a thankless one that may earn you many more boots than bouquets; but the tips and gushing words of appreciation emanating from the lips of an appreciative customer do certainly go a long way in making up for the drudgery and mind numbing boredom associated with the profession.

Largely stereotyped as bimbettes with either little or no grey matter between their ears, waitresses have certainly dispelled this notion and how; they have cultivated or then acquired the ability to memorise and execute multiple orders almost simultaneously, learnt to laugh at/with themselves and wish away the ironies associated with the profession without bitterness and rancor and arrest the rising ardour and passion of many a budding romeo politely yet firmly by pitting them in their rightful places.

Still to get their due place under the sun, the profession continues to be looked at with disapproval, disdain and even disparagingly in most if not all developing or third world countries; yet young damsels continue to embrace the profession while turning a Nelson’s eye to the barbs, threats both implicit and explicit and real and present fear of social ridicule if not boycott; however smile all the while and be jolly, life wasn’t intended to be melancholic as Mae West once said.

Do log onto the websites of the Radisson, Hilton, Trident, Sheraton group of hotels or then colleges offering related courses for details on how one can go about entering the portals of this hallowed profession.     

             

Insight on Waiters, Waitressing and Serving.

Waiter, Boy, Garcon, Here, Snap of the Fingers and last but not the least summons through a whistle are commonly resorted to terms of endearment which are in vogue when it comes to requisitioning the services or then attention of your friendly neighbourhood waiter.

Waiters almost seem like men from another planet, they more often than not shrug away the vilest of abuses without batting an eyelid, remain standing for hours on end without a whisper of complaint on their lips, maintain their poise, decorum and unflappable charm in the face of the gravest of provocations, and last but not the least serve out gourmet meals while making do a meal barely fit for human consumption themselves more often than not.

The ubiquitous English butler Jeeves has become the epitome of all things related to waiters and also been immortalized by P.G. Wodehouse in his plethora of work on a master/butler relationship, a stiff ramrod straight back, stiff upper lip, unflappable sense of decorum, inherent ability to put up with long and often inhuman hours of work, smile away your worries and temper tantrums while continuing to serve either a shrew or harridan without a cuss word or protest emanating from your lips and last but not the least pirouette like a ballerina through crowded aisles and passage ways are much sought after abilities or then desirable attributes in a stereotypical waiter.

Motion pictures or then moving images of all hues, budgets, in every language under the sun, with or without multi star casts and helmed by the crème de la crème of directors have served to establish or carve out a larger than life image of the humble waiter; waiters have doubled up as spies, police officers, undercover agents, enemies of the state and what have you. Waiters have unabashedly romanced their heroines, saved them from the clutches of the villain and his henchmen and even essayed the role of Sir Galahad when required, but, pray, tarry for a while and ponder on the fact that this is largely restricted to the silver screen and is a figment of the director’s vivid and over imaginative imagination.

Nimble footedness, almost inhuman balancing abilities, honouring the most banal of requests with a smile, answering the most idiotic query in a civilized manner and a razor sharp memory capable of imbibing every favoured customers’ quirks and eccentricities are the hallmarks of a waiter/butler cast in the Jeeves mould.

A multitude of schools, colleges, international and domestic hotel chains, clubs, resorts, lounges and their many counterparts have gone about setting up or establishing training schools wholly devoted to imparting the desired and much sought after skills and their related websites would be the ideal place to glean information on the minutest details pertaining to the profession. The pay is nothing to write home about and the hours of work are long and undulating, but the tips are the proverbial icing on the cake.    

Trucks and charms of being a truck driver.

Truck Drivers have been and will always continue being a law unto themselves, becoming a member of this hard drinking, free swearing, repeatedly cussing and often randy brotherhood is about as difficult as getting a membership into an Ivy League club.

A driving course that familiarizes you with the pre-requisites of being a truck driver, related/applicable traffic rules, applicable U.S. state and federal laws, long haul routes, and ability to chart your own course is as good a starting point as any. Many a hiring company insists upon a completion certificate issued by the concerned driving school apart from an applicable and blemish free driving license.

The hours are long and arduous, the job is more often thankless than not, you may have to stay away from your home and near and dear one’s for weeks if not months on end, the pay though barely adequate is not exactly the stuff that dreams are made of, you must be in love with your own company and possess an almost inhuman quality of forsaking almost all human contact for long periods; yet despite these professional hardships and eccentricities the numbers of people employed as truck drivers continue to show a healthy upward trend within the US of A.

In addition most if not all truck drivers are wholly and solely responsible for picking up and delivering freight from one destination to the next and loading and unloading their cargo if either required or then mandatorily stipulated in their work contracts. They are also accountable and responsible for steadfastly following all laid down applicable laws and ensuring that their working equipment is always maintained in an optimum working condition.

Long Haul Drivers are also responsible for plotting their own routes. In most cases, operators are provided with or given a delivery location and deadline, and they must determine ways and means of delivering their shipment to it’s exact location on time. This can indeed be difficult as drivers must firstly find routes that allow large trucks and secondly, ensure steadfast compliance with all applicable rules and laws enforced by the United States Department of transportation. They also need to maintain scrupulous log books containing details of the distances covered on a daily basis, observance of rest periods in conformity with the laid down laws in this regard and last but not the least unflagging compliance with the prevalent speed limits on different roads, national and state highways and within respective state boundaries.

Specialist truck drivers usually work with unusual/hazardous loads; they carry liquids, inflammable materials, hazardous materials, nuclear fissile materials, oversized load cars, chemicals and so on and so forth; such drivers must always adhere to all laid down laws in this regard to rule out any and every possibility of a hazardous industrial or individual mishap.

The International Brotherhood of teamsters and trucking union websites would be the ideal place to make a beginning.   

who is a event planner ??

People might be forgiven for thinking that the only job in event planning is the role of an Event Planner. It is imperative that people begin to realize the scope of this industry and the millions of jobs that this sector of the economy really has to offer.

Consider or then ponder over this: other than their creative thinking skills, most people who work in events management have strong and proven organizational skills. That is because of the sole reason that they are expected to juggle a full range of logistics to execute and implement various programmes.

Most event planners handle anything between 35-150 events in a calendar year and are solely responsible of the entire gamut of operations including: planning the event, creating event budgets, designing and sending/handing out of event invitations, planning seminars, handing out and collecting speaker evaluation forms, designing or then hiring requisite or required event related software (s) and last but not the least the compilation and due distribution of an event binder.

For those who have strong organizational and office skills, the truth is that administrative assistants and office managers are more often than not busy in organizing a full range of corporate events in the corporate world. While the human resources department may be in charge of the company picnic or holiday party, the administrative assistants are providing the much needed logistical support including lining up of vendors and formalization of time bound agreements for delivery of services and a wide variety of much needed goods.

Liasioning with travel agents and domestic/international airlines and tour operators for the best possible deals if the picnic/event entails to and fro travel. Finalising and putting in place all stay and catering related arrangements and nailing down transportation arrangements within the city or resort that the company executives and their families would be staying at and last but not the least ensuring that the who’s who of the company/organization are always kept in resounding good humour.

The profession is not always all about blood, sweat, tears, filth, grime and short fuses; but like all professions does have it’s flip side too: the crème de la crème of event managers do get to hobnob with matinee idols, royalty, political icons, page 3 elites, beacons of the world of sports, enticing and beauteous fashion models and many a society’s movers and shakers.

Pay packages are meant to keep your body and limb together and the ability to put up with starry tantrums and abuse, eccentricities, whims and fancies and exalted senses of self importance is a pre-requisite, the job might entail getting down right and dirty, is more often than not totally thankless and you might be left to fend for yourself more often than not.

If you’ve got the infinite patience of a Maddona and the impermeable hide of a rhinoceros you’ve certainly got what it takes baby. Logging onto NPO.net, Association Forum or INLEAD.in might be a good idea.            

Who is a Human Resource Manager - responsibilities decoded .

As a Human Resource Manager, “You are responsible for a whole gang of people that you probably didn’t pick, may not like, might have nothing in common with and who perhaps won’t like you much.” The Human resource manager is more often than not a prize specimen or then founder member of an exotic breed, infinite patience, unimpeachable integrity, willingness to put in long arduous and ceaseless hours of toil, super hero like ability to meet the most insurmountable of timelines and last but not the least an immense pride in self and the man management skills of either a Henry Ford or then Lee iaccoca are essential attributes that any human resource manage needs to possess.

You need to be completely self motivated, have a readily willing and ever available shoulder to cry on, conspicuously display the ability to listen to the most inane excuses and implausible reasons for not having met deadlines, willingly put up with bruised egos, ceaseless bitching about the boss, departmental head or fellow worker and all this without batting an eyelid, venting your pent up frustration and anger and pulling out all your remaining hair in sheer frustration and total futility of the entire exercise; “all in a day’s work did someone just quip.”

It can get very wordy and lengthy; “ a Manager or more precisely human resource manager is an employee who forms part of the organisation’s management team and is accountable for exercising delegated authority over human, financial and material management to accomplish the objectives of the organization. Managers are responsible for managing human resources, communicating, practicing and promoting the corporate values, ethics and culture of the organization and for leading and managing change within the organization.” And all this while you just wanted to do your job.”

Human resource managers are also responsible for mentoring, coaching employees, inducting them within the organization, preparation of all organization related handbooks and employee manuals, issual of appointment and offer letters, compilation of employee’s personal dossiers, security and travel related arrangements of employees, employee welfare, salary administration, 360 degree feedback, performance appraisals, cafeteria and comfort zones meant for employee or staff use, travel and stay related arrangements of all company executives whose nature of work entails travelling, making all the requisite arrangements for all staff picnics, birthday parties, anniversaries, picnics and get-togethers, seminars and public relation events.

The Human resource department may also be responsible for arranging visas, travel documents, security and immigration clearances and work permits and strict compliance with all the medical and labour laws applicable in the case of multi-national companies or organizations. The take home pay though good is certainly not enough to keep you rolling in the hay, though an MBA degree from a premier HR institute might just add a couple of zeroes on your salary cheque and websites of universities or colleges offering human resource qualifications is as good a place as any to make a beginning.

Help me God I want to be slim !!Obsessions related to weight loss

Every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to own or possess a sculpted body like Sylvester Stallone’s or then every Martha, Jane and Jenny hankers for that elusive hourglass figure in a ceaseless quest to become the next Miss Universe or World as the case may be.

This ceaseless quest though downright ridiculous and often bordering on the downright ridiculous has succeeded in spawning a multi-million dollar aspirational industry wholly and solely devoted towards this ludicrous thirsting for the elusive el doradoish ‘hour glass or then size zero figure’.

Hours of blood, sweat, tears, failures and recriminations, and innumerable comebacks from the verge of sheer hopelessness and near insanity have made a Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarznegger, Sharon Stone or then Nicole Kidman the individuals they are.

So kindly do yourself a favour and immediately put a stop to this borderline manic obsessional behavior; seek an appointment with your friendly neighbourhood dietician or nutritionist, determine your ideal weight in close consultation with him/her and then embark on a mutually beneficial and rewarding journey without ever forgetting the dictum that “the journey of a million miles always begins with a single step”.

Cut our the fat in favour of the lean, divest your freezer of red meats and take to white meats like chicken, fish, shrimps, prawns and crabs as if there was no tomorrow and last but not the least make fat is out and lean is in your guiding light.      

ON VARIOUS FACETS OF LIFE

 KAHLIL GIBRAN (1883-1931)

"His power came from some great reservoir of spiritual life else it could not have been so universal and so potent, but the majesty and beauty of the language with which he clothed it were all his own." -- Claude Bragdon

On Children
 Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

On Giving
 Kahlil Gibran

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?
And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the much which they have--and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;
And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving.
And is there aught you would withhold?
All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.

You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving."
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights, is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

And you receivers... and you are all receivers... assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the freehearted earth for mother, and God for father.

On Freedom
 Kahlil Gibran

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment.


You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.


And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.


And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.


Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

On Friendship
 Kahlil Gibran

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.


When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.


And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

On Death
 Kahlil Gibran

You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.


In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?


For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?


Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.