HEADHUNTERS ON PROWL

The job looked tailor-made for him. He had all the qualifications demanded by the advertiser : a kink in the head, a fulminating gastritis and the willingness to sire a brood of brats. He couldn’t be blamed for his naiveté. For the ad that he saw read, ‘We are looking out for lunatics with fire in their belly to father the next generation of silicon chimps(sic).’

In a booming job market, the head-hunters are out in the IT jungle laying booby traps for tech-kids through crafty ad campaigns. And the phrasings in their transcript are getting dottier by the day.

Most of the ads are clever mumbo-jumbo, like the one that says, ‘We are looking hard for hardworking hardcore software professionals.’ (A real hard sell indeed. So drive a hard bargain to get paid in hard currency!).Or the one that declares, ‘We are shifting into top gear. Now we are looking for an accelerator.’(Once you are in their ‘clutches’, you will be looking for the brakes). Then there is an ad that yells, We invite IT pundits to software Mecca.’ ( Silly me, I thought pundits went to Kashi).

‘If you have aptitude, we will give you altitude.’ claims an ad. But read between the ad lines. What probably remains unsaid is that the magnitude of the task may drive you into servitude with not much latitude to show your fortitude as they only expect your gratitude in plenitude!

In the copywriter's lexicon the acronyms IT and US are natural bedfellows since IT professionals often head for the US. So the ad says, ‘If you got what IT takes, come and make IT big with US. Or, ‘If you have the ITch, let US help you start from scratch.’

All companies promise upward mobility as in case of an ad that proclaims, ‘On the career road we provide, overtaking is permitted. In fact we encourage you to break all rules.’ (And cool your heels in the cooler). Another smart ad asserts, ‘Most companies offer corporate ladders. But we provide you with long legs to climb it.’ (And after you join them, they keep clipping at your legs till you have no legs to stand on). But one that tickled me pink was an ad that boasted, ‘Behind every second call(?) made in this world, there is our technology.’ Pioneers in e-toilets, eh?

In any case, the writing is on the web (sorry, the wall is a passé); a crazy world lusts for crazy captions. So don’t wince at an ad that screams, ‘Wanted savage matadors to take the IT bull by the horns.’ Or, ‘Come, let’s mug the computer bug before it gets snug in the rug.’ Or even a, ‘If you fit the Bill, Gate(s)-crash and enter through new Windows!!

THE TAILOR IN NEW LIGHT

(Continued from the last post On The Tail Of A Tailor)

Considering Param's personal history, I was at my wit's end when he appeared at my doorstep wearing a woe-begone face not with my shirt but with a request to use my(non-existent) clout with the President of a local Co-operative Society (a man as straight as a die and very antithesis of nepotism). He wanted me to secure a clerk's job at the for his daughter who had justpassed the B. Com degree with colours that were anything but flying.

Fear Of The Blouse

Fearful of the horrendous things Param could do to my shirt if I antagonised him, I meekly obliged by phoning up the Society's president with the entreary. True to his percieved image, the president tactfully ducked my supplication, stopping short of asking me to go and jump into the nearest lake. As a crest-fallen Param left, his eyes betrayed a firm determination to stitch me a tight fitting blouse(on which I could only wear a saree) that could per se have my humour club audience in stitches. I shuddered at the prospect of becoming a butt of jokes for the hoi-polloi.

Yet, on the eve of the D-day, Param re-appeared at my doorsteps and delivered, belying all my apprehentions, a well tailored shirt. He was cock-a-hoop about his daughter's appointment at the Society. And with a child-like exuberance, he narratedhow his friend Venky helped his daughter clinch the clerk's post. Then Param departed, chirpily humming the opening bars of 'Dum Dum Diga Diga.'

Venky And The Tigress

To set the record straight, I must reveal that Venky was a office attendant at the co-operative society in question with a reputation for clinging to people like a leech to achieve his ends. "If you want the tigress's milk, ask Venky, " was the common refrain heard on the Society's corridors.

Knowing Venky myself personally, I could well visualise a harassed tigress, confronted by an insistent hustler like Venky, lying supine asking him to squeeze out as much milk as he wanted just to see his back. The President of the Society was, after all, an ordinary human like you and me.

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