Living on Caffeine

Recently, I had a cup of hot, strong coffee and promptly fell asleep. I was baffled by the incident: So I decided to put a watch on the situation, and see if, like one of my friends put, become immune to caffeine and coffee.. Some observations over the past few days have startled me. For example, here is how a typical coffee-day when I have work goes:

7 AM: Good Morning coffee!
8:30 AM: Welcome to the office coffee!!
11 AM: Stay awake and keep busy coffee :)
3:00 PM: Post lunch stay awake and keep busy coffee
6:00 PM: Its been a long day coffee
7:30 PM: Come home and relax coffee!
9:30 PM: (Optional and occasional): Cool cold coffee!

I was stunned. How much coffee is that? .. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7! .. 7 cups of coffee a day?? .. well - looking back, a couple of them seem to be optional, but still!.. that's hell lot of coffee .. And my colleagues seemed to be no better either. I was talking to my colleague at work and he was like "Just 7 ??.. that's not too bad! .. I have 7 on my low-coffee days!" ... It is almost as if drinking coffee is part of the job .. We are living on caffeine and stimulants .. If not coffee its some energizer like that cough-syrup like Redbull or something else .... No wonder IBM suddenly got so concerned about coffee in their cost-cutting measures to face this rotten economy!!

Coffee is panacea .. it seems to be the ultimate solution to any problem on earth: coffee for concentration, coffee for relaxing, coffee when you are bored, and finally, lately coffee for sleeping too! ... Its time for another coffee :)

Interesting!

"Interesting!" ... Somehow, more often than not, the word seems to be in paradoxical usage: when I hear people respond to my statements / ideas / lectures with the phrase "Interesting", I almost always get the sense that a) Whatever I'm droning on about is not interesting at all or b) I'm not making any sense in the conversation. Its almost a conversation killer to me ... I'm having to make a conscious effort to stop my irritation appear in my face. What is really interesting is that, it can be used as a filler word for several situations. Sample a few of them:

I go to Tech Support with my problem with a certain operating system and explain my woes ; he tries his hand at what I've been trying, fails, frowns, looks hard at the screen and says in a high-pitched tone: "Interesting!". Of course, what it really means is that he has no idea at the moment what the hell is wrong and he is attempting to convince me that he thrives on solving such problems. I am left wishing that he understands he doesn't need to have a conversation while he solves the damn thing.

I try to explain to a representative at a career fair what I'm trying to do in a project and why it would be great for his company to have me - he keeps nodding his head all the while, makes random notes on my resume, and finally says "Interesting!" .. So I think I've done a great job of impressing the person, thank him for his time, pick up a few goodies the company has brought and I keep waiting for the call-back that never comes ..

I talk to some acquaintance regarding my career plans and stuff, and the guy sizes me up and goes .. "That's an interesting choice! .. You know, most people actually blah blah blah" ... Well, I suppose I should acknowledge the element of politeness the word brings into situations, but all the same, its still annoying.

I suppose English language has these things designed for the purpose. Another couple of them come to my mind ... How about the response "That's a good question!"? .. Most of the times, the reason it is used is because the answer is unknown and it presents a better package than an upfront "I don't know!" .. Here's one I've seen in the movie Donnie Brasco.. Its interesting how many ways they use the filler :)



Hail the English language and Forget about it!! :-)