It's getting chilly- wait till the office cold's worn off, and the smog that hangs around like a charcoal aunt nods off. 12:30's a good time. Hang around a window if you're lazy, find a friend with a bike if your parents don't particularly love you. Say the word 'pleasant' a lot to max it out and annoy Arab friends.

On some level, I don't care how this works out. I know what the juicy parts are; this isn't one. And that's the trick, only you can't quite skip to the extended sex bits over the shit mornings and shittier nights of internet need, plus the crap days in between that you apologise to everyone else for. If it's not something you enjoy/had-in-mind or you're getting paid enormously for, which jobs usually are, a spot of tardiness is not going to hurt you or anyone.

Don't listen to the books, or Jack fucking Welch- the machine will not smile at the memory of your punctuality, and neither will you. Really, don't ever work to please- power and passing on the blame pleases them enough. Never get too good at a job you're not crazy about but you're looking to grow within- HR exists to spare the investment and share the spoils. Have something to do and something to look forward to.

Take longer cigarette breaks.

"No one tells me better stories," he assured me. I was aware of the point at which a compliment becomes a trap, because you are expected to keep doing the thing you are praised for; resentment will follow when you stop.

-Amy Hempel

Badasscsekhar- the pre-Internet years

Edit: Read the post below this, then come back and make all the cutesy comments you want.

Cochin, like Bombay, is an island city, the prettier islands kept that way by those who can afford to erect manned gates that keep the city out. That's the story of all Armed Forces (particularly the Navy's) owned property in India- clean, tree-lined streets, fresh paint on the walls, quaint signs that say quaint things. Like 'Gun House' and 'Shoot to Kill'.

Each base is meant to look and feel like the other so you don't waste time fitting in- the pointandmiss token tank done up in golden camouflage, the same MES furniture that yearns to break rank as much as you do, the standard ContainsClassIIPreservatives-Kissan Mixed Fruit Jam and Dabur-Dalda ration. The heirloom-like steel trunks that could kill anyone with sensitive teeth with the noise they made when dragged from under the bed; on an average you die once in 3 years. Why would anyone want to put themselves through this? 

If you're in the Navy, it's not half bad- the worst place you could get posted to is Goa, you won't have to sail for more than 3 months a year, the subsidised alcohol usually taking care of any servile angst. The Air Force guys don't really give a fuck, as long as they get to wear the CSD-subsidised aviators, daub on the Old Spice, and fly suspect jets discarded by the Russians, and whaddyaknow, former conquerors, the British. 

Which brings us to the Army, densely populated by Surds for a reason. These guys sign up to be posted in Drass and Siachen, only to be transferred to ULFA territory in 2 years for a job well done, followed by the second loneliest place on earth- the Rann of Kutch, with only the Pakistanis and the endangered (pray, why?) Indian wild ass for company. The saddest thing about the Army is that it's driven not by shameless taxpayer-funded-incentivists, but by PATRIOTS, by NDA cadets who've watched Fanaa and Gadar one too many times, and mouth lines like 'people like you get to sleep at night because of people like us.'

It's a well-recognised phenomenon in the forces, every forces' kid thinks he's indestructible/ has the freedom to fuck up, until his parent/s discover that the words 'voluntary' and 'retirement' could possibly go together, spiralling into a unique second mid-life crisis spurred on by ideas like mortgages, market retail price, equality and Friday dressing.

Forces' kids bring a completely different logistical scale to getting around; it's as if they put the javan in the javani, yaw. 'You're seeing Amit? Captain Bansal's son, Amit? Oh we were dating each other in the 5th in Cochin, before he started seeing Jasdeep in Port Blair, they were pretty tight, yaar, before uncle got transferred to Kiev and then he hooked up with that sailor's daughter chee it was so bad for uncle's rep, I mean the Navy is such a small place yaar; people talk."

And so the sons march bravely in their fathers' footsteps made sluggish by gout brought on by Old Monk and everlasting peace. Yes, peace. Because we can't afford a war. No, it's not because of the decline of the dollar or a 700% education cess in the wings. It's because of gates. Yes, gates. And how much the Armed Forces spends on knocking down perfectly functional ones, to build exact replicas, then recruits and pays two lieutenants and a sailor (who will never get to see the world) to make sure they're NEVER opened, realises that said staff might be breaching rank, hires civil security, pays for the installation of sensors so they open on their own, pays dearly for a major security breach when said sensors malfunction because of engineers like HIS EMINENCE Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam that populate the DRDO, transfer the Commanding Officer, get a new one in, who decides that his first project as new CO is to knock down the fucking gates, and start all over again. Also, pensioners.

This is the paragraph where I try and make sure I don't get flamed or arrested for treason. It's amazing how many people think respect is a reason why cadets enlist. And they'd be right. Respect is one of two currencies that works in the Armed Forces. A month in, and you'll know that kissing ass is the other. As the saying that's part of traditional service-dad-humour (are you studying hard or hardly studying) goes, the rear of the Rear Admiral is the vice of Vice Admiral.