Who said test matches are long gone. We daily play it, from Monday to Friday .
The toss
Finding your boss sending your Monday morning mails before you reach the office - it's gone , you have lost the toss. You have been put into bat in a good track if the mail is about appreciation of last week's work or a simple follow up of the same But, if it is about the tasks ahead for the week, hmmm!!! oh boy, you are stuck in a grassy pitch be careful.
Those first few overs with testing swings and bouncers like " you got to complete this by today ", shouldn't take away your cool. Which on losing, you are bound to give away wickets too early by not concentrating on the work ahead.
The ball gets old
Survive the morning session, you meet the vicious spinning testers/whiners/end users who come up with bugs, complaints and nasty mails to your boss. If you have the solution ready, your middle order is safe, or else, a bad tea break and an exposed tail of "how to figure out these things", will see off your day.
Day 2
Your woes continue, as the tail is wrapped up with few more minor complaints and tasks added to your list, thus inviting your boss to bat. With the calm and arrogance of Chris Gayle, he sends of mails of fours and sixers hitting the typical "why you have not done this? " shots.
The beating Continues
You have a bad lunch session, with all those bugs and pending items in mind. Back from lunch you google, refer old files do reverse engineering and all other means to find out the cause and the solution. But as the sun sets you still have not answer with your boss leaving the field dominating the day - " you better sort it out".
Day 3 - Finally some wickets
You are starting to get frustrated with no head way, but then a conference call is called for with the super boss. This time your boss gets it, unable to explain and vaguely hitting in the air giving motherhood statements like "it's just a small problem sir. we will sort it out".
Post Lunch Declaration
Post the call, a one to one meeting happens with your boss setting the deadlines with the usual sledging.
Day 4 - A mountain ahead
You sweat it out hard, try not to lose wickets. With little tasks getting completed one by one you feel the confident in erasing lead. But as the tea session nears, cracks appear. You still haven't found the solution for the big tasks and made no head way losing few wickets with the EOD status mail.
Day 5 - The Survival
Your boss starts coming around to bowl those bouncers and Yorkers again . Even the spinners pitch in giving out the googlys stating "this is not what I asked for!!". With all your brains, might and luck you try to eke out the todos, but the game ends post tea with this classical end game ball taking off the last wicket -
Please stretch out tomorrow and finish it off
rgds,
Your Boss
Post Match Commentary
You always wonder if you could finish off all the work before Friday and be the Aussies of test Cricket. but then , till you have a boss you are always a minnow.
