A Grey Soul

Cyber realm, online, internet, chat, email and messenger are very trendy commercialized words nowadays. When was the last time you wrote a letter and mailed it to your distant relative? I heard from people saying they are living a very healthy virtual life. Whenever I see a person using a computer for hours and hours without realizing what he/she is eating or drinking, I can see something in his/her eyes, which is a flame of addiction, like a disease it kills you gradually swallowing all your precious time and health. Computers make people heartless, unhealthy, depressed and more artificial. I knew how it spoiled my life, for which I can never forgive it.

It was my first job, everyday I had to spend nine hours on computer finding information through an online database. They paid a very attractive remuneration; I thought I was the luckiest person on this earth. But for my surprise there were some more lucky people joined in just like me. I thought it will be only ten of us, then it became fifty…eighty…ninety five…hundred! At last hundred fortunate people, but I knew the amount would grow up further. I felt something was terribly wrong. Why did they paid in a 5 digit amount for an entry level job? I imagined the top management’s turnover as well as the middle management’s salary with their hands on a cash cow business. However, I was contented with my income, therefore I wasn't got bothered to know about the internal functions of that organization, until I encountered some psychological and physical problems.

Whilst in the beginning, our boss never insisted on time lines or targets for us due to the nature of our job. As time passed by, things changed dramatically. They arranged a performance appraisal meeting, in which they introduced new rules and regulations as “Organizational Citizenship Behavior” which was comprised of certain conventions: Individual breaks (washroom breaks) not exceeding five minutes, No talking, No cell phones, No internet browsing, which simply meant that we should be glued to the computer. Video Cameras were planted all over the office to monitor our activities to prohibit our cell phones usage under constant observation. I followed each and every rule consistently, which subsequently led them to raise my earnings within a year. However, the warning flags were shown when they complained that we were not supposed to take breaks more than once every hour. For our surprise, they installed a high-speed internet connection to get our jobs done without taking our eyes off the monitor.

We took every single rule to our heart, until they introduced a nasty play to conclude our washroom breaks forever. One morning our manager brought 3 toy tags: two pink tags and a blue tag. As he explained we understood the cruel game of our boss, pink tags indicated the female washrooms and the blue tag indicated the male washroom. Whoever goes to the washroom were instructed to carry the tag along with them, which meant only three people could go to the washroom at a time in a pattern of two females and one male. It was disgusting to realize how they turned the grudge among the colleagues by forming a rivalry for a silly toy tag to use the lavatory. I remember my pal Susan once put it as “We can’t PLEAD to PEE.” It was an insult for all of us, we made complaints to the management which ultimately failed. Precisely after two years we all got numerous complications like severe pain in neck, back bone, arms and wrists, even the worst scenario came up as one of the coworker suffered with kidney malfunction. Most of us were wearing glasses in our second year company anniversary party; even the hottest guy in our office was replaced by a nerdy outlook. I slowly understood the consequences of that highly paid job.

Meanwhile I met this special someone in my life called Tim, who was my lecturer. He had a charisma, which literally hypnotized everyone. However, I had nothing more than respect for him at those days. By the end of the semester, I emailed my project to him on his request. He replied along with appreciation which I took as a credit, soon after I got his emails back to back for no reason. As I told you, I had a very tight schedule during the crisis in my office; therefore I never had a brief opportunity to talk personally face to face with Tim. The only place where he caught me those days was through msn messenger, he always tried to read my mind in chatting by asking me why I was not attracted to him while others craved for his friendship, but I had no answer. Our friendship grew through email to chat, which converted me to desperately stay online longing for his IM. He said he loved me so much that he cannot think of a life without me.

Although Tim was busy being a project manager and lecturer, I felt so close to him because he was accustomed to chat with me over msn most of the time, I believed that he was honest. However, my instincts denied his trustworthy.

Suddenly as I doubted, he disappeared from my world. I became depressed to stare at the monitor at his off line status. My heart sunk into the ocean of distress, yearning for his arrival. He didn’t show up for three weeks, and then once again he came back with a nudge. I was glad that I jumped up and asked him the reason, which he ignored by diverting the conversation. I witnessed a twist in his behavior later on, the lack of interest he had in our conversations and his display of busy/away statuses when he got my IM, all formed suspicious clouds on my mind. I got the clearer picture when one of my class mates told me that he had quited his job to join in another university. I was quite surprised; I got all of his shocking information lined up through my friends. The most dreadful shock of my life was while he was chatting affectionately with me one evening, I had a call from Susan. I was informed that Tim was planning his wedding at the end of August with one of his past associate. I couldn’t believe what I heard that I completely lost my mind for a while and passed out.

The very next day I resigned from my office to liberate my mind and body. Although my online job didn't have any direct cause over my break up, it played a major psychological role by forcing me to gain stress. Of course, I have more working experience under pressure though, this job was different because it involved computer, which never gets tired or bored with the same routine over and over.The stress I had from my work place effected the mission in my life, not just in my relationship but even in my social life and family life. Because every time I sign off from work, I would feel terribly drowsy that I was unable to be a part of any activities, not even to have a casual talk with my mum. Perhaps Tim might have felt more space between us, but I started to move on.

I immediately went for a long vacation to recharge myself. I shifted to a new place and now I’m working as a part time lecturer, I love to look at the students rather than a machine. I didn’t check my emails for a long time after quitting my previous job. Since then, I make sure that I don’t stay on the computer for more than half an hour for any cause. You might think the problems I had in my life is because of the people, not because of the computer! Even if that statement is true, just imagine… if this computer doesn’t exist, I would have caught Tim cheating me by talking straightly looking into his eyes! If this computer doesn’t exist, I would have never got stress in my work place! Whatever you say, I can never forgive this damn machine for ruining my life!