Sam - The portrait of a living, breathing and annoying Id

Posted by: Retro Man

“If the cage isn’t driving you nuts, it’s the monkeys in them” – a recent Gtalk conversation.

I wanted to dedicate this blog to a colleague I share my workspace with - Sam. I like to call him by this name because I suspect his intellectual capacity mirrors the protagonist of I Am Sam. I've had the pleasure of being around Sam because the married woman he kept eyeballing over the cubicle decided she couldn’t take the attention anymore and had him shifted. He seems to manifest sloth, gluttony and lust of the Seven Deadly Sins pretty well.

Sam is a short and fat 40-something who’s single and lives with his mother. Indeed, fate has been unkind to him as he resembles a sullen toad. But it’s not his physical limitations that have thwarted him as much as his own personality. The most eventful time of the day for Sam is lunch, he must eat at 1 pm. His goofy and cherubic exclamations, “chalo dabba khate hain heehee” remind me what time it is. The other time for him to frolic is tea-time. He drinks about three cups of tea in office and slurps loudly while drinking them. If he doesn’t get his periodic fill, he pretends to wail like an infant at the housekeeping staff, “arreee atta chai yevu naa”.

Of course there’s more fun to be had for Sam in the day. When he isn’t indulging in his top 2 favourite activities, he helps boost the page-views of Zapak.com. He’s spent a few years playing games such as Dave, Pacman and Zapak Cricket. The cricket game is particularly noteworthy in it's limitations as it consists of a batsman standing at a pitch. If he connects the ball - the crowd cheers, if he misses – they sound disappointed. That’s it.

If Sam feels tired, then it’s time for a nice afternoon nap. After that, he proceeds to read the newspaper out loudly and thus summarise us with the current affairs, “Arrey Dadar mein do log marr gayein. Why these nasty, nasty things happen to people Uncle?” Uncle is the 70-plus Mallu colleague who’s spent a good number of years sitting next to him. Sadly, no amount of me trying to remain inconspicuous can let me escape his droll and utterly pointless conversation which he tries to draw me into. Once the clock strikes 6, Sam must pick up his bag and return home. If he doesn’t reach home on time, the aforementioned mother frantically calls up Mallu Uncle about his whereabouts.

Oh yes, Sam has been in the same company for a decade living this loop. But he doesn’t like to spend time browsing job sites as we do, he still spends his time looking up matrimonial websites. Nobody wants him to contribute to the gene pool as yet. Sam likes it very much when young women visit the office. He’s managed to frighten a few people I’ve known with his trademark big-eyed, happy yet very creepy stare.

So what does Sam do at work? The simple answer would be; not much. His shining moment for me took place when he called up his mother from the Hyderabad airport, to tell her to ready an order for a whisky quart and two plates chicken lollipop from the local bar. While a lot of folks find him obnoxious, for me, he also presents the embodiment of the Id. No self-restraint, no perception of time - only an instinct to gratify the immediate need.