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A quick chat with Louie, the pet dog, on this quarantine life

Posted on by nishanth

In an exclusive, Louie, my aunt’s pet dog, spoke up on behalf of all pets on having to spend extra time with their human families during this quarantine life. They don’t seem too pleased.  

(As told to Nishanth S Coontoor)

Louie’s 5th year birthday celebrations

The humans I stay with have a routine. There are four of them. Two smaller humans can keep up with me on my runs chasing the brown little things with large hairy tails (squirrels) that move fast. The other two only want to take short walks to see other black things with long necks floating on water (ducks) that make weird noises when I try to talk to them.

Every day, we wake up when I hear sounds from outside and see colorful things flying (birds) around. We then go for a short walk to the green land (garden). When we get back, I have observed the humans go up and down the house, from one room to the other and finally go away for a long time. Initially, I found this odd. We always go outside through the same hole in the wall (main door), but it was always different when I was not going out with them. They did not immediately come back to talk to Louie.

At this point, my home gets very quiet. I go from one bed to the other and ask if someone is around. When no one talks back to me, I know my home is safe. I go to the bright room and take a nap. I have lunch at noon. I take a nap again till my evening walk. Don’t get me wrong, I am always also alert and guarding!

But something has changed. Even after waking up three consecutive times (weekend), they did not leave Louie alone. Initially, I was thrilled, to be honest. I could not stop wagging my tail all day long. I got extra treats every morning and now in the afternoon as well. Hurlikayi, (Green beans) the tastiest of all treats! We also went for extra walks which were more chances for me to be friends with the brown little things with large hairy tails that move fast.

I am slowly beginning to lose it though. I don’t want to constantly wag my tail anymore. I miss my alone time and naps. I miss saying hello to my friends who walk by my house to visit during the day with their humans. I need a haircut. I have so much hair that I am beginning to look fat. What will my girlfriend think when meet up in the park? She is always so proper and smells nice. I really need a wash and professional shampooing please! I won’t agree to take a bath at home or outside in the open for everyone to see!

The humans don’t want to play anymore with Louie but they want to keep going on walks every time I want to sleep. The moment I try to get some peace and quiet, they say ‘Louie!’ and want to go out in the hot.  

I also noticed they look at other humans who magically show up on flat, black things (laptops) and make sounds at them all day long. Sometimes they are smiling but other times they are tensed. When they start to get sad, I must go and sit next to them so they will relax. They don’t seem to know how to handle the situation. It is again up to me to keep them sane and happy. They are work. Sigh. But I still love them.  

I’ll try to keep this going for as long as possible or until the treats run out – whichever is earlier.

“Louie!”

There we go again.

I now understand what you mean when you say your toddler annoys you. I just adopted a robot vacuum cleaner

Posted on by nishanth
Image by NickyPe from Pixabay
Image by Eduard Reisenhauer from Pixabay

Nishanth S Coontoor

I am a reasonable person and you should know it by now. But what kind of a crazy person wants to clean the house and do dishes every day? There is a reason behind buying more than one dinner plate and wearing 99 cents bathroom chappal at home, right?

But no. Since I moved in with my sister because of the Corona virus situation (family blah, blah), she needs the house vacuumed daily – twice! After multiple rounds of me ignoring her pleas, she purchased without insurance, a robot vacuum cleaner – ‘Guddu.’ Yeah, that’s the name.

I was very disappointed. Vacuuming is my main job description at home that lets me earn my daily bread while in quarantine. Yet another job lost to automation, sigh.

At 7 am sharp, ‘Guddu’ woke up and began its morning routine of vacuuming the living room first. I was making some chai and did not appreciate the lack of silence. It won’t last long, I said to myself, observing the bot from the corner of my eye. As soon as I made the comment, it started to approach me into the kitchen.

There was no one around me. This was my chance – to test it folks! (No insurance, remember.) It also comes with a specific return policy. I ‘accidently’ dropped a spoon of sugar on the floor, you know, near the corner, where even I could not reach. Oops! Check mate, Guddu. Muahahaha!

As I sat down and stalked the bot cleaning the kitchen floor, it approached the corners and effortlessly picked up the sugar! It was okay, I guess. A few minutes later, it picked up the salad scraps that had fallen as well.

It was this shared hatred toward salad that brought us together – Guddu, my (now) adopted baby.

Since we all began working from home, I often hear my friends and colleagues complain that their kids are annoying them, and they cannot wait to return to the office. Since Guddu, the vacuum, came into my life, I think I understand exactly what they mean. This bot is like your annoying kid.

I was on a conference call today and Guddu started play time early in the morning.

“Siri! Please stop Guddu!” Where does it get all this energy?

“I AM SORRY. I DO NOT UNDER….”

“Hey Google! Stop vacuum now.”

<No response>

I had to finally get up and pull the plug because the vacuum was somewhere under the couch.

And this is another issue. Why does it want to keep cleaning under the couch and get stuck in the wires behind it when the living area is wide open and there is so much space to ‘play’? In my opinion, if it can go under the bed or the couch and it gets stuck, it needs to be able to untangle itself on its own right? Take some responsibility. But no, it keeps craving for attention because it is stuck and cannot move. Aargh!

“Can you keep an eye on it? I am working on this important project that is due in an hour,” I told my sister.

“Eh?”

“Keep an eye on it. Balcony door. OPEN. It will fall off the space in the railings,” I repeated.

“Sorry, let me repeat, DVC and SFC….” continued my sister, ignoring me, her eyes glued to her screen, focusing on her conference call.

Oh well, I can keep an ‘eye’ on it because of the noise. Guddu, will be alright, I told myself, focusing on the laptop screen.

Guddu continued to clean the living room. I remember it bumped into my leg twice. Oh, silly thing! I smiled both times. It was kinda reassuring.

The thing about this toddler, I learnt that day, is that it is unpredictable. I took my eyes off for a moment, and there it was in the balcony, running toward the gaps in the railings! Oh no! OH NO!

“Guddu!” I immediately threw my laptop aside, and dove toward Guddu! With just moments to spare, I got a hold of it and pulled it back to the safety of my arms. “Sshh. It’s alright. You’re safe now. No need to cry.”

Love it or hate it, like every other family member, Guddu is part of my family now. Guddu can be annoying when it cleans even at 7 am on the weekends, but never fails to bring a smile on my face when it keeps bumping its head to the furniture. LOL.

I can’t wait to show Guddu, my robot vacuum, to my colleagues on the virtual family day celebrations coming up!

P.S. Guddu is camera shy. So, the pictures.

Work from home, social distancing and virtual meetings: the new normal?

Posted on by nishanth

Image by thedarknut from Pixabay

Nishanth S Coontoor

Hey there, listen up. After 7 years of working in several roles, I am going to acknowledge something I used to either laugh off or change the topic on. I used to work from home – on and off, to manage workload and clear off my check lists.

Unlike my friends in the IT industry, work from home is typically not an option for most people in supply chain. You are required to be available in the office. And it makes sense to be available in person as well because it means face to face time with teams to get answers quickly, to build working relationships to move projects forward and learn how the product supply chain works.

Still, on occasion, when I noticed my to-do list getting longer and needed to “close out” projects, I stayed back home, went into solitary confinement and got things done.

Over the last few weeks, since the work from home became the new normal, it has seemed, how do I put it, odd! For someone like me, and possibly you, sitting at home on a weekday in shorts and working needs getting used it. It felt odd enough that to do a sanity check, I asked around how my colleagues were doing via slack. We’ve all heard the joke right – talking to your fridge or the television during isolation is normal. Its only concerning when they talk back.

Stevie, the TV, is doing fine. Thank you for asking.

Work from home now seems like the new normal. But looking beyond this, our adaptation to the corona virus situation may also transform other aspects of our life.

During World War II, when Japan invaded Southeast Asia, Japan cut off USA’s supply of Tin and Rubber. But since these were materials that were abundant in American homes and often thrown away, the federal government organized scrap drives or recycling drives. The World War II generation may continue to be weird about recycling for this reason. You and I may be the generation that will be weird about stocking up on Toilet Paper!

I started noticing the first signs of change when we involuntarily stopped shaking hands. This is a big change having taught to have a ‘firm and a confident’ handshake.

Then came the virtual meetings. I now login to zoom to attend work meetings and dumbbell snatches during my CrossFit class. I play board games and hangout with my friends online. My mom picks out veggies a Whatsapp video call without cash! Of course, she still asks for free coriander.  

I am also told ‘virtual dates’ are a thing now? I’ve got to get in on this and do a pro-gamer move asap. Anyone know how to throw in some filters and ‘fix’ my large nose to get a match? SOS, like yesterday.

There are bound to be negative effects from the virus and the quarantines. But there may be some positives as well. For starters, remember all those times you were striving for a work-life balance? This is your chance to get an overdose of that family you said you were missing. Another friend suggested that if your work allows for it, your work hours are kind-a in your hand. Your day can now start at 7 am if you are an early riser or at 10 am if you aren’t a morning person. Maybe you can finally get those 100 sit-ups before you sit down at 10 am? I, for one, choose to never snooze my alarm. Because I no longer need to keep one at 5.30 am to ‘get to work.’