"Hi Jai, good morning!" - texted the manager from the Teams - (a Microsoft chat application) to Jai for a work update. Jai glanced away from Nisha, who was sitting to his left, talking about random topics.
Jai quickly went into alert mode and replied, "Good morning, Shekar." One of his colleagues from the backend saw the conversation from behind and made a mockery of it. Jai didn't pay much attention and stayed focused on replaying to his manager. Meanwhile, his manager requested a quick call. Jai responded, "Give me a few minutes, I'll get back to you."
Jai wasn't fully prepared for the discussion. And, he asked for a few projects updates from Nisha and another team member, Priya.
Later, Jai couldn't help but hate how his manager never encouraged him or gave him meaningful work - only asks for more updates, despite the company having an adequate number of projects in hand. His manager was lazier than expected but had just enough knowledge to get things done in the industry.
During the call, the manager even started talking about a movie he had recently watched, saying he loved it and wanted to rewatch it because his wife requested it. Jai, in his head, thought, "Who needs the information, you bugger?" but he kept a big smile on his face while responding.
Later at end of the day, all the team members gathered in the cafeteria to discuss dinner plans. Jai wasn't at all interested in joining, but his teammates insisted he come along to acknowledge his contributions.
At night, Jai was talking with one of the newly joined colleagues named Amar. In the flow of conversation, Amar asked how he got into his job.