Monday, March 23, 2009

Viral Fever Blues


I am sick with a mysterious viral infection that has worsened day after day – for the last 14 days and it continues to aggravate – spoiling my work, my daily dose of ‘hi-bye’ emails, web surfing, googling new discoveries, reading illicit stuff, Jay Leno, HBO and a whole lot of intensely important things of my everyday existence.

One of my favorite daily rituals consists of waking up early each morning, brewing a big cuppa of hot herbal tea and returning to bed for about an hour to sip my Camellia Sinensis while reading the printer-fresh copy of the daily newspaper that lands on my doorway during the early hours of the sunrise. It's a calming little routine that gives me the chance to shake off the previous night's sleep (or no sleep) while catching up all the news, gossips, events and scoops of the (hopefully) new day ahead.

Lately, I confess, the financial news has been rather bewildering. On one hand, vapid tales of a total economic slowdown and mass layoffs have become a regrettable staple of each day's news. Yet at the same time, I keep reading reports and studies of how Creative agencies like mine which also employ temporary workers are magically faring quite well amid all the downward slump. What a piece of crap!

As one reporter wrote "Part of the advertising industry's elasticity can be credited to the increase in demand for highly skilled professionals, who hitherto were not part of the temporary employment pool." The article went on to cite data from some acronymistic trade association which indicated that temporary design, editorial and media staff were among the fastest-growing categories this year, based on industry profits. Wheh!

And then, of course, there are articles like the one I read this today morning, which says that shopper confidence worldwide increased during February indicating that positive consumer perceptions of the current economic meltdown were increasing far faster than actually expected for the next six months or so. One more piece of crap!

Faced by these assorted and utterly confusing pointers, I have realized it’s pretty pointless to complain and an apposite time to stop my insane grumblings, view my viral sickness as a holiday break, stay at home, savour my camelia infusion, listen to soulful music and Seize the Day. After all, its free, doesn’t bill my credit card and should probably reinvigorate, refresh and rejuvenate me for all the uncertainties ahead. And thank god, this is no crap!

1 comment:

  1. I liked the Camellia Sinensis part. I was searching Google for this term and it brought me here. I gave it a try and actually enjoyed reading the entire post.

    ReplyDelete

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