By : Bikram Vohra

Never be a nice guy. Nice guys don’t find trouble, trouble finds them. You know how some people have that ghastly tonal choice on their mobiles and you wonder what motivates them to opt for it? I once had guy on a plane whose phone ring was a baby crying. Go figure. Instead of a normal ring there is cu-cu-roo-roo-tung-tung sound that drives you round the bend. Well, one of my staff has the most annoying tone in the world and she leaves her expensive pink colored iPhone one afternoon on the table and trots off for lunchies or wherever staff trot off to when they are wanted and the darn thing is ringing away and no one is picking it up and so I decide to be a nice guy and I pick up the phone. It is one of those flipping flip top things and I say hello which is standard for when you want the bally thing to stop ringing and the next thing you know the phone goes spronnnggg and this little spring falls out and the top breaks away from the base and I am literally left holding the pieces.

I turn to all my loyal, devoted staff and say, did you see what happened, it fell apart all by itself, and in the true manner of loyal, devoted staff they all look the other way and do that disassociation thing loyal and devoted staff do when they don’t want to go up the hill with the boss. They suddenly look busy. Nothing, I say, I did nothing, I just answered the phone, that’s all, it just broke up in my hand. At which point, naturally, the owner of the now immobile mobile phone enters the room and says, migoodness, you have broken my phone.

I didn’t break it, it just broke, I say, it was ringing and I answered it and it just broke, ask anyone. Anyone being members of above-mentioned loyal, devoted staff they now shrug and pretend they were not present. Didn’t see it. Wasn’t looking. No clue what you were doing. Sorry, didn’t see it happen. Have you noticed that when you are isolated and are feeling much like that fellow in Castaway with a coconut for company it is always a major event that develops. The phone that collapsed in my hand is now of great sentimental value to its owner who got it on her whatever birthday as a final gift from her grandmother who has gone to never never land and now it’s broken and just because you are the boss, it doesn’t give you the right to go around breaking people’s phones.

I didn’t break it, I yelp, I only answered the thing because it was making that awful sound.

So, you broke it because you didn’t like the tone. I did not break it, it had nothing to do with the tone…

You just said that, didn’t he?

Loyal, devoted staff, who, up until now, were unaware of said occurrence, nod enthusiastically. I did not break it, I yell, I just answered the call because the ringing was getting on my nerves.

Ahah, so that is why he smashed it.

Other lady members of staff now begin to console poor victim of brutal boss’s brutal conduct. So, I volunteer to take it for repairs and the repairman says, it fell down? No.
Water went into it? No. You hit it against something hard? No,no,no, all I did was answer it.

It is expensive model, Sir, you should be first ‘getting used’ to fliptop, everybody cannot use fliptop.

Can you repair it?

No.

So, then what have we been holding this quiz contest for?

What quiz, this is mobile phone repair shop.

Never mind, just give it back to me.

You see, he says, you should know how to flip open flip side because flip side is very sensitive and if you flip it fast then the flip can over-flip and flip out of its sprocket, so only those who know how to flip should use flip phones, not for everybody, so what are you going to do now?

You don’t flipping want to know.