Second Chance (Vol.1) Squandered

58: Noor's New Job

Noor: (as they walked to the car) Does Chintu really wander around the hospital at night?

Adi: That was the complaint. He was caught exploring the morgue.

Noor: (shocked) No!!!

Adi: Luckily it was empty.

Noor: Whew! People were wise not to die on his watch.

Adi: (smirked) He slept like the dead yesterday through the night. Did not wake up even once.

Noor: I did not get any volunteers for the nights watch.

Adi: (smiled) No one ready to take the black?

Noor: (smiled, happy Aditya got the GoT reference) Yeah!

Adi: (shrugged) You tried.

Noor: Ya. I tried. But not much. I did not know...

The ride to her work with Aditya was quiet. Aditya was clearly tired from sleep deprivation.

Noor had been quiet first in relief and later ridden by anxiety of post-unplanned-leave repercussions at work. Her boss was getting worse by the day. She regretted every mistake minor or major because the errors gave him the opportunity to harass her.

A few minutes into the ride Noor had tried to shake off Aditya.

Noor: I will take a taxi from here. Drop me here.

Adi: Naaaah! When I drop people they get off at their door step; not abandoned midway.

Noor in her anxiety could not remember much of the ride. But her assumptions that Aditya drove fast had been a myth busted. Noor was disappointed. They took unusually long to reach.

Noor had wished to be at her desk when her boss ticked her off for her day-off. She could suffer the humiliation better if she was neck deep in any of his stupid dreary assignments rather than while walking into the reception or the work bay in front of an audience. Noor wondered often why she continued and did not quit.

But Noor's day had been like a dream.

Noor had pinched herself several times throughout the day to believe it was for real. The day had oddly surprisingly been simply splendid; too good to be true.

Her boss had steered clear off her desk all day. That itself was a treat. In fact he had changed her department. Double-treat. She no longer reported to him. From Monday she would work with the dream team at her work place. Treat-Bonanza.

Meeting Chintu had worked like a good luck charm for her.

Her team was all tech savvy smart witty. On her third day at work she had overheard them struggling with some creative content and she had offered to help them unofficially after hours and they had loved her work. But that was days ago and only once. Maybe they had been impressed enough to pull her into their team.

Her previous department was all about paperwork and she had discovered she had no stomach for it.

Her new department was the core team who called the shots because they generated the revenue. It was the biggest team. There was a healthy mix of clever cunning tech creativity young old experienced freshers. And what she liked most was there were a few no-nonsense kickass girls and cool fun techy guys of her age in this team. She could learn a lot.

Noor moved closer to Appi and cuddled her some more and slipped deeper into a happy slumber.