Murdu Lives

I was in the lunch line today when Dinesh walked up to me. "Hello, Bicks," he said.

"Yo, Dinesh. What up, my brutha?"

"I will be working on the document you worked on yesterday for Murdu."

"Oh?"

Dinesh backed off a little bit. If I ever had a houseboy, I would want it to be Dinesh. He takes up so little room and is so polite, yet never hits obsequiousness. I bet he could make a mean Mai Tai.

"I mean," he said, "I will be working with Murdu."

I can guess what happened. When I looked at the doc yesterday morning, despite my eyes rolling around in my head like two boiled pearl onions, I saw a real problem with Murdu's document.

There was no content. I would guess that in an 18 page document, we're talking about as many sentences. And use case diagrams like a four year old would draw. Sort of like this:

0 O
-|- ---------------- -|-
/\ | Process here | /\
----------------

That's it. Oh, noooo, I thought. And while I was thinking, I wondered if I should try to jazz up the content a little bit. This was a reaction born of pity, but at the same time, I thought, I am no way going to do this guy's job for him. It needs content and Murdu's the one who should bring it.

Still, I prettied it up, but it's the whole pig/lipstick thing. I sent it back to Murdu and cc'd Maeve.

This morning when I walked in, I found an email from Maeve to Murdu, dated 7:30 the previous night. "Murdu - Have you done any further work on this document?"

If Murdu replied, I wasn't cc'd.

So when I saw Dinesh in the caf and learned that he was helping Murdu, I said, "Do you mean to tell me Murdu is still here?"

Dinesh gave a little smile and bobbed his head. (Perfect houseboy material! "Is Becs at home?" while I am in the bath would be acknowledged with that little smile and a shake of his head. Really, I don't think I could afford him but I bet he'd be darling at it.)

He asked, "What did you see in the document that needed work?"

"Besides content?"I asked.

"Yes."

"It needs content," I said sliding a piece of pepperoni pizza onto my plate.

"Oh!" said Dinesh. "That looks especially good. I love pepperoni."

"Dinesh?"

"Yes?"

"Pepperoni?" I mean, how trayf could this be for a Hindu boy? Well, far be it from me to be anybody's diet policeman and I wouldn't deprive anybody the pleasures of the caf's pepperoni pie. Especially when he's got a much bigger and completely indigestible lump of dead stuff waiting for him when he plows into Murdu's document.

Bon appetit, my little houseboy.