A DICTIONARY FOR SELF-MOTIVATED SELF-STARTERS

At any given time, more than a billion people around the
world are unemployed. About a third of them are actively
looking for jobs, another third are searching half-heartedly
and the remaining third have resigned themselves to living
with a rich relative. Or at least a relative who has a
decent job and a pull-out couch.

Finding work isn't easy, especially when you have trouble
understanding the job ads and figuring out exactly what
employers want. Some want you to be a "self-starter," as
though you're a lawn mower or something. Others expect you
to list three references on your application, as though
"dictionary" and "encyclopedia" aren't enough. A few want to
pay you a salary that's "commensurate with your experience,"
as though you've had any experience at all with the word
"commensurate."

To make things easier for job seekers, I've decided to
create an "employment dictionary" that explains, from an
employer's point of view, the various terms and phrases
found in job ads. Some of the entries would look like this:

"Salary negotiable": We don't want to mention any salary
here, just in case you're willing to work for less. Don't
worry: We will pay you what we paid the previous person or
what you expect to be paid, whichever is lower.

"Previous experience necessary": We will not consider future
experience. Please tell us only what you did in the past,
not what you plan to do in the future. Nobody can predict
the future, but we can certainly look into your past.

"Excellent P.C. skills required": We expect everyone in our
office to be politically correct. You must not make fun of
the Kenyan man who says, "Sank God it's Fly-day," nor
the Indian guy who warns everyone about "compooter wire
sirs."

"Must be self-motivated": We prefer employees who can
inspire themselves, including those who are inspired to take
a nap under the desk. We particularly desire self-motivated
self-starters who have self-esteem, self-confidence and a
good collection of self-help books.

"Exceptional communication skills needed": When we ask you
if you've done any bookkeeping, we don't want to hear about
all those Danielle Steel novels you didn't return to the
library. And when we ask you to "cc the human resources
director," we don't want you to go and see the director
twice.

"Come and join our winning team": We haven't won anything
in our lives. By calling ourselves a "winning team," we're
hoping to forget all our sports disappointments, including
the last-place finish in the kindergarten egg-and-spoon
race.

"We offer an attractive benefits package": The president's
secretary has a particularly attractive package. Please do
not touch it. That's not one of your benefits.

"Energetic and enthusiastic individual needed": Your energy
will be highly valued in our office, especially when we ask
you to fetch the coffee. Your enthusiasm will come in handy
too: We expect you to jump and scream when we give you the
annual bonus, free fries at McDonald's.

"You must have good organizational skills": We may ask you
to organize the company picnic. But if our budget is skimpy,
please do not organize any type of strike. Otherwise you may
have to organize a group trip to the unemployment office.

"No phone calls please": We hired the president's niece as
our receptionist. She's still trying to figure out how to
answer the phone. We're trying to teach her the proper
greeting: "Hold please." If you have any questions about our
job openings, please consult Shashi's employment dictionary.
Especially the section about nepotism.

CATCH A BUS IN INDIA AND DON'T LET GO

What's it like to live in a country of more than one
billion, a country that's one-third the size of Canada, yet
has thirty times the population? It's not that bad, really,
even if you happen to be the last person on the bus. At
least you can stretch your legs, enjoy the view and convince
yourself that getting on the bus is much better than getting
in the bus.

As I visit my native India, I find myself marveling at how
people deal with the immense population, which grows by a
staggering 15 million a year, so many that if rabbits had a
lobbying group, we'd all be using the phrase "breeding like
Indians."

Nowhere is the population more pronounced than in public
transportation. Buses are often crammed with people, beyond
their capacity, with some passengers getting seats and many
others pressed together in the aisle, close enough to know
what each other had for lunch.

A few passengers travel on the outside, grabbing onto
whatever they can, the frame of the door perhaps. These are
the people who know what it means to "catch the bus."

When the bus is packed, getting on and off is a major
challenge, but so is getting in and out. One method is to
drop to your hands and knees and crawl between people's
legs, though this doesn't work so well, I've found, when
women are wearing saris. Another method is to try to empty
the bus, perhaps by pointing to the street and yelling, "Oh
my gosh! Salman Khan!" The popular actor can empty just
about anything: buses, trains, kegs of beer.

What he doesn't empty, though, are movie theaters. Indians
are crazy about two things: movies and cricket. (Hence the
popularity of the Oscar-nominated "Lagaan," a movie about
cricket.) When half the population wants to watch the latest
blockbuster, the chances of getting tickets on the day of a
screening are similar to the chances of running into Paris
Hilton in a public library. Even if a few tickets are
available, you'll have to stand in a long line -- and that's
to bribe the theater owner.

But Indians are used to waiting in line. At the last general
election, people stood in line all day to exercise their
right to kick the bums out.

When you visit a doctor's office, the clerk may be poor at
grammar, but he's not incorrect when he asks, "Are you
patient?" My wife and I took our kids to a pediatrician
for a vaccination and, despite having an appointment, had to
sit in the waiting room until the next day! Yes, we got
there at 9:45 p.m. and didn't see the doctor until after
midnight. Everyone else in the packed waiting room didn't
seem to mind, perhaps because the doctor, in his infinite
wisdom, was showing them a movie.

Indians encounter crowds almost everywhere: in the
courthouse, at the market, even in their own bedrooms. When
you're living with your extended family in a two-room
dwelling, you have little privacy. But who cares about
privacy when there are bigger issues to deal with, such as
grandpa's snoring? Or grandma's habit of cutting in line
everywhere, especially at the bathroom.

That reminds me of the bikini-clad tourist who posted a sign
at the beach that said, "Please form a line here," with a
hundred Indian men standing in front of it. "What's she
giving away?" someone asked one of the men. "She's not
giving away anything," he replied. "She just wants us to
stare at her in an orderly manner."