Saturday, August 8, 2009

Weight Management







A close friend, who reads my blog religiously, piped up one day during an outing: “I read your latest post – after your long hiatus. So what exactly do you do at work?”

I paused, looked at her, and started laughing. Because I knew that by telling her what exactly I am up to these days at work – she would be rolling on the floor laughing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way out, as she was staring expectantly at me, waiting for an answer.

Me: Weight management.
Her: I know that’s what you’re obsessed with, but really, what do you do at work?
Me: I’m serious! Weight management!
Her: Yeah right!

I am totally serious people. Not only am I obsessed with my weight since passing a 4.07kg being from my body – I am also obsessed with the weight of my current project. Let me try explaining this in layman terms. As I work in the Deepwater business in the Upstream sector, my oil sucking projects are generally non-shallow water projects. And because the water is soooooo deep, it would cost too much money to stake these oil-sucking (and/or processing) babies to the sea bed. Instead, these babies are made to float and are anchored to the seabed using mooring mechanisms such as chains, tendons etc. Since they are floaters, they are designed and built to support a certain amount of weight, which if you exceed would cause it to catastrophically sink. Therefore, it is MY job to be obsessed with the current weight and any other increases/decreases in weight that may impact my floaters. In a nut shell - Weight Management! Simple enough? It is not as easy as it sounds, people! It is as hard as me trying to get rid of these last 5 kgs from my body. Excruciating!

When I was pregnant, it used to be a joke among my colleagues due to the irony of the situation. Imagine a pregnant woman (who would obviously be overweight!) managing the weight of a project. Once, when I was about a month shy from my delivery date, I was called into the meeting room to clarify on a few points excerpted from a document I wrote. It was an external meeting, and the document was called the "Weight Management Plan". When I walked in (bulging tummy and all), the lead engineer told the room "So, this is our Weight Engineer!". After a moment of silence, the room erupted with laughter - not only from my mischievous bosses, but also from the visitors, people whom I have not met in my whole life!

Wicked, eh?

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