Damn 'that girl'

Last week at work, trainers from our printer came down to our office to give us a briefing on Computer-To-Plate (a book printing technology) and DeskTop Publishing. The title of the briefing was ‘CTP and DTP’. (When I first heard it, it sounded like a really bad movie to me. 'CTP and DTP'. ‘Dumb and Dumber’.)

The briefing was supposed to be only for the designers, but for no reason, the editors were also asked to attend it. So we editors went to the briefing room armed with our notepads and slunk into the chairs at the back, away from the eyes of the trainers. I plonked myself on a chair and hid behind my tall shaggy-haired illustrator.

The briefing began. And slide after slide, the trainer rattled off jargon. All I heard was what sounded like “During preflight packaging of the files, you can use Pitstop software to generate the OPI information and link it to QXC using a LDX-enabled IIF.” making all editors (and I’m sure some designers too!) go “Huh???”

The only preflight packaging I know is the little bag of peanuts that the grumpy Air India hostess hands me before my annual flight home. And the only pitstop I know is the one in F1 races, and the more informal one -- ‘toilet break’. As for the other terms he mentioned, I lost them all.

So I decided that the best option was to switch off. When I looked around, all the others (including many of the designers!) had switched off too. I noticed that everybody had the same thing jotted down on our notepads. ‘CTP and DTP’. And that’s it. Nothing more after that.

“Any questions?” concluded the trainer, after what seemed like eternity.

“Phew! Now we can go back to our desks!” I thought.

Not so fast, Sayesha!

There she was. That girl in the first row, raising her hand.

“Yes?” Said the trainer.

“Well, I have a question.” She said.

I forget her exact question, but I think it was on the lines of “When I use a OMX to save a RFW, I face a TGY error, possibly because of a PKI defect. How can I address the problem?”

The trainer looked thrilled with the question, while the rest of us gaped at each other. And we had to sit through the torture as the conversation between the delighted trainer and that girl lasted a full 15 minutes! How annoying.

And suddenly I was reminded of that girl in school. That girl. The one who used to always sit in the front row, and do her homework every single day (and even help others with their homework. Geez!), and know the answers to all the questions the teacher asked. The ultra-enthusiastic teacher’s pet kind of girl, whose answer papers were circulated in the class for everyone to see how ‘an ideal answer paper should look like’, the one who took part in every ECA the school had to offer, who would always raise her hand in every class of every subject to ask the right questions and give the right answers, and often the teacher would say, “Hold on, my dear. I know you know the answer, but I will come back to you if no one can answer, okay?” annoying the hell out of everyone else. Didn’t we all have one of those in school? Oh, how we disliked ‘that girl’, didn't we?

Ok, did I just say all that??

Hey, I was 'that girl' in my school!