Hurricane ICC’s toll on production Week : 10th – 25th September 2004

It doesn’t take an astrological prediction to expect a nose-dive in attendance and production levels of all private enterprises during the forthcoming ICC Cricket tournament. The wheels of commerce spinning at full speed will slow its tempo and pave the way for longer tea breaks, lunch breaks, extension of working hours, increase in patronizing of pubs and outdoor gatherings. Corporate marketing Gurus will not thump their sales teams to aggressively on snack food, batteries, liquor and cigarettes. They will decide its time to lie low for 2 weeks and let Hurricane ICC take on its share of victims. Media moguls will exploit this laid back attitude in full swing and offer attractive schemes to voice out their aggressiveness through their channels. An average corporate employee will take on a strange transformation and would be evident in the usual working patterns. Intermittent breaks for Tea, breakfast and lunch will stretch to a couple of minutes. The usual morning tea will linger longer in the palate teaching some traits of tea tasting as well. This will be the time for employees to take on the traits of a cow by chewing their food longer and absorb the excitement from the TV in the lunch room, some will not utter much except keep their pocket radios close to their ear. The carom boards. decks of card will be given some time off from their daily chore of providing light relaxation. Instead the TV would substitute this task. Output and speed of work will be sluggish as the mental concentration will not totally be focused on balance sheets, record keeping, correspondence or telephone calls, but purely on wickets and runs. These symptoms will spread to sales personnel in shops and street vendors and a considerable change in topic of conversation also could be observed, where the entire focus will be Jayasuriya, Attapattu, Vaas and the rest of the team. At the strike of 5:00 calling for the end of a working day, two contrast of personalities will develop - some will either chose to move out as fast as they can, adding to the standing crowds at the TV stores and others will chose to stay back and complete the work with either the TV or Pocket Radio accompanying them ! Such is the impact of this disorder, that every single person from every echelon of the social ladder will reflect even the slightest of symptoms beginning from a simple curiosity to know fall of wickets, fours, sixes, fifties and centuries, to the more serious leading to open air barbeques and gatherings in front of giant outdoor screens and lighting of crackers to complement either the batting or bowling.