2021 Christmas Party Speech

 Good evening everyone, first I would also thank SR for letting me speak tonight. To be true I wanted to practice my public speaking and where can you get and audience of this size who have to listen to you even if you suck. I was confused what should I speak about then I decided I will speak about myself, that is easy and frankly who don’t like to talk about themselves. I will try to keep this short, I know many among you don’t like to listen to what others have to say – Bret will agree.

I was born and raised in India. It is a funny country. I cannot speak for the United States but in my country neighbors and relatives have a full-time job judging others. So when I got a job at SR, my cousin sister asked me where is my job, I told her it is in Las Vegas – there was a sudden change in her expression, she replied is it not a drugs and gambling city. I told that is not the only reason I chose Vegas, weed is also legal and we have the world biggest strip club in the world. My sister hardly talks to me now.

Well I moved to the United States in 2015, it was not much of cultural change – thanks to Hollywood. Still a few things like asking how are you and replying how I am every time you meet someone OR smiling to strangers while crossing on the street was quite difficult for me. In my country if you smile at someone for no reason they will probably ask you “who the fuck are you laughing at”. So after a couple of months joining SR, I was going towards the kitchen and saw Bret coming from the other side. I though he the VP lets smile to acknowledge his presence and so I smiled, Bret looked and said “why the fuck are you smiling” and that was the first time SR felt like home. After that incident I stopped smiling at Bret and even to Scott, I though what
if it is a Father and Son thing. But Alice and April reply to the smiles so we can concur it is not in the family.

My English in 2015 was not that good, now it has improved but still I lack in the small talks department. I am quite ok with how and what’s up but sometimes if someone answers something which I am not expecting then my mind wanders off, so last week I met Bret in the Kitchen, I asked him how was he, expecting I am fine or I am good kind of replies, but he replied – it is a good day, cannot complain – and my mind is like that is good but you are the boss – you don’t have the right to complain only employees can do that.
I feel language is like a super power, expressing yourself the best way defines your personality, and I loose half of that when I speak English – just imagine me with all my powers. The problem is that my mind think in my native tongue Hindi and my mouth speaks English and so they are often not in sync. So most of the times I am fine, but if someone asks me something that is out of syllabus my mind hangs while processing to decode the English sentence into Hindi, come up with an answer and then again back to English to speak. Did you understand what I just said – yes that the same with my mind.

Jeff Northrup as we all know is a fancy English speaker, So once Jeff asked me – out of nowhere – “how goes the battle”, and I was like ….aaaan – it was an out of syllabus thing – My mind started running through historic battles – “is he asking about the battle of Tours – which stopped the spread the Islam into Europe” OR “is he talking about the battle of Stalingrad that paved the way to Hitlers defeat in WW2”. Things get worse on the outside because Jeff is waiting for an answer and I am just smiling. He must be think what a weirdo. Later I understood what he meant, so I am fully prepared for the next time. But now he cheats and he changes the
question – this time he asks – “ what is the word of the day” – I am like “shit – another riddle - what the fuck should I say” – but I cannot tell him the only words in my mind right now are shit and fuck – I cannot tell the VP that when asked what is the word of the day. You might find all this a little funny but those are the real struggles, not the work that I do – I am pretty good with that.

My mind does not always have the same things that is coming out of my mouth. But then even if my mind and my mouth are in synch it does not always work because of the pronunciations – for example I used to pronounce “Minneapolis” as “Minneapolis” – I mostly speak how I read things. This issue is more challenging with certain individuals, so for example - initially Jeff Rowan from Reno could not understand a few words – but he always ask nicely that there was some disturbance in the phone and can I repeat – that is a subtle to say speak proper English. If today you cannot understand some of my words just imagine it is something funny
and laugh. 

Sometime I think it is mainly with certain people – mostly with the “Jeffs” that I have communication problems, Jeff Northrup – Jeff Rowan – but I am all good with Jeff Contenta - we hardly talk. Actually he only talks about work and Golden knights, we don’t work together and I hardly care about golden knights. – so we don’t talk. It also seems he actually does not gives many fucks about what are your plans for this weekend or what you did the last weekend. I like him.

You may say how do I know all this – well the place I sit is a place of wisdom. Most times I know what someone had in breakfast, what they are having in lunch and what are their plans for dinner. And all this knowledge is when I use headphones most of the times – imagine how much knowledge I could have gathered if I did not use headphones. Now coming back to pronunciations, sometimes I think some people intentionally don’t understand what I say – once I told Bret – I am gold – like a golden employee – he replied – cold why are you cold. I mean really – I might tell you that I need better work or I need more money or
even I need bigger office but I will never tell my boss I am cold – who does that. Well I can go on and on but I don’t want to make others speeches look lame. So after a few words filled with modesty and humility I wish all of you a very happy Christmas and Awesome new year.