Are you an uphill person or a downhill one?

Uphill people have to fight for everything they get. Everything is a major confrontation, from restaurant reservations to promotions to getting a dental appointment to getting kids admitted into school. Nothing ever falls into place smoothly. The other lot, they really have no such problem. Things just happen in their favour.

Take the workplace. There are those who get promoted, find opportunities, make more money and even have their bills cleared by accounts who never raise an audit objection. The way it goes there are those who have to defend themselves against questions at every step, give explanations, show cause why and invariably get bypassed when it comes to doling out the goodies. Even their applications, however legitimate, always get turned down for technical reasons, or simply get filed away or lost. The lucky lot, they do not even have to apply, it just works out swimmingly for them.

Uphill people will make a request and show a dozen precedents to back it but there will still be days of suspense before they will know what happened. Downhill trippers will merely announce that they are off to Singapore on a fact-finding mission and no one will question them or their daily expenses.

Uphillers will get inflated phone bills, humongous electricity bills, downhillers will get a rebate.

Uphillers cannot make it to Al Ain without having to write in blood what they were doing there and showing receipts for every buck spent.

It is easy to check out which category you fall in. Try getting on a plane and you will be an uphill type if your OK seat is revving into the ‘overbooked’ slot. You will be offloaded. A downhill skier will fetch up with a RQ on his ticket and get upgraded to business class.

Downhillers never have problems. They never face the rigours of being sidelined or passed over and doors open for them even when they don’t have a key. All through their lives they will find themselves constantly puzzled at the griping and the grumbling going on around them as the majority of the human race struggles to get even a small break.

Downhillers believe that everyone has a good time, isn’t it natural. When a downhiller protests his point is taken seriously and the boss initiates action on it. An uphiller, making the same protest, is told to pack and leave if he does not like the job or the rules.

No one has quite figured out what elements go into giving the downhiller such an easy ride. Is it luck, is it guile or is just the dice rolling incessantly in his favour and making a mockery of the odds.

Uphillers, meanwhile, live lives of not so quiet despair, their moans ricocheting off unhearing walls as they fight to without the mandatory girding for battle. Even simple procedures cause them agony. They are the ones the computer glitches upon and collapses. It is they who find wrong cuts made in their pay packets, their name is left out of important lists, they are the ones who join the general protest and then get isolated and into trouble. Their comments are never honoured and even respect has to be demanded. They stand in queues, get pushed around and for some reason, the blame seems to flit and settle upon them even when they are blameless. Downhillers can argue with the bosses and they will be called gutsy. Uphillers will get sacked or worse, suspended and will live with the disgrace the rest of their lives. Downhillers can con, diddle and do

the dirty and people will still give them standing ovations. Uphillers will be in trouble over their necks the first time they take a bus and give in a taxi claim. It is not that they are losers, they just don’t get to win, even when they play the game properly.

Uphillers will grow old wishing as they watch the downhill types swanning through life, gliding over bumps and getting away with things, that they could have an easier time for just a little while, to see how it feels. It won’t happen. When you are going up the hill save your breath, there is no point huffing and puffing, you still won’t get what you deserve. Just be grateful that for every downhiller there are ten going up the hill.