Eleven Days Later

Soooo, this is awkward.  I know I didn’t get back to you for a while there but…. think I still got a chance?

Anyways welcome to another riveting addition of Cats and Dogs: Friends or Mortal Enemies?  Oh wait…this the blog about me in India, right.  To start off my fan in my room is making noises that lead me to believe it is determined to free itself from it’s ceiling restraints, which would of course only happen when I’m asleep.  Speaking of memorable wake-ups, I had a job several summers ago working construction.  I am the owner’s nephew so some of the guys liked to pick on me.  Due to the early hours, I often enjoyed a nap on the way to and from the job site.  One evening on the way back to the office I nodded off to a deep peaceful sleep.  My boss, who was driving, decided the best way to wake me up would be to slam on the brakes, while honking the horn and screaming upon arrival to the office, nice guy, thanks again Scott.

Back to India

Last week I didn’t do much, we can call it a week to forget.  It’s kind of like a “Walk to Remember”, but instead of sweet, sad and Mandy Moore, it was boring, pitiful and just me. 

This weekend though I went to Chennai.  My roommate, another intern, and I were invited to a co-worker’s wedding.  For those unaware an Indian wedding is a multi-day ordeal.  As such we couldn’t go to the actual ceremony, the following Monday, but we still wanted to go to the reception, on Sunday.  Being the excited tourists that we are we decided to go a day early so we could take in the sites.  This meant catching an overnight bus.  Seeing how we weren’t familiar with the area of the bus stop, we decided to leave at 7:30 so we could be sure to be on time for our 11:00 bus.  When we arrive it was still only about 9:30, and omg do I love waiting.  We decided to wait in the definition of a dive bar.  Not that I’m complaining, a chair is a chair as far as I’m concerned, but I could have done with a chilled beverage, but hey refrigerators are expensive.  Predictably enough, the bus was late.  Around 11:30 we finally boarded our bus, en route to Chennai.  The bus had fairly comfortable beds, as it was a sleeper bus.  I fell asleep after an hour or two, however was rather grumpy after waking up at 6 am the next day to disembark. 

Now we come to the point where we did not think our journey through.  We arrived in an unfamiliar city, without an address to our hotel, at 6am.  Luckily enough there were a couple of Rickshaw drivers by the bus drop, who are always happy to take advantage of a foreigner.  We found one who knew where our hotel was, and for 200 INR he would take us there.  Turns out the hotel wasn’t more than 5km away, which meant the meter rate for a Rick would be about 55 INR, but then again, what’s three dollars.  Once we arrived at the hotel we were relieved.  It was very nice.  When we walked into the lobby first thing I asked was whether we could do an early check in. After giving him my name and confirmation number, he had some bad news.  Apparently the hotel had two locations and we were at the wrong one.  So we got another Rick, for another 200, and drove what turned out to be about 4km, damn crooks, and arrived at our hotel.  So, again, first thing I did was see if we could do an early check in.  We could, but it would have cost 2,200 INR.  50 bucks?, hah forgettaboutit…I sat my butt down and waited.  We noticed after not too long though, that there was a nice restaurant, with a decent looking breakfast spread out.  We saw a couple people in there so we asked if we could eat.  It was 6:45, the person at the front desk said we could, once it opens at 7. 

Ok, how about the people in there enjoying their breakfast?  They got the buffet.  Can we get the buffet?  Yes.  So it’s open?  Yes.  Awesome.

After completing the lesson in what open and closed means we went in and experienced probably the greatest breakfast buffet to ever appear on earth.  For 11 dollars we could get an endless supply of freshly made pancakes, omelets, fruits, juices, even stews, steamed fish, bacon, yogurt with assorted nuts, traditional Indian foods, pastries; they had a whole table dedicated to pastries, not a small table either but a big one, with croissants: plain and chocolate, banana walnut cake, donuts, muffins, and more.  If they have a breakfast buffet in heaven, I’m pretty sure it looks like the one at that hotel.

Anyways, after finally checking in and getting to the room, we decided we were too tired to do anything and slept most of the day away.  When we woke back up we went to check out a mall.  This mall turned out to be one of the coolest, and perhaps best-designed malls I have ever been to.  That being said, I bought nothing and the one person I talked to in a store annoyed me.  After getting some dinner there we decided to walk to a restaurant on the way to our hotel, which had a supposedly good pub.  This hotel also happens to be where the cricket teams playing in the World Cup stay, if they’re playing in Chennai.  Yes there is a sport called Cricket, which has a World Cup, and it’s currently being held in India.  The walk to the hotel was about 3 miles.  Some creepy, most dirty, and from the 60 feet from the lot to the door of the Sheraton, very well lit.  Once there, we found out the Pub we had heard about was more of a dance club, which was only open to hotel guests, but no worry, they had a bar and lounge across the lobby.  This was very comfortable and, if I understood cricket, would’ve been entertaining as it was on every TV.  After some drinks we walked back to our hotel and called it a night.

The following day we decided to actually see something.  So, we went to a Park.  This “Park” turned out to be more of an outdoor zoo, which was still kind of cool.  We saw snakes, crocodiles, birds of all kind, deer, and more.  The interesting part was how they had a large cage of Macaque’s.  These are a type of monkey, which happen to be wild in the area.  In fact there were wild Macaques in the immediate area.  Around the park, and even in the tree opposite the caged monkeys there were wild ones climbing and running around free.  I experienced another strange occurrence at this park.  When at the bird exhibit a group of Indian girls stopped me and asked if they could take my picture.  I can only think of two explanations for this.  1. They’ve never seen a red head in person before and they had to take a photo or no one would believe them.  Or 2.)  They mistook me for Rupert Grint, from Harry Potter.  Later that night we went to a wedding reception.  It was pretty cool.  We listened to traditional Indian music, ate traditional food, which I’m starting to really like, and we had our picture with the bride and groom to be.  All in all it was a fun day. 

One thing worth mentioning that I’ve left out is how humid Chennai is.  I stood at the wedding, constantly drinking water in an effort to replenish my body, it was just lovely.

Moving on, the following morning we were to wake up for our train, which was leaving at 6am.  We arranged for a car at 5, planning to wake up around 4/4:30.  Around 4:45 we finally woke up, and packed our stuff; which we didn’t pack the night before because we are guys and that’s what we do, don’t try and change us, just love us for how we are.  We arrived at the station around 5:30, plenty of time and were on the train by 5:45.  After the train disembarked I tried to nod off, but to no avail.  Soon however people came by with water, then later with food, and later again with juice.  I had not expected the service, so it was quite a happy surprise.  We arrived back in Bangalore at 10:30, and at the office at 11:25.  I arrived at work just in time for a meeting, which was mostly about how my boss wasn’t pleased with my team’s performance; of course nothing to do with me, as I hadn’t done much in the previous month.  Later that day however I attended another meeting.  This was a three-hour meeting, in which my attendance stipulated that I was to run the slides.  I am usually ok with this, but when one wake’s up at 4am and has to hit an arrow key for 3 hours they can go a little crazy.  The rest of that day came and went like any other.

Today started with me being crammed in the back of our transport in a seat clearly made for someone less than six feet.  At work I had to attend the second half of the previous day’s 3hr meeting.  Thankfully I didn’t have to work the projector; because I was late someone else was doing it.  When I sat down, I opened my computer and was actually able to get some real work done, which was nice.  As the bottom of the totem pole, but also an intern I am in an unusual position.  My boss gave me a special project, which has a good amount of responsibility and work.  As the Rookie however, I get other work dropped on me as well.  I am not complaining but when I have 3 reports to finish by Thursday, and no one returning emails, things start to annoy you.  A good example of this is right before I was going to clock out today my immediate boss, not my team boss, sent me an email asking me to reach out to a bunch of team leaders, who are notorious for failing to respond to emails, and get them to fill something out.  Just the correspondence between these people will take up a good 3 to 4 hours of my next 3 days.

           

            I am happy that I have work to do though, and I enjoy the requirements of my project, though they are temporarily on hold for a bit.  This is officially the longest blog I have ever written, if you have stayed with me god bless you, and get a life.  Finally…Dad, I know you hate it when I don’t spell out numbers under ten, but get over it, baldy.

Today’s lesson, Never Trust a Rickshaw Driver,

You’re Welcome,

x

A New Direction and a Good Day

Today...was a good day.

First you need some background.  Yesterday I had a decent amount of downtime in my day.  I spent this time reading about IBM and its new projects and initiatives.  One article I read got me to thinking.  My thinking turned to writing.  In the end I wrote 2000 words about how my idea could change and benefit the company for the future.  No details because well...internet, I don't trust you.  Anyways, I condensed my writing to one page and sent an email to my team asking them to give me feedback.  My boss sent me an email this morning saying how he loved it, and liked how I thought about the different applications for it, and it really made me feel good.

Background complete.

My day started with working on a project my boss had given to me last night.  In this project I pretty much compared the cost of doing business here in India, to that of our other locations around the world.  I made a spreadsheet of the dollar amounts, along with a corresponding table to show the amounts as a percentage of the India costs.  Sounds fun right?  Actually...it was.  It was fun because it wasn't mundane, and it actually took thought.  After charting the data, I had to interpret it.  All I'm gonna say to that regard is that we Americans are way overpaid.

Entering, organizing, formatting, and interpreting this information took me most of the day.  Not long after lunch however I was called in to a weekly meeting.  In this meeting my team reviews with the other teams as to what their status is, and any issues they may have.  These meetings are fairly long and boring.  Afterwards however my boss asked me to stay, for another meeting.  This meeting ended up being with the communications team.  My boss's boss, the head of the dept., whom I also report to, introduced me to the team, and told me about what they do.  He followed that up with saying that he wanted me to start working with them on certain things because he really liked my writing in the essay I talked about in the background.  I felt very pleased about this, I would be able to come up with ideas and write things that would be emailed to thousands of employees.  At the very least it keeps me from doing repetitive work.  At this point, my job is getting better by the day and my options are only limited by my effort.

Today's lesson, write your own story.

You're Welcome,

x

Sugarcane Juice for Everyone!

I have been away from writing a while, and you're welcome for that.  But now I am back, so deal.

This past weekend was fairly boring.  On Sunday night my roommate and I went out to dinner with his friend's parents.  They could not have been nicer people.  Genuinely interested in my job, and my life; one can imagine how I enjoyed the attention.  We ate at a great Restaurant called Sonny’s, if you’re ever in the downtown Bangalore area you must go.  The parents know the owner there so he saw to it that we were served with the utmost attention and care.  The parents were happy to say that in all of Bangalore Sonny’s is the only restaurant that they would trust to eat salad and ice at, as they knew that all the water used was delivered and clean.  Naturally, and with much encouragement, I then ordered a salad.  The salad was good, but a little drenched in dressing for my taste, but hey I’m picky.

This week at work has been boring so far.  I was given an assignment the other day however, in which I had to ask the team managers to submit some status reports to me by a due date.  I must say it made me feel quite important.  Today, most of my day was spent following up with, and compiling the data I received back from them.  When I asked for the data, I attached a template, which I specifically said should be filled in completely, and that was what should be returned.  Naturally I received about five variations of responses, many containing not enough data, and some in a format completely different than what was provided.  The most singular occurrence however was when on manager went out of his way to say how the information I requested was similar to information another person requested two weeks ago.  He even followed up this with another email, sending me a copy of the other information to prove his point.  He complained that it made him to double work, and waste his time.  What is remarkable is that he never actually gave me any of the info I needed.  The info he sent as an example was too old for me to use and didn’t actually contain the proper details.  So, in all the time he wasted complaining, he could have gotten over it and sent one email…but where’s the fun in that.

My day today ended with a weekly review conference call, in which I talked to my boss’s boss from the states about food and the weather.  After the meeting my boss told me that he would get me started over the next week, on allowing me to take over a few processes which I will be submitting directly to the Directors in our office, giving me some quality interaction with.  I am very much looking forward to this and am rather excited and optimistic about my job in coming months.

Also, I had real south Indian food today…it was great.  Somewhat of a weird mix with some tastes, and yogurt got thrown in awkwardly, but it wasn’t too spicy and I could definitely get it again.  Lunch was followed by a cup of sugarcane juice, which I must say is really interesting.  It’s not overly sweet, and while not very cold, it is rather refreshing.

Today’s lesson, BS will follow you everywhere.

You’re Welcome,

x

Waiting...and goats.

Such a long day.

Today was my day to register with the Foreign Registration Office, which will henceforth be referred to as the FRO. 

My day starts, like any terrible day, with an early alarm…5:50am early.  I woke up at 5:50 so I could get ready and be on my way at 7:00, for an appointment at 9:00.  Upon arrival to the FRO I went to the front desk where I was handed papers to fill out.  I was not actually required to fill out any paperwork, as my employer hired a company to take care of all the formalities for me.  I discovered after 10 seconds of trying to explain this that the man at the front desk didn’t understand a word of what I was saying.  Let’s take a step back and look at this situation for a second.

The man, at the front desk of the Foreign Registration Office; the man who greets and guides every foreigner that travels to Bangalore, could not speak English.  Hundreds of foreigners, with English as their only common language go to this office to complete their Visa registration, and the FRO puts someone at the front desk, who can only speak Hindi.  Fantastic.

Anyways, people from the company finally show up, with all the papers I would have needed neat, organized and completed.  After waiting for a bit I was called up to the first desk, where they go over my paperwork and give be another sheet, to be filled in by the people upstairs.  So I then proceeded upstairs where I had to, big surprise, wait again.  When I was finally called up to the next desk I was told I had to write and sign a short note explaining why a failed to register within thirteen days of arrival.  After doing this I went back up to the desk, where I was told to go see the manager who would sign my note.  After waiting more for him I finally went in and got my note signed, wahoo!  This allowed me to go back to the previous desk, where I had to wait again because he started helping someone else.  After waiting again I was finally helped and he looked over my paperwork, just like the guys at the first desk on the first floor did, stamped something and sent me to another desk.  At the next desk I had to; you guessed it…wait again.  Once the waiting was over, the lady helping me looked over my papers, again, and filled out the sheet I received earlier.  She referred me the fourth of five desks on the opposite side of the room.  All these desks performed the same task, but of course I was assigned to one of the two that were busy, so I had to wait…again.  When I was called to the desk the woman helping me could not have been nicer.  Unfortunately she had to give me the worst news.  Due to my late registration I was required to pay a $30 fine.  This is all well and good, except they don’t take cash, or card.  I had to walk to the nearest International bank so I could pay them, with a premium added on, and they could give me a check.  Oh yeah and there was a good amount of waiting involved at the bank.  When I returned I had to wait a bit more and then go to a different desk where my check would be processed.  From there I had to go back to the fourth desk where I finally, and without an additional wait, received my registration certificate.  I was done…finally. 

            Now I could just sit back and relax.  The only problem was that it was only noon and I told my boss I would go in to work.  So, around 1pm I arrived, tired and cranky.  I said some hellos and proceeded straight to lunch.  For the remainder of the work day I did some polishing of my template project, and read news relevant to the company…until 3:30.  At 3:30 I was called in for the weekly operations conference call.  In this call, the operations team, me and two other people, host a conference call that every team, there’s like 40 has to call in to and give an update of their issues, progress, etc.  This, painful, agonizing, hair pullingly boring call lasted for three hours.  Three hours of the same questions to every team.  It wouldn’t be so bad if everyone knew how to talk into a phone, but people mumbled, people shouted, people rushed, and people dragged on, and on.  Plus they did all this with a thick India accent.  I gave myself credit for being able to hear and recognize three quarters of what was said, different story trying to understand what any of it meant though.

            After this my boss was gracious enough to let me go home.  So, here I lie, on my bed, typing about this day because if I can, in anyway, transfer even the slightest ounce of my exhaustion to some one else I will do it.  A good substitute is always pity, something highly underrated in society; I welcome your pity.

Today’s lesson, lack of sleep and excessive waiting lead to homicidal thoughts.

You’re welcome,

x

P.S. Forgot to tell you, I saw a lot of goats running around in the streets by the FRO, kinda funny.

Late nights, cheap food, and a cow.

Let me detail the past three days, starting at the most natural place…the middle.  The reason; the days are starting to blur together, so the past two mornings are hard to recollect. 

On Tuesday I can really only remember one meaningful thing I was a part of, and that was a video-conference with the woman who heads all of India…the end.  Also I got home really late that night because my transport arrived half an hour later than it was supposed to.  I can’t remember for the life of me why I had to stay late, which must mean it was really important.  My boss did buy me dinner however, so it was worth it.  I must also say that I very much enjoy the way my boss can go from formal to informal.  If something needs to be done, he is serious and focused, but when we’re eating or just chatting he becomes very sociable and humorous.  I hope my future bosses and America are the same way, but I won’t hold my breath.

Last night I also had to stay late, but for reasons I can recall…yay!  I was sitting in on a conference call with a global VP, which ran until about nine o’clock.  On this call we went over the previous quarter and the months to come.  I can say in all honestly that of the 40+ slides he used in his presentation, probably six contained information that was relevant, which I hadn’t heard before.  After that I got an egg sandwich while I waited for my transport.  I am going to digress for a moment and tell you about this sandwich. 

It is three layers of bread, lightly buttered, with hard-boiled egg, vegetables, and some kind of mild spice.  It is toasted and pressed, similar to a Panini.  I pay the equivalent of 50 cents for this thing, and I would gladly pay the 4 or 5 dollars such a creation would cost back in Boston. 

While on the subject of food, there is also a smoothie place in our food court.  They sell a fruit bowl there, chalk full of various fresh fruit for 75 cents.  It tastes great and you wouldn’t be able to find something I like it in Boston for 5 times the prices.

What did I do the rest of the day?  I honestly couldn’t tell you…once again, the days are starting to blur.

Today was a bit more interesting however.  It started slow, but I eventually was given a job that will actually have a lasting impact on my department.  My job was to put together a template with graph’s, whose data automatically adjusts with the information in tables in corresponding worksheets.  Sound nerdy?  You bet!  I also had to update information in various tabled and make sure all the data was accurate and complete.

My job is, essentially, to aid in the overseeing of all the accounts my company works with.  So basically I, who have been here for about three weeks, help make sure that other employees, who have been here for years, are doing their jobs right.

The work I did today will help streamline the process in the future and, even though a monkey trained in excel could I have done just as well, I am proud of it.

Oh yeah, saw a cow this morning, while I waited an hour and a half for my transport! >:(… it was really cute. 

Today’s lesson, enjoy cheap food while you can.

You’re welcome,

x

My First Real Day

I was stressed and in a panic because an file I was working on got deleted.  I had spent most of the day banging my head against the desk trying to figure out which numbers I was supposed to graph, and wondering why it looked terrible.  I had to redo all of my work.  I think that when redoing things we always find that the work we had been stressing about so much, really isn’t that friggin hard.  After I spent some time redoing the work I spent way too much time on, I sent it to my boss.  It turned out that nothing I was doing was actually correct.  Instead of make a graph and analyze the data, I simply had to design a template, by which to present the graph and its analysis.  This would be all well and good, except i don't know how to do that.  To clarify, I can design templates, just not on MS Office software that’s 6 years old.  That’s like and octogenarian in computer years.  I ended up putting some default graphs and text boxes on word, and called it a job well done. 

For the first part of my day I was in an orientation, during which I learned more about the company, not very thrilling, but what orientation ever is.  The rest of the day though was spent reading 10 articles my boss sent to me.  He wanted my input as to whether they would be of value to the other managers.  I decided, rather than just say yes or no, to give a detailed outline of how I thought each article related to and could benefit the company.  What ended up happening was, me coming up with an idea, which would pretty much completely change the way, in which the company functions.  I think the idea would revolutionize the corporate culture, but some may be a little hesitant about it, as it’s coming from an intern.  I ended up staying late so I could finish my article reviews and refine my ideas, I'm happy I finally had something at work to be excited about.

After I got back from work my roommate told me that our electricity had been cut off, for failure to pay a bill, which we never received.  He got them to turn the power back on, and we’re paying them tomorrow.  Not too conventional to be asked to pay a bill you never received, but then again we’re just dumb Americans, what do we know about bills.

Today’s lesson, update your Microsoft Office,

You’re welcome,

x


*As a note blogger is having problems.  This may make the font, spacing and coloring different then they should be.  Got a problem with that? Get over it ya bum...no disrespect, all due respect, forgetaboutithowyoudoin.