Remember Remember the 5th of December

So after a day and a half of mayhem I've confirmed my return date to the U.S., December 5th. About two days ago I was asked if Richmond Virginia would be ok for me to work from. Richmond is ok, it's just 2 hours from DC (A hell of a lot closer than I am now) and what was really enticing was that when I asked what my return date would be I was told "December 1st weekend". Now, I may be crazy but "December 1st weekend" sounded like this coming weekend (the weekend that has December 1st in it). Naturally I was really excited about that as I wasn't expecting to go home that soon.

So the next day I eagerly went to my Manager hoping to hear his confirmation of this date that seemed so unreal and exciting for me. I should have learned from being here for 4 months that things are rarely as they seem. Apparently "December 1st weekend" means "The first weekend in December" and while that is still this coming weekend, my manager thought the first weekend of december was the Dec. 7th weekend so he apologized and told me I'd be going home December 7th. So, a little disappointing but it's still pretty soon. Later on that day I talked to the other guy from the US batch that came with me to Chennai. Apparently our manager said he could go home on December 5th and he would be able to wait in the US until an opening in Reston was available (I was not made aware of this option before I said yes to Richmond, interesting). So I went back and asked my manager to also send me home on the 5th as it is only fair. He agreed and told me I could put in travel details to have a flight booked on December 5th.

I did in fact get my flight details today, I will be leaving from Chennai at 4:00 a.m. on December 5th and I will reach Washington D.C. at 1:10 p.m. December 5th (there time of course). So I'm glad that is over with and this is my last week in India before I go back home! The fight for details doesn't end here though.

My manager told me they didn't need me in Richmond until January. We all get two weeks off when we get back to the US to look for apartments and what not. So my reporting date after the two weeks would be December 20th. December 20th is not January, so I'm still confused as to what I would be doing until it's time to go to Richmond. I was told maybe I could work at Reston during that interim period...but then why not just let me work in Reston for good? And I am still kinda mad that I wasn't even given the option of waiting for an opening in Reston in the U.S. because I was willing to be a little flexible with my location, almost seems like I was taken for a chump because I said yes to Richmond. Now I could probably go argue that I'd like that same option and I won't have it any other way. Honestly though, these past two months in Chennai haven't really been all that engaging work wise, and I'm getting tired of wasting time just sitting around. So if Richmond offers me real responsibility and the true start to my career then so be it. Richmond is pretty close to DC anyways so it's not terrible in that sense either.

So all in all it's been good news. Even though work here has been really frustrating from time to time I will miss India, but more on that in another post.

Now the only question that remains is where will I be living at the end of December, Richmond or some place else? (Seems kinda important huh)

Friday

So i'm sitting here at my desk at 3:20 p.m. on a friday afternoon. The weather is great outside and guy next to me keeps shaking his leg and the vibrations are making my monitor shake at an annoying frequency. I'd tell him to stop but the shaking screen provides a slight distraction from the dull work day. I did get SOME work today but not much. It's not due until Wednesday and it won't take long. I did find this interesting chart that sums up my procrastination almost too well: http://i13.tinypic.com/6k5at1c.png

I'm going to try to go to the beach this weekend and see what all the rave is about. I've been talking to Andrew about MAYBE going to Singapore next weekend. We'll see if it works out though. So a while ago my manager said I'd be here until the first or second week of december. I'm hoping it's the first week of december. To be home before my birthday (dec. 9th) would be nice. If I do go back the first week of december, that would make next week my last full week of work or "work" in India, woo hoo. Judging by my luck here so far, I wouldn't be surprised if they asked me to stay through the first or second week of January!

I'm thinking of starting another blog once I go home, you know, to chronicle the exciting tales of my life. I'm thinking it probably wouldn't be near as eventful as this blog has been though. Plus I'd probably be too busy procrastinating to write in it ever. Hmm I also need to check out a performance at the kalakshetra dance academy here, I'll have to give them a call.

Woohoo it's the weekend

Work

So let's see, I think the last time I was complaining about the internet not working properly. Which, by the way, did get fixed but it stopped working again yesterday. This time I'm going to complain of having a roommate! Well it's not so much the roommate himself that's a problem, it's just more frustration. We were told we wouldn't have roommates during our stay in India and that was true until about last week. For some reason I got a roommate here in Chennai. I tried to deal with it with the guy in charge of housing here by myself for a week but that proved pointless. Then finally I e-mailed the HR in the US and they got it resolved for me. It's a little ridiculous that I literally have to get the world involved to solve such an issue. I should have my own room again after today...hopefully. It's just the icing on the big peice of frustration cake I've been tackling since we got here.

Anyways, I did do some shopping this past weekend. I picked up a bunch of Kanchi silk sarees. I heard Chennai was famous for kanchi silk so I decided they'd make good gifts. I went with a friend I had made back in Mysore who happens to live in Chennai and is working here now. She helped a lot because I obviously don't know much about Saris.

Work is still boring, I haven't had much work to do yet so I figured I'd update this old thing. I'm still waiting on my location back in the US, there's a chance I might have to work out of Philadelphia for a little bit. I need to know so I can start looking for apartments online. It's hard to imagine, with what little knowledge I have right now, that two or three weeks from now I'll be back home ready to get an apartment in some city in the United States.

The past week or two have been really frustrating for me so I've been wanting to go home even more. I'd be ok with not seeing whatever is left on my list of things to see in India, I just want to go home! A lot of us share that sentiment.

Whack

For an IT company that's out to "win in the flat world" Infosys sure does have some of the worst internet connectivity I've ever seen. In the office it's fine, it's just this wireless internet they have us set up on in the rooms we're staying at. It works seemingly according to it's own whim. Sometimes the connection is "excellent" sometimes it's "very low" even if the computer has not moved an inch. It's very frustrating especially when it is my only means of communcation with people back home. But no one here would understand that.

I've sent e-mails complaining about the internet but no response. It seemed that they fixed something one day as the internet wasn't working at all for a few hours. But even then it sucks. My room is the only room that seems to have the weak signal however. The other guy from the US batch here has great connectivity. Even just outside the hallway the signal is great, wonderful, spectacular but once you enter the void that is my room, it suddenly dims. My next plan of action is to request a room change so I can have a better signal. I've been practicing my abilities to see into the future and let me break down the exact steps that will happen as I request for this room change:

I send an e-mail to the head honcho in charge of these things asking for a room change explaining that the internet signal in my room is weak but stronger further down the hallway. I also explain that the internet is my only means of communcation with people back home and I need to get in touch with my family through skype regularly

I click send

I wait for a reply

I wait some more

IF he replies it would be a miracle

That's the thing, people rarely reply back to e-mails here. They were good with it when I first came to Chennai but now it seems they don't want to anymore. Even though it's JUST the internet it's VERY frustrating when I can't make a decent call to my parents using Skype without sitting in the lobby with a microphone and headphones like some kind of ghetto call center employee.

At times I feel like this company makes itself seem process oriented and having "it" together but on the inside it feels totally different. Things that are not deemed "important" (like my internet in the room) are ignored or passed on to someone else who passes it on to someone else who then passes it onto someone else like a hot potato game. This game of hot potato or the act of ignoring a request is what makes me most angry. The internet is a fairly small thing to complain about when there are people who don't have beds to sleep on right outside the campus gates.

Just do your job and stop ignoring e-mails, send an e-mail saying you can't get to this certain task today or SOMETHING stop keeping me and a lot of other people who have these communication complaints in the dark.

It's not a "cultural difference" it's down right irresponsible.

Shakti holding a sparkler

Picture of my cousin Shakti holding a sparkler up in the air.

Diwali trip

I went up to my uncle's house in Gujurat for diwali recently. I just got back today. Diwali is a heck of a lot more fun in India than it is back in the states for sure. Lighting fireworks in the middle of the street and just celebrating with everyone is great. I think the real problem back home is that you celebrate diwali individually, not everyone in your neighborhood is lighting fireworks and divas in their windows (Unless you live in Edison New Jersey or something). It's no fun celebrating in isolation. I guess Christmas in India must feel like Diwali in America though. The last time I celebrated Diwali in India was 10 years ago so it was nice to be back for the occasion after such a long time.

The feeling of Diwali is a lot more festive than it feels back home, so I think that's what makes it more fun. I also saw the hindi movie Saawariya while I was up in gujurat too. That movie sucks by the way for anyone thinking of watching it. Another thing that sucked was that I forgot to bring my camera! I was bent on remembering it to take pictures of a Diwali of the likes of which I probably won't see for a while now. I did have my cell phone though so I took pictures with that. The quality isn't the best, but it's something.

Today is Sunday, this past friday marked week four in Chennai. Before I left Mysore they told us we'd be in production (office work after the training in Mysore) for about four to eight weeks. I'm going to try and get an exact date of return from the people here this coming week. As I've said before, there is a whole lot of things I want to see in India but I am ready to come home. I probably couldn't see all the things I want to see if I had 3 months to just travel so 4 months with having work interfering with traveling is definitely not enough time.

The new India

Picture of some random big building I took while waiting for the bus near the mall. A good visual of the new India.

Just some observations

So my whole excursion into the city was pretty fun as I found there's things to do other than sit in my room and watch t.v. all day on the weekends. It was also weird because I saw more of the dichotomy of old and new India that I've been seeing since I got here. I would go on the bus in the heat and the pollution from cars and what not from the outside would be choking my lungs and burning my throat. And there would be people on the sidewalk asking for money or asking to shine your shoes. Then I walk into the mall with big clean shops and air conditioning. It's so strange at first to go from one extreme to another. After a while you get used to it though and you don't think much of it, but it still strikes me as weird if I think about it.

The road that infosys campus is on is where a lot of big tech companies have their offices. The likes of Accenture, Cognizant, Tata consulting, Wipro and Satyam computing have huge office buildings here. The weird part is that you see these enormous buildings with their bright and shiny logos on them in the background and in the immediate foreground you see run down shops and huts. It's a strange site for sure, but it's kinda cool to see a country growing up like this.

The other day at work one of my co-workers asked me if there were any villages in the U.S.A. I thought that was such a weird question, ludicrous almost. But then I realized how ignorant I was being in not realizing that for someone who has lived in India all their lives, it's a perfectly legitimate question. So I told him no there wasn't but there were small towns.

I was talking to my friend Aarthi, who is from Chennai but she was training in Mysore as well. I was telling her how in all the hindi movies and stuff the only parts of the US they show are New York or LA with beautiful women everywhere. I told her that was the America I wanted to go to, Pocomoke Maryland is a far cry from that. She told me how a lot of the younger generation in India wants to be "American". Not as in get a citizenship and move to America, but dress and act like what they see as American on t.v. And I thought it was weird because a lot of people in America want to be more and more Indian (or embrace Indian culture with the growing popularity of yoga and what not). Pretty strange how that works.

Chennai

Chennai a.k.a Madras is actually a pretty cool city. I decided to get off my ass and explore the town a little. The most comfortable way to get into town from Infosys campus is by booking a cab. It's also an expensive way to get to and from town. I decided to fore go comfort and take the public buses into town. My destination was the biggest mall in Chennai, called Spencers plaza. I also heard that the best movie theater in town, Sathyam Cinemas, was close to the mall so I decided to try and find that as well.

I walked to the closes bus station (not too far from campus luckily) and caught a bus. Of course I got on the wrong bus. The route I was supposed to take **Big unpronouncable foreign words ahead** was Sholinganallur -> Adyar Bus Dept -> TVS bus stop in front of Spencers plaza. Instead I got on a bus from Sholinganallur -> Thiruvanmiyur. So from Thiruvanmiyur I had to catch a bus to Adyar Depot and then to TVS. It took me about 2.5 hours to get from campus to the mall with traffic included. The buses there weren't too bad, they did get crowded from time to time and of course the Chennai heat only makes things worse. But it's also 50 cents to take the bus compared to 10 dollars (yeah, I know 10 dollars isn't much but 10 dollars goes a long way here!).

I finally got to the mall and when I walked in I didn't really know where to begin. I didn't really need to buy anything, I had just come to check it out. That place is massive though, there's so many stores and the layout isn't very logical so I found myself making circles in a lot of areas. I'm sure for the experienced mall rat it's not a big deal, but for the first time it was like a big maze. I found a store I had been to at the Forum mall in Bangalore, the store is called Landmark. It's pretty much a book store plus wal-mart put into one. I picked up this book called "Life of Pi" from there. I had heard a lot about it from people back home and decided it would help me stave off the boredom in my room from time to time. I also looked for Chamillionaire's new album "Ultimate Victory". It was definitely a little awkward asking for it. "Excuse me, do you have....Chamillionaire?". The guy didn't know what I was looking for so I spelled it out for him as he typed it into the computer. Apparently they had it but it was out of stock.

After walking around that huge place for a while I got hungry. There was a subway that caught my eye so I decided to go in and check it out. It was great, just like subway back home. I was eating subway and on the radio they were playing Timbaland's The Way I Are. If I closed my eyes I could've sworn I was back in America, strange.

Then I decided to find this Sathyam place. The person I had talked to at work said I could walk from the mall to the theater so I decided to try that. I got some directions at the information desk and started walking. Walking out in the heat and humidity that's only magnified by the pollution is no fun task as I found out. The distance wasn't too bad but it was still a chore in the heat. I got there and decided to buy a ticket for this hindi movie "Bool Bhulaiyan". As I was waiting around for the movie to start I realized I had nothing better to do after the movie. There was another hindi movie, "Chak de India" playing right as this first movie ended so I went ahead and bought a ticket for that as well. Hindi movies usually play for about 3 hours or so, so I was in the theater from 3:30 p.m. until about 10 at night, it was a great way to kill time though. The movies were actually pretty good too so that was a plus. I did chicken out on the way back and took a cab. I decided the bus was too much of a hassle to deal with at night.

That was saturday, sunday it was raining all day so I just sat in and read the book and messed around online. The book is ok, it hasn't caught my interest enough yet so I'm hoping it does soon.

Trouble's Abrew?

I was talking to some people that are in the long cycle back in Mysore and apparently a lot has changed there. The long cycle is the training schedule for non computer science people. As the name implies, it's a longer schedule so their Mysore training ends in December and then they will go into production for a month or so. A lot of the non CS people were complaining that the material was too difficult