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)