Bangalore: AutoRickshaw Home Via Palm Meadows

Senthil is out today, getting engaged in Chennai! What an exercise - he left late last night on the train, will get in quite late, sleep a bit, then go to the engagement ceremony during the day, hop on a train tonight, and make it in to work by 7AM tomorrow! Craziness, he should take a few days off.

Which led to a vacation discussion amongst my colleages: They get 20 days off per year, and Infosys usually limits how many days can be taken at a time. Saturday is considered a workday here as well (according to *some* but not all of my colleagues - interesting, maybe different groups have different policies?). Sundays are off. There’s not much possibility of comp time: theoretically you can ask for it, but it would look really bad if you did since it has to be approved by the boss’ boss’ boss! No one wants that kind of visibility. And also an e-mail will be sent around for approval so everyone will know you’re slacking off! Very different than in the US, at least for us Nortellians. After 17 years, I have 20 days vacation, plus 9 or 10 statutory holidays, can freely claim comp time for weekends or nights worked extra, and have an extremely flexible work schedule. I’m not sure what they thought of the fact that on most days in the US I usually work an hour in the early AM catching up on mail & planning, then come in to work and work for several hours in the morning, eat lunch, work several hours in the afternoon, play volleyball, drive home, and work several more hours at night (which is exactly like sitting at my desk, thanks to VNC and “real” broadband in the US).. In general, I get the idea they really wonder just how much people in the US work - they say it’s hard to talk to anyone after 3pm or before 10am, and honestly I’m noticing that myself now that I am here - I think we must be pretty spoiled, since every conference call we set up means that the Infoscions stay until 7pm to take the call in the office (no dialup from home is possible yet to interwork with the Nortel corporate network).

On the bus ride home, Ramya, the girl I met riding with Kaveesh a few days ago, and Shriram (another guy I met just today) suggested that we get off the bus early, at the Marathahalli stop and take an Auto home. This should cut about 20 minutes to an hour off the travel time, just because the bus makes a big loop around Marathahalli. Kaveesh negotiated with several rickshaw guys, and wound up agreeing on 20 rupees over the meter amount - just part of the fun. The place that she, Kaveesh, another guy, and another couple all live is called Palm Meadows - this is a very nice subdivision (called a “colony” here in India) with tightly packed nice houses (called “villas” here) - think something like Preston in Cary transported halfway around the world. Very tiny lots, but the nice thing was that the houses were all different shapes and sizes, unlike the typical development in the US where they are all just cookie-cutter versions of the same thing.

Three of us shared the auto to near their homes, then I travelled another 20 minutes alone - just hoping we were going the right direction! It’s one thing to ride in the bus with everyone, but again to be out on the road in the dark at night with a stranger driving who can’t really speak much English! We made it okay though; and the meter read 57 rupees - I gave the guy 80, since I didn’t have small change to make 77 - big deal! That was pretty cool and may be a new way home.