Working from Home

Oh man, 6:00 already?! Shoot, maybe I’m not as ready as I think. At least I have my brand-new fitted shirt to wear so I’ll be spiffy, if not awake. I make the 5 minute walk to Whitefield Road and darn it, I’m really early today, waiting at 6:40 (usually bus comes at 6:55). Hmm... gets to be 7, then 7:15. Hmmm... there are lots of different busses that go by, and it is Monday - maybe they changed drivers and the new guys don’t know where to stop? Or maybe they’re just stuck in traffic... 7:25... nah, I think that I must have seen the brown bus go by around 7 - they just missed me I’m sure. I’ll have to wear my contacts tomorrow so that I can really see what’s going by!

I work from home, connecting in using VPN over the DSL line. Actually, the connection is really good today going through Singapore gateway and I finish up work on the gating CR, ready for testing tomorrow when I get a lab shift.

Mehnoush brought lunch home: Kentucky Fried Chicken?!? Oh well, I was interested in trying it here anyway. Not nearly as greasy as back home, seems to be a bit better and a bit spicier too. It was okay, and nice to see Mehnoush at lunch (well, around 2:30pm, since that was the first break she had all day!!).

The exciting part of the day was unfortunately a bit stressful: Mehnoush called from work, and had me bring Babu to meet her out front in 20 minutes. Since I know that people easily get distracted with work and lose track of time (being guilty of that myself quite often) I suggested that we would just park outside the complex and she could call Babu’s cell phone when she was outside the building (this ITP complex does not allow cars to wait in front of the building, and one time when we went round and round in circles, the guards came after us and demanded we leave - not friendly at all!). So we wait. And wait. I suggest we drive by once - no Mehnoush waiting so now I just feel bad that she is trapped at work or on the phone, but at least she’s not waiting for us. We drive down the road to check out a restaurant nearby, which seems like it has a nice setting. We go back to ITP and wait and chat a bit more, and finally decide to make one more round: there’s Mehnoush! She’s been waiting for us for an HOUR - Babu’s cell phone was not ringing or making any indication at all. She had called, his boss had called, they had paged it: nothing was working!

So instead of being a time-saver, my brilliant idea cost us an hour, and now we were all upset for dinner too. Oh well, I was forgiven in due time over dinner. Unfortunately even the dinner was bad: I’ve never had food like this here in India! Both the dal and the capsicum peppers tasted like they were covered in Kraft BarBCue sauce - thick, heavy, sweet, and red! Roti and Kulchas tasted like they were out of a package and stuck in the toaster. Yuck! I would definitely say to avoid the “Green Park” restaurant on Whitefield - too bad, they had a nice outdoor park-like setting.