so, despite the first 3+ hour (each direction) trip to bangalore, i decided to give it a second shot. one of the guys here, Vishal, has family living in bangalore. we stayed in the guest-cabins at his uncle's house, and it was pretty awesome. we left friday evening and bade the trek to bangalore in time for dinner (9:00, which is approaching the end of dinner time by indian standards). we spent saturday in the city, doing a little shopping (you have no idea how hard it is to find a) bow-ties, b) suit-vests, and c) american board games in india). being able to have alcohol (incredibly strict enforcement of the dry campus rule) was nice, but by far the best part of the trip was being able to eat an actual meal that left me feeling full afterwords.
in true american fashion, we ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.
i had a bacon cheeseburger ('bacon', 'cheese', and 'burger' are not food in india) and a pomegranate margarita. both good. i also bought a t-shirt, since i most definitely did not bring enough informal clothes to india.
basically, it was a lot of relaxing and getting away from indian beaurocracy. there are a few pictures up (http://picasaweb.google.com/shadedaemon/IndiaAugust2008) and i am trying to get some pictures from my photo-maniac friends who came with us.
also, i found out that i am now a part of the Manufacturing Business unit, which means i will be working on post-training projects in either Chennai or Bangalore, and i will be "based in" Seattle when i return to the U.S.
fine print: being "based in" an area doesn't actually mean anything, so far as we can tell, because i have yet to find a trainee from last year who actually has spent more than a week or two living in the area out of which he is "based".
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Vent1: Catastrophically Wasted Day
Good news, everyone! we just found out that everyone in the US / UK batch is by default placed in the 'project management stream', which means that we will be project managers in about 2 years.
bad news: i don't know if any of us will be able to make it that long.
NOTE: this is all a completely true story, as ridiculous as it may seem.
for those of you who don't know, i had serious visa troubles. our visas were supposed to be for the city of Mysore, since that is where the training campus is, but all our paperwork came from the company headquarters in Bangalore, which apparently caused mass confusion among the consulate. long story short: my visa says 'Bangalore' and they refused to change it to 'Mysore'. however, there are two other US trainees who have the same problem.
anyway, everyone else went to the Mysore foreign registration office, and the HR department told us explicitly several times that the lucky three of us were required to travel into Bangalore to register. fine so far. unfortunately, this involves a 3-hour bus ride both ways and a couple of hours minimum at the office cleaning up the red tape. worse, the office is only open from 10 - 5 on weekdays, with a two-hour-or-so lunch break in the middle somewhere. oh yeah, as trainees, we have a 9:30 curfew after which we will be refused entry to the campus and docked pay for missing the following day, since we won't be allowed back in until after work has already started.
still not too bad, right?
well, i got up this morning at 4 so i had time to meet the 'full formal' dress code requirement, since our fun little trip included a 'short stay' at the Bangalore campus while some paperwork was finalized and notarized. we caught the 5:30 taxi (which showed up at about 5:45, thank you IST [Indian-Stretch-Time] ) and proceded to the main gate, where were refused exiting-rights. apparently trainees aren't allowed to leave during workdays without express permission from HR. oops, looks like NONE OF THE FOUR HR PEOPLE WHO HAD SET UP OUR TRIP had bothered to tell the gate guards. luckily, one of them answered his cell phone after about five or six attempts to call him. so around 6:15, only half an hour late so far, we began our 2 1/2 hour drive to Bangalore. once we were within sight of the campus, we called our incredibly confused contact person. apparently no one had told him of or little adventure until about an hour before we arrived there.
side note: we spent about three hours in the HR office after work the day before filling out our forms and figuring out what we would be doing today (we literally found out when we were leaving eleven hours before our actual departure time). we also scanned our completed forms so that our contact would be able to prepare enough copies of everything and make sure all the paperwork was complete. . . . except no one bothered to email him the forms.
so we arrived and met our contact, who asked us to explain why we were in Bangalore to register in the first place. we explained our story to him, and he told us that the stupid rule requiring us to register in a city separate from where we would be living had been changed about six months back. and he had very clearly mentioned this to the Mysore HR person in charge of visa registration (the guy who had arranged our trip to Bangalore) several times. so basically, our whole trip to Bangalore was entirely unnecessary. great.
we gave our Bangalore contact the paperwork, which he had wanted to have copied and assembled before we arrived; this meant about two hours of waiting around the Bangalore campus with nothing to do. we finally got everything assembled and headed into town for our actual visit to the FRRO office . . . except that by the time we got there, they were closed for lunch. after a lunch of our own from a nearby hotel-restaurant, we found ourselves waiting in line for another hour or so in the shadiest, most run-down, unkempt, nasty little series of buildings ever. after listening to our contact argue with the angry little man behind the big official desk for a while, we learned that foreigners were now required to register in the city where they would be staying. which meant that not only was our trip unnecessary, it was also a complete and total waste, because we would have to lose another day of class to travel to Mysore to register.
another fun piece of information: our visas were now required to match the location at which we would be staying, which ours clearly do not. this means that the company HR people now have to contact the Indian consulate and get his express, written permission for us to live in an area separate from what our visas say; who knows how that will turn out.
so after an incredibly long and worthless day, we drove back through a very . . . interesting . . . location. more on that later, since i am too tired to keep going.
did i mention that today was our first day of actual training, which we missed?
and i should also mention that NONE of this would have happened if the HR people would have made a simple phone call to talk to our Bangalore contact, who happened to be the PERSON IN CHARGE OF THE FOREIGN VISAS OFFICE FOR THIS COMPANY! his job is entirely to know all about the visas and formalities necessary for us to register with whatever countries we may be visiting! WHY DID NO ONE TALK TO HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE!?
this, and several other little things the people of this company have done (or not done), has caused most of our batch to severely lose respect for the company. some of these incidents are beyond simple mistakes or oversights; a lot of these problems are being caused by pure negligence, lack of communication, and a sort of apathy.
bad news: i don't know if any of us will be able to make it that long.
NOTE: this is all a completely true story, as ridiculous as it may seem.
for those of you who don't know, i had serious visa troubles. our visas were supposed to be for the city of Mysore, since that is where the training campus is, but all our paperwork came from the company headquarters in Bangalore, which apparently caused mass confusion among the consulate. long story short: my visa says 'Bangalore' and they refused to change it to 'Mysore'. however, there are two other US trainees who have the same problem.
anyway, everyone else went to the Mysore foreign registration office, and the HR department told us explicitly several times that the lucky three of us were required to travel into Bangalore to register. fine so far. unfortunately, this involves a 3-hour bus ride both ways and a couple of hours minimum at the office cleaning up the red tape. worse, the office is only open from 10 - 5 on weekdays, with a two-hour-or-so lunch break in the middle somewhere. oh yeah, as trainees, we have a 9:30 curfew after which we will be refused entry to the campus and docked pay for missing the following day, since we won't be allowed back in until after work has already started.
still not too bad, right?
well, i got up this morning at 4 so i had time to meet the 'full formal' dress code requirement, since our fun little trip included a 'short stay' at the Bangalore campus while some paperwork was finalized and notarized. we caught the 5:30 taxi (which showed up at about 5:45, thank you IST [Indian-Stretch-Time] ) and proceded to the main gate, where were refused exiting-rights. apparently trainees aren't allowed to leave during workdays without express permission from HR. oops, looks like NONE OF THE FOUR HR PEOPLE WHO HAD SET UP OUR TRIP had bothered to tell the gate guards. luckily, one of them answered his cell phone after about five or six attempts to call him. so around 6:15, only half an hour late so far, we began our 2 1/2 hour drive to Bangalore. once we were within sight of the campus, we called our incredibly confused contact person. apparently no one had told him of or little adventure until about an hour before we arrived there.
side note: we spent about three hours in the HR office after work the day before filling out our forms and figuring out what we would be doing today (we literally found out when we were leaving eleven hours before our actual departure time). we also scanned our completed forms so that our contact would be able to prepare enough copies of everything and make sure all the paperwork was complete. . . . except no one bothered to email him the forms.
so we arrived and met our contact, who asked us to explain why we were in Bangalore to register in the first place. we explained our story to him, and he told us that the stupid rule requiring us to register in a city separate from where we would be living had been changed about six months back. and he had very clearly mentioned this to the Mysore HR person in charge of visa registration (the guy who had arranged our trip to Bangalore) several times. so basically, our whole trip to Bangalore was entirely unnecessary. great.
we gave our Bangalore contact the paperwork, which he had wanted to have copied and assembled before we arrived; this meant about two hours of waiting around the Bangalore campus with nothing to do. we finally got everything assembled and headed into town for our actual visit to the FRRO office . . . except that by the time we got there, they were closed for lunch. after a lunch of our own from a nearby hotel-restaurant, we found ourselves waiting in line for another hour or so in the shadiest, most run-down, unkempt, nasty little series of buildings ever. after listening to our contact argue with the angry little man behind the big official desk for a while, we learned that foreigners were now required to register in the city where they would be staying. which meant that not only was our trip unnecessary, it was also a complete and total waste, because we would have to lose another day of class to travel to Mysore to register.
another fun piece of information: our visas were now required to match the location at which we would be staying, which ours clearly do not. this means that the company HR people now have to contact the Indian consulate and get his express, written permission for us to live in an area separate from what our visas say; who knows how that will turn out.
so after an incredibly long and worthless day, we drove back through a very . . . interesting . . . location. more on that later, since i am too tired to keep going.
did i mention that today was our first day of actual training, which we missed?
and i should also mention that NONE of this would have happened if the HR people would have made a simple phone call to talk to our Bangalore contact, who happened to be the PERSON IN CHARGE OF THE FOREIGN VISAS OFFICE FOR THIS COMPANY! his job is entirely to know all about the visas and formalities necessary for us to register with whatever countries we may be visiting! WHY DID NO ONE TALK TO HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE!?
this, and several other little things the people of this company have done (or not done), has caused most of our batch to severely lose respect for the company. some of these incidents are beyond simple mistakes or oversights; a lot of these problems are being caused by pure negligence, lack of communication, and a sort of apathy.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
First Trip To Mysore: Traffic, Palace, Pictures
after an entire week of living solely within the barbed-wire and guard towers of the campus here, we finally found our first opportunity to leave and see 'real India'. the city of Mysore, which is incredibly tame, clean, and rather unpopulated, was still quite the shock for the members of our group who didn't know what to expect. so this morning 21 of us Americans hopped in a few cabs and headed into the town.
perhaps the first thing everyone noticed was the traffic. it's difficult to describe to someone who has not experienced it before, but i will try anyway:
there are three-wheeled 'auto-rickshaws' all over the place, functioning as taxis. people walk all over the place, as do animals (think cows....). there are bikes ('cycles' as they are called outside of the US) and scooters everywhere as well, and a fair amount of small euro-cars (nowhere near as tiny as smart cars and others i saw in italy). there are also enough cow-/horse-driven carts around to make them worth mentioning. oh yeah, everyone is honking their horns, all the time.
the horns are used to make others aware of your presence, and are used whenever changing 'lanes', turning, entering an intersection, etc, to make sure others know you are there. lanes are more of a theoretical suggestion over here; with all the people, animals, bikes, and scooters weaving around, it would be impossible to get anywhere without hitting them or going around. also, there is almost no space between vehicles. anyone who has ever seen driving in a foreign country will agree that 'bumper-to-bumper' has an entirely different meaning outside of the US.
oh yeah, everyone drives on the wrong side of the road, too.
traffic aside, here is the rundown of our day: up at the crack of early, left campus at 10 for the Mysore Palace (kind of cool, but too modern to really interest me; we also had to take off and check our shoes in order to enter). after the palace we went to a hotel for some food (indian buffet). around this time it started raining (yay monsoon season) and we went out for some shopping; after dinner at an incredibly sketchy chinese food place, we found a pretty awesome western-style nightclub and got a round of drinks before headding home.
the stores / streets of Mysore will get their own blagging later, right now i am too tired.
a few new pictures are up (http://picasaweb.google.com/shadedaemon/IndiaAugust2008). i apologize for not having more pictures from the city, but the more touristy we looked the more street vendors / conmen / pickpockets we attracted, so we tried to stay mobile and avoid stopping or flaunting valuables (like cameras).
perhaps the first thing everyone noticed was the traffic. it's difficult to describe to someone who has not experienced it before, but i will try anyway:
there are three-wheeled 'auto-rickshaws' all over the place, functioning as taxis. people walk all over the place, as do animals (think cows....). there are bikes ('cycles' as they are called outside of the US) and scooters everywhere as well, and a fair amount of small euro-cars (nowhere near as tiny as smart cars and others i saw in italy). there are also enough cow-/horse-driven carts around to make them worth mentioning. oh yeah, everyone is honking their horns, all the time.
the horns are used to make others aware of your presence, and are used whenever changing 'lanes', turning, entering an intersection, etc, to make sure others know you are there. lanes are more of a theoretical suggestion over here; with all the people, animals, bikes, and scooters weaving around, it would be impossible to get anywhere without hitting them or going around. also, there is almost no space between vehicles. anyone who has ever seen driving in a foreign country will agree that 'bumper-to-bumper' has an entirely different meaning outside of the US.
oh yeah, everyone drives on the wrong side of the road, too.
traffic aside, here is the rundown of our day: up at the crack of early, left campus at 10 for the Mysore Palace (kind of cool, but too modern to really interest me; we also had to take off and check our shoes in order to enter). after the palace we went to a hotel for some food (indian buffet). around this time it started raining (yay monsoon season) and we went out for some shopping; after dinner at an incredibly sketchy chinese food place, we found a pretty awesome western-style nightclub and got a round of drinks before headding home.
the stores / streets of Mysore will get their own blagging later, right now i am too tired.
a few new pictures are up (http://picasaweb.google.com/shadedaemon/IndiaAugust2008). i apologize for not having more pictures from the city, but the more touristy we looked the more street vendors / conmen / pickpockets we attracted, so we tried to stay mobile and avoid stopping or flaunting valuables (like cameras).
Friday, August 15, 2008
Frisbee Is Going To Be The Death Of Me
earlier this year i broke my pinky finger playing ultimate frisbee. today i broke a blood vessel in my ring finger (other hand) and my finger is starting to look like a purple sausage. at this rate, by the end of 2009 i won't be able to use any of my fingers at all.
anywho, a bunch of us are leaving first thing in the morning to spend a day in mysore (the Infosys campus is rather isolated and not quite in the city). some time next week the three of us who have faulty visas (they say "Bangalore" instead of "Mysore") will be sent in to spend a day waiting in line to register.
pictures and my impressions of Mysore soon to come.
anywho, a bunch of us are leaving first thing in the morning to spend a day in mysore (the Infosys campus is rather isolated and not quite in the city). some time next week the three of us who have faulty visas (they say "Bangalore" instead of "Mysore") will be sent in to spend a day waiting in line to register.
pictures and my impressions of Mysore soon to come.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Training Cycle
so, after two ~10 hour days of sitting in a big stuffy room listening to big stuffy presentations, i basically have learned squat. i have, however, filled out roughly 10 pounds of paperwork, give or take, which includes the 20-page signing session for all sorts of fun policies that we didn't have time to read.
oh yeah, i also found out that as a CS major i have been mandatory fast-tracked, which means only four months of training before i begin my project phase. the brits don't seem very happy about that.
the topics covered during training are mostly basic CS skills/knowledge: RDBMS, OS/systems theory, programming fundamentals, programming in C, object-oriented concepts, algorythm analysis, and software engineering theories. and J2EE (gross). we have a sort of level-of-competency test on thursday morning to see how much of this we know (/remember). and apparently we find out what business units we will be working in early next week (i.e. financial companies, insurance agencies, networks, databases, mainframes, etc). more on that as it comes up.
finally, this friday is the Indian Independence day (another country that escaped British rule? lets rub it in their faces a bit), which means a three-day weekend, which in turn means a trip to the actual city of Mysore.
oh yeah, i also found out that as a CS major i have been mandatory fast-tracked, which means only four months of training before i begin my project phase. the brits don't seem very happy about that.
the topics covered during training are mostly basic CS skills/knowledge: RDBMS, OS/systems theory, programming fundamentals, programming in C, object-oriented concepts, algorythm analysis, and software engineering theories. and J2EE (gross). we have a sort of level-of-competency test on thursday morning to see how much of this we know (/remember). and apparently we find out what business units we will be working in early next week (i.e. financial companies, insurance agencies, networks, databases, mainframes, etc). more on that as it comes up.
finally, this friday is the Indian Independence day (another country that escaped British rule? lets rub it in their faces a bit), which means a three-day weekend, which in turn means a trip to the actual city of Mysore.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Pictures, More Interesting Things
ok, so i decided that the easiest way for me to do pictures is just to keep them in Picasa and let Google do all the background work for me.
long story short -- just go here: http://picasaweb.google.com/shadedaemon/IndiaAugust2008
i will try to remember to put that link in whenever i upload more pictures, for convenience.
more interesting stuff: the UK group has arrived finally. i have turned my laptop into an alarm clock, since i don't have a voltage converter for my actual alarm clock (or wii). no signs of "Delhi Belly" yet, which is good. lots of new friends, which means lots of ultimate frisbee and mafia games. weather is nice temperature-wise, but incredibly humid and spontaneously drizzly/rainy/monsoon-y/normal. had a bottle of coke with lunch today, and it was made of real sugar and little/no acid, which was an interesting experience. also, i had a slice of pizza which was incredibly sour; definitely weirded me out a little. finally, to avoid confusion, i have [already] been dubbed "Evil Nick" by much of the group; go figure.
long story short -- just go here: http://picasaweb.google.com/shadedaemon/IndiaAugust2008
i will try to remember to put that link in whenever i upload more pictures, for convenience.
more interesting stuff: the UK group has arrived finally. i have turned my laptop into an alarm clock, since i don't have a voltage converter for my actual alarm clock (or wii). no signs of "Delhi Belly" yet, which is good. lots of new friends, which means lots of ultimate frisbee and mafia games. weather is nice temperature-wise, but incredibly humid and spontaneously drizzly/rainy/monsoon-y/normal. had a bottle of coke with lunch today, and it was made of real sugar and little/no acid, which was an interesting experience. also, i had a slice of pizza which was incredibly sour; definitely weirded me out a little. finally, to avoid confusion, i have [already] been dubbed "Evil Nick" by much of the group; go figure.
Arrivals
yay, i made it to india in one piece!
after an 8-hour flight to frankfurt, 3-hour layover, 8-hour flight to bangalore, and 4-hour bus ride to the mysore campus, i am finally "home". first impressions: the campus is tiny, especially compared to the friendly, pedestrian-oriented, walk-on-the-grass campus of Notre Dame. yes, i have already gotten in trouble by the security people for walking on the grass. i only moved to avoid running into a big group of people.
anyway, my room is bigger than my ND single, and i have my own bathroom. i exchanged a bunch of dollars for rupees and can now actually buy stuff, like lunch. more impressions: very little meat in our diets so far; just a little chicken and some mutton, which was surprisingly good (especially after a day or two of airline food).
another fun thing to note is the incredible lack of efficiency here. our group (~55 US people plus 13 UK people) was turned loose yesterday morning after we arrived (5 am or so) and we literally haven't seen anyone in charge or been told anything about rules, where / how to get meals, etc. the "information desk" just looked confused when we asked about curfews or any sort of common space, since males and females are not allowed near the other genders' hostels. also, we were told that we must show up to make 8 copies of our passports / visas today, and the copier is open from 10 am to 12 pm. for almost 70 people.
electronics are also an issue; so far, i have my computer, hair dryer, and shaver working. the entire room only has 4 outlets, including the bathroom sink outlet. more on that later.
finally, pictures will come as soon as i get my camera battery recharged.
after an 8-hour flight to frankfurt, 3-hour layover, 8-hour flight to bangalore, and 4-hour bus ride to the mysore campus, i am finally "home". first impressions: the campus is tiny, especially compared to the friendly, pedestrian-oriented, walk-on-the-grass campus of Notre Dame. yes, i have already gotten in trouble by the security people for walking on the grass. i only moved to avoid running into a big group of people.
anyway, my room is bigger than my ND single, and i have my own bathroom. i exchanged a bunch of dollars for rupees and can now actually buy stuff, like lunch. more impressions: very little meat in our diets so far; just a little chicken and some mutton, which was surprisingly good (especially after a day or two of airline food).
another fun thing to note is the incredible lack of efficiency here. our group (~55 US people plus 13 UK people) was turned loose yesterday morning after we arrived (5 am or so) and we literally haven't seen anyone in charge or been told anything about rules, where / how to get meals, etc. the "information desk" just looked confused when we asked about curfews or any sort of common space, since males and females are not allowed near the other genders' hostels. also, we were told that we must show up to make 8 copies of our passports / visas today, and the copier is open from 10 am to 12 pm. for almost 70 people.
electronics are also an issue; so far, i have my computer, hair dryer, and shaver working. the entire room only has 4 outlets, including the bathroom sink outlet. more on that later.
finally, pictures will come as soon as i get my camera battery recharged.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Gone
well, it's tuesday night.
in 8 hours, i will be on a plane heading to atlanta; from there, i go to frankfurt, germany, then on to bangalore. after registering in bangalore, its a long, hot, 4-hour drive to get to mysore.
pictures and details of my trip upon arrival, hopefully.
in 8 hours, i will be on a plane heading to atlanta; from there, i go to frankfurt, germany, then on to bangalore. after registering in bangalore, its a long, hot, 4-hour drive to get to mysore.
pictures and details of my trip upon arrival, hopefully.
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