Working in Hyderabad

The last few days have been all about work, with not much time or energy for writing. I don't have any new pictures but I promise I'll take some and post them later this week.

The car & driver arrangement got off to a rocky start. On Monday, apparently, the driver showed up, didn't know what to do, and left. Eventually I called Puneet (UHG transition coordinator) and he picked me up. Tuesday's driver did not know where the office is. Despite my protests, which he probably didn't understand, he took me waaay over to the other side of Hyderabad. Lucky for me, I have a cell phone on which I had stored the phone number of the UHG Transport Help Desk. This is an amazing service, available 24x7. I explained my predicament and they called the car service, which in turn called the driver, causing him to finally pull over & turn around. I'm not sure who gave him directions (certainly not me), but when we got to one of the pre-office checkpoints he still had to ask the guard where Bldg #14 was. In all, my 5-minute commute took about 45 minutes. That guy is not my driver any more. Today's driver was much better -- speaks English & knows where the office is. I hope I keep him.

Even though the office is quite close, I won't be able to walk there. For one, it's too hot. There are sidewalks most of the way, but they end where the huge, chaotic construction zone around the office begins. Our building is finished on the outside but several floors are still under construction. If you step out of the elevator on one of those floors, there's marble dust everywhere - look out, it's slippery. On one floor there are actually large chunks of marble, as if a wall was demolished. Across the street from us is something gargantuan under construction; no idea what it will become.

This picture is the view from inside my building.  The large building on the far left is under construction.  The 3rd building from the left (in the distance) is the Westin.  In the foreground is a pit where you can see the foundations of yet another building..

Before you get anywhere near the building, it's necessary to go through at least 2 security checkpoints where I have to flash my UHG badge. Since we don't occupy the entire building, there are guards on every floor. They don't carry guns but they wear military-style uniforms that make them look very serious.

My team is on the 7th floor, a vast uninterrupted expanse of cubicles, if you can call them that. The walls are only about 8 inches above desk height, so you can see everyone's head. Although most cubes are occupied, the place is surprisingly quiet. I'm happy to say that everyone did NOT drop what they were doing to stare at the strange lady who just walked in.

I finally got to meet 2 of my new team-mates: Karthik ("car-tik") and Dev (his full name is Debabrata; thank goodness for nicknames). They are both ambitious young bachelors, eager to learn, anxious to please. Karthik strikes me as down-to-earth: he's soft-spoken, lives with his sister and her family, and likes to play with his six-month-old niece. Dev is flashier -- he wears his hair a little spiky, has a metal stud through his soul-patch beard, and I swear the guy has dark blue eyes (contacts?). He's into death-metal music. Like the rest of the India team that I met in Gurgaon, they are always looking out for my welfare. It's touching.

There are lots of small logistical problems in the office, so all 3 of us have had to be creative and flexible. Our "training room" is in fact a tiny conference room on the 2nd floor, with space for only 4 people -- so we'll be at our max when Nagar arrives on Friday. There are only 2 network ports & no WiFi, so we can't all be online simultaneously. (We unplug our cables & pass them around.) Karthik & Dev are still getting set up with email, messaging, webex, access to drives, etc. so I'm doing the training via projector -- I shine it on the wall. I spoke to Puneet about all of this. He said it took him 15 days of negotiations already to get us that small conference room and it's the best he can do. He is facing tremendous challenges but promises that it will all be much better in July when the 6th floor is finished and the WiFi is in. Sure hope so. Back at our cubes, the Cisco IP phones have not arrived yet (delayed by volcanic ash?), so we are using cheap Tata phones with no features.

This is a picture of Dev, Nagar & Karthik, taken in our tiny training room on Friday. Can you read Dev's t-shirt?

The "cafeteria" is just a large open room with tables. At one end there's a guy who serves hot dishes (no idea what) from what looks like a steam table with no steam. At the other end there's a guy who does things with fruit: salads, juices, etc. Another guy serves small items that he warms in a microwave: veg & cheese pastries, "frankies", chicken burgers, samosas. He also has sodas & snacks. It's pretty slim pickins for me right now because I'm being extremely careful (you could say paranoid) about what I consume. I'm going to have to figure out some solution to this -- maybe start bringing lunch from the Westin. I'm also finding it very difficult to keep my team-mates from paying for all of my meals. I don't know if this is a host/visitor or male/female thing -- it was the same in Gurgaon, where Sharad picked up every tab.

After work Monday night, I finally went to one of the hotel restaurants. I hate being in a restaurant by myself, but I can't eat in my room forever. I chose Prego -- yes, it's Italian -- and was pleasantly surprised. I was really in the mood for gnocchi, comfort food for me, but didn't expect it to even be on the menu. It was, with prawns (shrimp), and it was really, really good. Perfectly cooked. Since it was more than I could finish, I took the leftovers to work the next day & reheated them in the microwave. I need to do something like that every day.

Today's challenge was coffee. I absolutely must have coffee in the morning and I've been making it with the French press in my room-- until today. No packet of coffee in my room. Housekeeping stopped by to replenish my supplies and told me that the coffee was near its expiration date so they removed it & replaced it with instant coffee packets. What!?!?!? Breakfast downstairs was officially over & the last time I showed up late it threw them into a panic. I was saved by a little coffee shop in the lobby that offers coffee, espresso, cappuccino... So I got my caffeine fix after all.