Blogs from Gurgaon, Haryana, India, Asia - page 5

As Tony Orlando and Dawn sang long ago: I'm coming home, I've done my time! After much consideration and based on a multitude of factors, I have decided that I can no longer work and live in India. I have resigned from my company and my last day was today. I am very disappointed that things did not go as planned, but after six months of discussions before I accepted the position and signed my contract, in my first three months of work the company, by their own admission, had completed only 0-5% of what they promised. There were many critical things about the company, my co-workers, my positon, and life in Gurgaon, that they did not disclose before I came over to India. They have acknowledged that I did not receive all of the information ... read more

I ventured out today and made a quick run to Galleria, the closest "shopping center" to where I live. I hit the ATM, paid my Airtel bill, ate lunch at The Coco Palm, and picked up a few groceries at a small market. I took a bicycle rickshaw and snapped a few photos along the way (which is difficult when you are hanging on for dear life). Funny story about Airtel: No one here trusts the mail so all bill are paid in person at a retail store. Some businesses, like Airtel, have drop boxes around town as well. I figured that if the mail isn't reliable, the drop boxes are probably not so hot either. There's no obvious lock on them so I'm not sure how secure a check would be in there. Checks here ... read more

My day started at 3:15am as I needed to be ready for a 4:00am airport pick-up for a 5:50am flight. I was ready, but 4:00am came with no taxi. Then it was 4:05am, 4:10am, 4:15am and still nothing. My CRA Ashish called to see where I was since I was going to pick him up on the way to the airpor. He had booked the taxi last night, but when he called the company at 4:15am, they claimed they had no booking and they had no taxis. Ashish tried two other cab companies with no luck. It was 4:30am at this point and we were trying to decide what to do (you have to be at the airport at least an hour early to make it through security and board the plane) when he said "I'm ... read more

After three weeks of working here I should say something about the software development here. What did I learn? Well, I'm pleasantly surprised by the level of knowledge and professionalism here. The image Indians have in the West is of a bunch of robots who follow instructions by the letter and deliver really crappy code. But I found here that the process is very structured and people are very innovative in their thinking and work. The project management and development methodology is very structured. They actually follow the rules here. First document the requirements, detail them as use-case, define interface specs and so on. There no wild coding going on but working on concrete user stories that have a limited scope and are thoroughly tested and reviewed when implemented. The office is much like what you ... read more

I decided to only eat vegetarian these three weeks. Why? It's an experiment. And India is a great place to star. Most of the Hindu population is vegetarian so every restaurant has a good selection of meals. And I don't have to cook anyway of course so that makes it extra easy. I don't really have specific ethical problems with eating animals, but I do admire those who have and choose to live with the restriction. It takes discipline to do that. It might be funny though starting to eat meat again when I'm back. I compare it to wearing bracelets from festivals. One bracelet from the Lowlands festival I wore for over 2.5 years. At first I didn't cut it off because I wanted to identify with the image that goes with it. But after ... read more