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Published: April 17th 2008
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Intern House
Front door in the distance (our house is the back one) HOMELIFE in BANGALORE The 5 bedroom, 7 girls apartment is a typical stereotype (international) student flat - located at Sindhi (pronounced Cindy) Colony, Frazer Town. Well lived in, old, dirty-ish and lots of people. It’s a roof over my head to sleep, shower, study and eat breakfast each morning. Yes, I cleaned within the first few days of arriving - so it’ll be bearable for the next 10 weeks (not counting down yet). We have a cleaner who comes in everyday; however it was decided between me and the other girls it’s Indian cleanliness standards. Everyone in the house is friendly and tolerable of one another….bar one. Oh well.
We all have our own double wardrobe which locks. A single bed each. Fans in every room of the house. Accessible roof-top, which is beautiful for watching sunsets (ensuring you have strong mosquito repellant - Deet is the answer!). We also have cable TV - about 9 channels, including cartoons - I even got to watch spongebob squarepants the other evening - wahoo! And India has squirrels
Supermarkets are nearby home and stock Western food, so having oats, muesli, fruit, yoghurt for breakfast. Thom’s bakery/supermarket is a 10
Squirrel
On top of our roof at home min walk down the road which sells delicious fresh bread and cakes - very naughty, but very nice! Everything is open until late (10pm) so am able to shop after work, which is a pleasant change from in NZ where all retail outlets close by 6pm.
WORKLIFE in BANGALORE Slow. Must be super proactive to achieve anything. Had an enjoyable first week however, catching up on e-mails, photos, blogs and getting well acquainted with ‘Indian time.’ ‘in 10 minutes time…’ really means 30mins time, and ‘in 15 minutes time…’ really means in 45-60 minutes time. If you want something done at work - call…Wait 5 minutes, and then call again….and call again. Most people in the company speak English, the odd few who don’t. There’s many questions to be asked, as information is not offered.
The average age of employees in Microland is 26, which came as a huge shock to my German intern friend. In Germany people often don’t start working in businesses until they are 28y/o. But looking at the economic situation of Bangalore, and the IT boom started in 2003, skilled labour would be need to have gone through higher levels of education, something
View from the top
On the roof-top at home that is only becoming popular in the last 10 years.
Microland is situated in Outer Ring Road, near the airport, in a big IT complex called EcoSpace. My first day it felt as though I had been transported to America (with Indian workers) - even Ronald McDonald was there to greet me with open arms! The big food-court has subway, McD’s, Domino’s Pizza, American Hot Dogs, Chinese…and Southern Indian, of course.
We get picked up by a company cab each morning around 7.40am for work. Get to work about 9am, drink coffee, start 9.30am. The drive is about as exciting rainbow’s end rollercoaster - possible a little better. We finish work at 6.30pm, but don’t get home until 8pm. Such long, tiring days. Facebook has also been blocked *sigh* so I will endeavor to search hard for a wireless café somewhere near home.
The cafeteria (on my floor) serves many purposes. We interns spend a lot of time having ‘meetings’ and ‘discussing ideas’ over coffee. Here they serve breakfast, lunch, dinner plus snacks all day. Lunch here is great! It’s 32R = NZ$1, and comes with rice, roti, sweetie (too sweet for my liking), different daily curry’s
Typical street events
Mosque Rd, Frazer Town and vegetable sauces as well as salad/condiments. It’s set out in a buffet style so all you can eat / fit on ya plate. It fills me up right until bedtime - I only need some fruit or something in the evening as we don’t get home from work until 8pm, and the kitchen at home is no place to be cooking.
There is news and sports on the big flat screen TV’s in the cafeteria. Some mornings we are blessed with Female v’s Female WWF wrestling where they pour water over each other, rip each others clothing, pillow fights plus more!! Incredibly stupid resulting in it being incredibly hilarious. Very bizarre thing to have on in a corporate business in India!
My project is fun and challenging. There’s 2 parts to it. The first is employee engagement - which is about making employees feel proud to work at Microland. I need to research the activities and incentives that are currently happening, come up with some of my own and then implement my idea in the organization. I will have to complete findings to see if my idea was a positive impact for the company. The second part
is looking at the current HRIS (human resource information systems) and making recommendations/suggestions on how I think it could operate more efficiently. All this in 10 weeks as well as doing university assignments and reports…glad I have a 5 month holiday planned - ha ha. My boss Rajkumar is really lovely and helpful. He is highly respected in the HR industry, and writes articles for many different corporate magazines.
LIFE in BANGALORE It’s bloody noisy. 8.30am is the latest sleep-in time only on a Sunday. Sunday is the one day that Indians chill out and are not zooming around yelling and doing. I have adopted Seisters during the weekends - its incredible hot, and only getting hotter by the day. May is the hottest month here. And there are mosquito’s everywhere, all through the house, at work, on the street - everywhere - again…Deet insect replant.
I feel like royalty here. The Indians stare, take photos of me and grin stupidly and open doors when they see me. Apparently Indian males think white girls skin very lovely. Don’t worry Mum they are polite, conservative and harmless! I am certainly using this to my advantage and getting things
Temple
Down the road from home that otherwise may not be possible.
Auto(rickshaw) drivers spit lots, they are rude and always take ya on a journey - they know we never know where we are. Going into town from home may cost 30R, but coming home a few hours later will cost double! Grrr. They make me angry, not because of the money - but just the principal that they do this ALL THE TIME. With Bangalore being so big and busy, the drivers do this to locals and foreigners. I’ve begun understanding the public bus system because a) it’s a fixed price and b) you know you’ll get to your destination without the run around. I feel they are safer too, and you breathe in a little less pollution and fumes than with an auto.
There’s been a dozen odd power cuts already - they are very common, and don’t affect us much. The longest was only 90mins - I think I may still invest in a headlight for future use however.
Tax, and tipping was a huge shock for me. In all restaurants, or coffee café’s they add anywhere between 10% - 15% on the final bill payment - there seems
to be no fixed rate, and generally does not state the %. So when you order something say for 80R’s you end up paying about 110R’s sometimes - you never really know the final amount until it comes. So here I am thinking it’s only going to be NZ$2.50 and I end up paying $3.50! LOL - such pain!
I continue to explore, enjoy and be wowed by stories and sights. I want to get out and take photos and really capture Bangalore’s way of life. It doesn’t feel quite right. Bangalore is not a tourist destination by any means - and taking photos of temples, people and the way of living is not seen by many, if any. Perhaps in time this shall change, we’ll wait and see. Until next time - e-mail me with any news or comments.
Andrea 😊
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