Advertisement
Published: August 12th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Datamatics Management Team
This group knows how to have fun I haven't laughed this hard in years. Day 4
At this point I'm in a routine I get back to the hotel, 2 hour power nap, work for 4 hours then sleep for 3 hours. My body is still trying to adjust to the 10 + hour time difference over here. This might explain why I’ve skipped dinner the past 2 nights because by the time dinner is served here it’s the beginning of the work day back home. I’m sure at this rate if I had to do this for a month and my body didn’t adjust I’d easily shed some pounds. Like clockwork so far, I wake up and head down to the gym for a good cardio blast then off for breakfast. Working out is really helping me get through the day because all the endorphins are pumping and that keeps me full of energy till around 3 p.m. Today no pancakes but they do have bacon and chicken sausage. Now of course my eyes light up when I see the bacon, and I become adventurous enough to try some and it's really good. I haven’t seen any pigs roaming the streets so I’m praying it’s imported from somewhere. I’ve never said grace so much before a meal until I came over here. LOL Thank God I’ve liked everything I’ve consumed so far because I’ve been eating some interesting food. We head off to the office for day 2 of working. Immediately I head downstairs to work with the team and they greet me again with “Hello Mr. Lonnie” I really need to figure out how I can get people to greet me this way back home. They present me with a brown leather binder with lots of native detailing and my name inscribed on it. What a great way to start the morning off.
Mid-way through our 4 hours of training, we break so I can learn more about the team members and their life here in India. I learn a lot from the team here and it’s very humbling to learn about their culture. I can’t say enough about the hospitality they continue to show me. Some of the people here live in the poorest conditions imaginable but they have such a strong passion and energy about life. Now it’s my turn to share so I pull up the web and show them pictures of Omaha and recount my experiences being an American outside of the country for the first time. I show them a picture of Omaha in the winter and the entire class gasps really loud like I’m walking around with a cobra or something. None of them could handle the winter we just had and that’s when I remembered how hot it is here today (feels like 130 degrees no joke) and I wouldn’t mind snow right now with this heat. We break for lunch and they drive us over to one of their other facilities nearby. I don’t know how proprietary the projects are the team at this location is working on but I’ll say it reminds me of Pay Pal back in Omaha. I’m learning firsthand about the volume of outsourcing from America that occurs in this country. Many of these individuals have engineering, IT, and advanced degrees and this is their first job out of school in some cases. The facility here is very impressive it’s located in what appears to be an abandoned warehouse but there’s a lot of people here and more going on then what you can see from the outside. It’s located in a government zone so the area is very secure and we go through several layers of security just to drive up to the building. All the employees have to swipe their badge and put their thumb on the scanner to enter/exit the doors in the office. We head up for lunch and a presentation on more of the projects that occur here. Lunch is the Indian version of pizza (think kids pizza) with chips, pop, cake yes all the American staples. The pizza slice is half the size of my hand. I think back to the slices of pizza back in grade school which are twice the size of this pizza. We have a great discussion on culture and American way of life especially when it comes to food. I become aware of just how unhealthy our portions and types of food consumed back home are. Here they eat much smaller portions and most food is not processed and laced with high fructose corn syrup. It must be my body adjusting to the time change but I’m consuming half the portions of what I typically eat back home and I’m full.
The presentation begins and I learn how this company has a serious hand in the websites of some very popular American companies. I can’t wait to show people back home how these associates are responsible for so much of what we see in America. We say our goodbyes and head back to the other location so we can continue working.
We’re back and now I get to show the team here how their hard work is showing up on our products. Usually about this time of the day my jetlag kicks in so they give me some Diet Coke ah something familiar from home. It takes awhile for the pop to kick in but I’m operating on pure adrenaline at this point. We walk through some business descriptions and the team really gets into this exercise. We end the day on a high note and head back to the hotel. We have to be up at 6 a.m. to head to another facility 3 hours north of Mumbai tomorrow. I get back to the hotel and usually around this time its 8 a.m. back home so time for my 2nd shift to begin. I catch up on emails and get some work done before my body says it’s time for bed. Tomorrow should be a great day I hear this city we’re visiting is in the wine region of India. It’s up in the mountains and the temperature is cooler than where we are now. Who knew they could grow grapes in this region.
After a few hours I’m down for the count since I have to be up soon even though its noon back home I’m done for the day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.045s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0247s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb