First Day @ Work

Sooooo finally after a month long search (actually 3 months considering my in between visit to Toronto) I finally decided on Joining Bharti Telesoft in Mumbai. Last one month in Noida was so much fun… The Great India Place (a huge mall in Noida) kinda became my second home.. so much so that the security guards had started recognizing me by face and if I would have stayed for few more days the restaurants would have started giving me discounts..

Rides in Delhi Metro were good too (I miss it more now that I am traveling in the wonderful Mumbai local trains where people almost sit on each other and it’s a celebration if u have empty space of 1 feet around u)…

BUT the best part in Noida was spending time with my niece.. she is a sweetheart….

Ok after all this background…… let me go to the first day..

I was told by the HR guy in Delhi office that there were some important training sessions scheduled so I have to be in the office from 11^th. I rushed to Mumbai on 10^th evening. It has been raining badly in Mumbai for last many days. And my first day was no different….I hate these rains.. honestly the kichad, getting wet in those nice formal office cloths… I mean whats so gud about it unless u r just sitting inside your house having garam Bhajiya. Don’t you think so? Or may be its just me!!

I reach office and I was the first person (of course after the watchman and the office boy)…. The HR girl to whom I was supposed to report at 9 AM had not arrived even by 9:30 .. before u start thinking of her wrongly .. later I discovered it was because of the rains that she got late… my boss (who took my interview) was in early and gave me some nice intro to the company and client … the office was almost empty till like 11… I was cursing the HR guy in Delhi who said there was some “IMPORTANT” training that was going to happen…. Grrrr I felt like showing him my training of kung fu.. but he got saved..

No training and I couldn’t even get a company laptop or Desktop (so I had to use my own personal laptop.. which I m still using as I write this blog.. hopefully I will get it soon..

The icing on the cake was knowing that GMAIL, YAHOO, ORKUT everything is blocked in our office L (God I miss my old job for this). I mean isn’t it like a ritual to visit your orkut page or yahoo mail every half hour.. I mean how can one survive without that.. but guess what I m surviving.. and I m sure there are many of you who are… but tomorrow when I have my own company I wont do this.. at the end of the day it’s the work that would matter.. and if the work would be interesting for the people they wont have time to go n waste their time on these websites..

By the end of the day I had made two nice new frens in my team, both are quite sweet and friendly and new to the company like me (so we shared the starting blues). So the day had its highs n lows.. still getting used to being here.. and I am sure it will be an interesting and challenging journey…

Do share any first day stories u guys might have..

KEEP SMILING :)

Interesting end to a Journey

Again real life stuff, I don’t know why such things keep happening to me….. but this is really interesting…

January 2005, on my way to Abu Dhabi (UAE) for a commercial product launch of the project on which we had been working for last 5 months… I start my journey at 6:00 PM in Baroda (India).. my flight to Mumbai is just 45 mins.. those were one of the most uncomfortable seats, and no prices for guessing the airline… “Indian” … Anyways.. reached Mumbai around 9 PM. My manager was in Mumbai for some work so went to the hotel where they were staying…

I wasn’t new coming to Mumbai.. but I don’t know why I took the cool cab.. and the meter of its meter was running faster than the scoreboard when Sachin is batting in full flow.. I ended up paying 150 bucks for something which should have cost me 50 bucks in a rickshaw.. I couldn’t help it .. bcoz the meter showed it and of course the Mumbai taxi guys wont let u go without paying luggage even for 1 bag… so not a gud start to the journey..

My Flight was around 7:30 in the morning so I had to get up early n reach airport around 4:30 , so no gud sleep. Normally the flight to Abu Dhabi is just 2.5 hours but the one they booked for me was via Muscat … so it was going to take 5 hours… not used to long flights.. I somehow reached Abu Dhabi around 10 AM (UAE Time). I was out by 11:30 AM.

The driver was waiting for me and I had some relief. As we reached the city, he stopped at a hotel which is owned by our client. I was surprised on why isn’t he (driver) taking me home after I have traveling for last 16 hours without much sleep…he said my manager is there and wants to talk about something. I thought may be just some 5 min welcome talk.

Now here is the biggest twist of my life………………

I go up stairs to a conference room and as soon as I enter the guy standing there says “ Here is Mr. Rahul and he will give us the presentation on UAEX Application and its launch” …. And I had 25 people sitting in front of me………

It took exactly 30 sec for me to close my mouth which was open because of the shock and another 30 seconds to come to senses. And the first thing that came out of my mouth was “Can I please wash my face because I am coming directly from the airport”….lol. now it sounds hilarious but trust me it wasn’t if you were standing in that situation with 25 people looking at u …

While washing my face I tried to give all nice blessings to my boss for not informing me of this meeting. So left with no choice I had to present to these people for another 2 hours. After which they enjoyed nice lunch in the same hotel and I was just looking at them standing (I couldn’t eat because I had not even brushed my teeth)L .

This was a horrifying experience but I some how managed it. Presentation went well and I gave some hearing (if not a lot) to my manager for not letting me know in advance.

Hope this was an interesting read…

Keep Smiling J

CCD Rocks

This is just couple of days back, I was sitting all alone in a Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) in Noida, Delhi. Now i am a big big fan of Cafe Coffee Day. While sitting alone facing a wall, which had a notice board kinda thing, I saw that people had written some quotes on paper Tissues and pasted it there. What i read there was one of the funniest ones... girls might not like it.. but its funny and totally logical in the way it is written...

Girl = Money X Time

Time = Money

Girl = Money X Money

Girl = (Money)2

Money is the root of all evil. i.e. Money = root of Evil

Girl = (root of evil)2

Hence, Girl = Evil

it was so logical and funny. Girls please don’t get mad or offended, try and think of something like this for guys.

Cheers

Adventurous Exam Day….

Now this is my first attempt at blogging .. hope its easy read....

Ok.. now this is about a real life incidence.. no filmy story…one of the most important days of my life.. my GMAT exam.. Living in Baroda (a small city in India) I had to go to Ahmedabad, (2 hours drive)…. Everything was going all as planned.. I left early reached the exam centre 1 hour in advance and went to the exam room just 30 mins before around 10 A.M…. little did I know what was coming my way….

As I enter the centre… I show my exam card and then my ID (PAN Card)..and she comes back…. Sir your passport.. I m like this ID is acceptable right? GMAT website said any government ID… then I heard the most annoying “NO” of my life….. she got the GMAT Manual.. and a fine print (like the smallest font it can get… like those “conditions apply” ones..) said Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis must show Passport as the Photo ID. The feeling was much worse than how u feel when u get ripped by one of those fine prints on the product offers..

Forget being nervous about the exam, I started thinking about the solutions for this mess now. Being 2 hours away from my house there was no way I could get the passport in time…. with my techie brain.. I started giving her options.. XEROX copy of the passport? Again NO… scanned copy of the original passport.. that was a new one for her … so she called the head office in Delhi and got a NO again… soo now I thought I had lost it totally.. and would have to re-schedule the exam (which means losing on $80 USD)……

Then from somewhere, like Krishna Bhagwan in Mahabharata.. a professor from the college came to my rescue.. he gave me an extension of 2:30 and allowed me to start the exam at 1:00PM. Some ray of hope… I called up my friend in Baroda and told him abt the mess… the only way now I could get the passport in time was if he would come to the exam centre with the passport…. Which would mean him having to skip office work…problems problems… I got some nice hearing (including all the nice sweet swear words).. from my friend…

Now I must say, he was one “JUGADU” (someone who can get work done). What he did was the riskiest but most effective solution…….

Can u think of anything……………

…………………………….

He went to the bus station in baroda and straightway went to the bus driver of the next bus for Ahmedabad… he gave my passport to the driver and called me to get me talk to him.. the bus was supposed to reach Ahmedabad by 12:30.. just in time for me… there was no other way out…. So he had to give my passport to a total stranger..

The bus started from Baroda, I ran to the bus station in Ahmedabad.. Eagerly waiting for the bus….. … Finally the bus reached.. I got hold of the bus driver… and thank god…. I got the passport…. (Time 12:30) I have to be at the centre by 12:45… I rush in a rickshaw….. literally running to the centre… and as soon as I enter the room… the girl is like smiling at me asking….. “DID U GET THE PASSPORT?” and ………..

Finally I had the smile of relief…… to say “YES”…..

Cheers

All this mess… and now an exam for 4 hours……..an exam which was soo expensive that I could not afford to give it the next time if I failed…. Thank God… I scored decent… infact the best score out of all the mock tests I had given…..

So the end of it all gr8… but the day was one of the most adventurous...

Do you guys have any such adventurous exam day stories………….

Hope this wasn’t too long to read….