I'm leaving Chandigarh to go to Hyderabad for my wedding. That event has been a loooong time coming and I'm glad it's here. I'll be taking a brief hiatus on the blog but doesn't mean I'm closing it down. I'll be back with hopefully some fun incidents from the wedding.
Meanwhile, here's a list I made - The top 10 things the Joker says that are applicable to my wedding.
10. Here's my card.
9. Well, hello, beautiful.
8. I believe whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you... stranger.
7. What would I do without you? No, no, NO! No. You... you... complete me.
6. But I know the truth: there's no going back. You've changed things... forever.
5. Oh, and by the way, the suit, it wasn't cheap. You oughta know, you bought it.
4. Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it.
3. Let's put a smile on that face!
2. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We are tonight's entertainment!
1. And... here… we... go!
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Things that would get you fired in the US
Since both the companies I've been working with for this past year in India are MNCs based out of Houston, I don't get the full feel of working in India. There's always the awareness of US time zones, the constant communication with the US offices and dependence on them for progress in the work here. What I'm also aware of is the behavior of the people in the company. It's one thing for the Indians here to behave "foolishly", to say un-PC things and act in an unprofessional manner. I'm quite amazed when the foreigners (not just the Americans, but some Europeans and Australians as well) do and say things that I'm sure are contrary to the work environment in those countries.
The head of one of the divisions here is a Scottish man, about 50 years old. The office here is in the process of hiring a new HR manager and the current HR was chatting with me about the process. She gave a half-smile while remarking that we'd have more female blood in the office so all the males should feel happy (it was as if millions of feminist voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced!) While her remark itself would have gotten her into trouble in the US, the following was even more disturbing. I asked her why she was so sure that the next HR manager would be female, what if a male ended up getting the job. She said that the Scottish head doesn't like males to do HR work, so they're only hiring females! Wow!!! If that happened in the US he'd be fired so fast his head would spin! As if that wasn't enough, today we had a presentation for all the new employees. At the end of the presentation, the Scottish guy was bidding us all goodbye and then turned to the new HR (a lady obviously!) and asked, "What about lunch?" She said, "OK, let's ask everyone for suggestions." The Scottish guy responded, "Oh, I was just talking about you and me, and a couple of the other girls who just joined." Geez! Just the girls? The icing on this particular cake of course was my wise (not!) manager telling us, "Did you guys know that the new HR is single? Well, I'm just saying. I find it odd that she's single. I think HR managers should be married. See our current HR, she's married, that's why she does a good job."
And all of those were incidents just related to the new HR manager. We have tons of incidents like that every day. It's a fun game I play on certain days with myself - if this scene happened in the US, how many harassment lawsuits would be filed just for this conversation and how many would be fired.
The head of one of the divisions here is a Scottish man, about 50 years old. The office here is in the process of hiring a new HR manager and the current HR was chatting with me about the process. She gave a half-smile while remarking that we'd have more female blood in the office so all the males should feel happy (it was as if millions of feminist voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced!) While her remark itself would have gotten her into trouble in the US, the following was even more disturbing. I asked her why she was so sure that the next HR manager would be female, what if a male ended up getting the job. She said that the Scottish head doesn't like males to do HR work, so they're only hiring females! Wow!!! If that happened in the US he'd be fired so fast his head would spin! As if that wasn't enough, today we had a presentation for all the new employees. At the end of the presentation, the Scottish guy was bidding us all goodbye and then turned to the new HR (a lady obviously!) and asked, "What about lunch?" She said, "OK, let's ask everyone for suggestions." The Scottish guy responded, "Oh, I was just talking about you and me, and a couple of the other girls who just joined." Geez! Just the girls? The icing on this particular cake of course was my wise (not!) manager telling us, "Did you guys know that the new HR is single? Well, I'm just saying. I find it odd that she's single. I think HR managers should be married. See our current HR, she's married, that's why she does a good job."
And all of those were incidents just related to the new HR manager. We have tons of incidents like that every day. It's a fun game I play on certain days with myself - if this scene happened in the US, how many harassment lawsuits would be filed just for this conversation and how many would be fired.
You just don't hear stories like these anymore
One of the new guys at work (V) is always on the phone. In fact he seems to have his handsfree set surgically implanted to his head! So I asked him if it was his girlfriend he was talks to so often. The other new guy started laughing and said that it wasn't his girlfriend but his wife! I was surprised because he seemed a little young to be married, but not too young. Then I heard the entire story.
Many years ago, a family moved next door to V. They had a young girl in the family, about four years younger than V. She started coming over to V's place to get tutored. Soon they started liking each other and decided to get married. But the families weren't crazy about that idea. Meanwhile V's older brother was getting married. So under the chaos of the wedding, and with the blessings of his brother, V and his neighbor's daughter got a registered wedding! The process for a registered wedding is not too complicated, but one of the trickier aspects is that you need to apply for the wedding a whole month before you show up with garlands. What the office then does is takes the pictures of the two people who intend to get married, and posts them for a month at the local post office. The idea is similar to "If you object to this union speak now" - basically if anyone in the area knows these two and feels the desire to poke his/her nose, this would be the way to do it. So to circumvent this, V had applied in the neighboring district. A whole month goes by, and on the day of the elder brother's wedding is here. V takes his girlfriend, and in a very cinematic scene, drives about 50 kms each way, gets married and comes back.
Of course there was a huge argument from everyone but eventually they accepted the match, and even agreed to have a real wedding for the couple. The wedding's going to take place in a couple of years from now, when the girl graduates from college. What I personally thought was a little insane here is this two-year wait. Reminded me of Ek Duje Ke Liye. Can we trust the parents to keep their promise? Are they expecting the couple of get tired of each other in these two years. Most importantly, I thought events like these stopped happening in the 80's. We still have elopings and registered marriages in the cities?
Many years ago, a family moved next door to V. They had a young girl in the family, about four years younger than V. She started coming over to V's place to get tutored. Soon they started liking each other and decided to get married. But the families weren't crazy about that idea. Meanwhile V's older brother was getting married. So under the chaos of the wedding, and with the blessings of his brother, V and his neighbor's daughter got a registered wedding! The process for a registered wedding is not too complicated, but one of the trickier aspects is that you need to apply for the wedding a whole month before you show up with garlands. What the office then does is takes the pictures of the two people who intend to get married, and posts them for a month at the local post office. The idea is similar to "If you object to this union speak now" - basically if anyone in the area knows these two and feels the desire to poke his/her nose, this would be the way to do it. So to circumvent this, V had applied in the neighboring district. A whole month goes by, and on the day of the elder brother's wedding is here. V takes his girlfriend, and in a very cinematic scene, drives about 50 kms each way, gets married and comes back.
Of course there was a huge argument from everyone but eventually they accepted the match, and even agreed to have a real wedding for the couple. The wedding's going to take place in a couple of years from now, when the girl graduates from college. What I personally thought was a little insane here is this two-year wait. Reminded me of Ek Duje Ke Liye. Can we trust the parents to keep their promise? Are they expecting the couple of get tired of each other in these two years. Most importantly, I thought events like these stopped happening in the 80's. We still have elopings and registered marriages in the cities?
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The best book store in N. India.
Before I start, I don't mean that there is a better bookstore in S. India, I just don't want to label anything from N. India as the best of India. Partisan reasons, I hope you understand.
In Shimla I saw this bookstore on Mall Road. This place exclusively sold old books. And what old books they were. A great collection of classics and odd books. There was a book that was published on the occasion of the accession of Hyderabad into the newly formed country of India!! It was an antique and I definitely wanted my hands on it, along with a couple of other good books. But the problem was that the shopkeeper knew what he had in his hands. Each of the books cost as much as, if not more than, new books. I should have bargained because the books were wonderful but I just felt a little bit ambushed by the prices and didn't feel I would be able to ask for a fair enough price, so I left.
The shopkeeper btw, was a little interesting in his own way. He was sitting in the back of his shop, in a chair. He was about 50-60 years old, didn't seem to be in any sort of hurry at all, in any sense of the word. It was like he had been gathering these books for a long time, and he was going to sell them to pay for his retirement and if he didn't manage to sell any, he'll just live off of his savings. He sat there with a cigarette in his hand and a small electric heater over which he boiled water for tea. I tell you, he was right out an R. K. Narayan short story. If I didn't have my idiot manager in the store and if I wasn't in such a hurry myself, I'd have sat with him and talked to him about his life history.
My idiot manager meanwhile, executed his very harsh bargaining style where he would mock the vendor for quoting a high price in order to get him down. I don't understand how he doesn't get thrown out of buildings more often. In any case, after asking me what books I was looking at, he saw me look at the book in his own hand. It was an erotic novel! He smiled sheepishly and said, "Yeah, since it's cold, I thought I'd buy a spicy book." Good god man!! That's too much information. I was scared as hell to be sleeping in the same bed as him!
In Shimla I saw this bookstore on Mall Road. This place exclusively sold old books. And what old books they were. A great collection of classics and odd books. There was a book that was published on the occasion of the accession of Hyderabad into the newly formed country of India!! It was an antique and I definitely wanted my hands on it, along with a couple of other good books. But the problem was that the shopkeeper knew what he had in his hands. Each of the books cost as much as, if not more than, new books. I should have bargained because the books were wonderful but I just felt a little bit ambushed by the prices and didn't feel I would be able to ask for a fair enough price, so I left.
The shopkeeper btw, was a little interesting in his own way. He was sitting in the back of his shop, in a chair. He was about 50-60 years old, didn't seem to be in any sort of hurry at all, in any sense of the word. It was like he had been gathering these books for a long time, and he was going to sell them to pay for his retirement and if he didn't manage to sell any, he'll just live off of his savings. He sat there with a cigarette in his hand and a small electric heater over which he boiled water for tea. I tell you, he was right out an R. K. Narayan short story. If I didn't have my idiot manager in the store and if I wasn't in such a hurry myself, I'd have sat with him and talked to him about his life history.
My idiot manager meanwhile, executed his very harsh bargaining style where he would mock the vendor for quoting a high price in order to get him down. I don't understand how he doesn't get thrown out of buildings more often. In any case, after asking me what books I was looking at, he saw me look at the book in his own hand. It was an erotic novel! He smiled sheepishly and said, "Yeah, since it's cold, I thought I'd buy a spicy book." Good god man!! That's too much information. I was scared as hell to be sleeping in the same bed as him!
Friday, July 17, 2009
Stike Shimla off the list
I went on a trip to Shimla this past weekend. It basically locked up Himachal Pradesh as most beautiful state in India I've seen and basically my second favorite overall. It probably helped that the weather was perfect - it was raining! (I love how the Indian notion of a beautiful day is so different from the Western notion!) We were constantly surrounded by fog and mist (and later I looked up the difference between fog and mist and clouds and water vapor!) I felt that Shimla itself isn't as beautiful as Manali, but this trip in particular was awesome and the cloudy nature of the area made it perfect. There was a helipad that we went to that is usually a scenic lookout, but that day you couldn't even see the entire helipad itself, let alone the mountains around us. But that in itself was a beautiful experience. This was my first trip over here with my colleagues, so that was interesting as well. Our idiot manager, whom I've written about before, drove his car and he's as bad a driver as he's a manager.
The main attraction in Shimla is the "Mall Road" which is a nice stretch of shops. It also had some great lookouts and is the starting point for a bunch of trips around that area. At this point I must mention this - the babe factor of this place is through the roof! Sorry if that sounds sleazy but I've never seen so many beautiful girls/women in one place. I even spent a good amount of time (like the nerd that I am) discussing why there would be so many beautiful girls here. It's perhaps a combination of the things like the general (perceived) beauty of N. Indians, combined with a basic economic stardard that people who go on vacations to places like Shimla, and the fact that being summer, you have a generally younger (school/college going) crowd here.
Again, the people were very nice here, as in Manali. A lot more monkeys though. They were very aggressive and there are signs everywhere asking people to be careful about monkeys. The other problem here is that it's hugely popular and much more accessible than Manali, which means that it's very crowded. They have a lot of parking restrictions without which the roads would constantly be blocked. This also means that you can't just drive around and park wherever you wish. I would come here again, but not before visiting the other places in this area, and only because it's so close by.
The main attraction in Shimla is the "Mall Road" which is a nice stretch of shops. It also had some great lookouts and is the starting point for a bunch of trips around that area. At this point I must mention this - the babe factor of this place is through the roof! Sorry if that sounds sleazy but I've never seen so many beautiful girls/women in one place. I even spent a good amount of time (like the nerd that I am) discussing why there would be so many beautiful girls here. It's perhaps a combination of the things like the general (perceived) beauty of N. Indians, combined with a basic economic stardard that people who go on vacations to places like Shimla, and the fact that being summer, you have a generally younger (school/college going) crowd here.
Again, the people were very nice here, as in Manali. A lot more monkeys though. They were very aggressive and there are signs everywhere asking people to be careful about monkeys. The other problem here is that it's hugely popular and much more accessible than Manali, which means that it's very crowded. They have a lot of parking restrictions without which the roads would constantly be blocked. This also means that you can't just drive around and park wherever you wish. I would come here again, but not before visiting the other places in this area, and only because it's so close by.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
There was blood
A fascinating turn of events at work today. It started because of an extended power cut.
About 11am this morning, the power went out, and the generator was out of diesel. The UPS units lasted for an hour or so, but soon the computers shut down and we were sitting idle. Eventually some went down to smoke and the others were walking around the office visiting other sections that had power. As I was standing downstairs chatting with someone, the tallest guy in our office, V, came running to me with his palm on his head. "I hurt myself, could you please take a look?" he said, even as blood started appearing from his scalp, flowing down over his forehead. Turned out he had bumped his head on the sharp edge of the cover for a shutter. This was bound to happen since the stairs area narrow and have low ceilings.
We rushed him to the hospital and then the circus started. Our boss made a few calls to the finance dept. asking them to go to the hospital and pay for the bills. Then he called the Health and Safety department of the company to make an injury report. An hour later I got a call from the HR asking me if it was I that got injured. I told her I wasn't but gave her the story. Turned out she got a call from the Dubai office asking if a certain person with my name got injured! (V's last name is similar to my first name so that explained the last part.) But I was surprised that the Dubai office heard about this this fast, and since the HR was calling as a courtesy, and not in her capacity as HR, it was clear that it leaked out of the Dubai office as gossip! Fifteen minutes later our manager, who had driven V to the hospital got called, to file an incident report. At this point out manager who, as I've mentioned before, isn't the more mature guy in the office, started complaining about how much paper work he had to file. He was doing this to be funny, but it was clearly bad form to make the injured guy feel bad, even if you don't intend to do so. I wanted to tell him, "Dude, I'm so sorry that V's injury is causing you this much pain. I'm sure V will no longer band his head so hard that he bleeds to save you some paper work." (V was fine by the way, no stitches, just a bandage and some pills.) The manager had to fill out a bunch of forms and had to narrate the entire story over the phone to an HR supervisor from Singapore! The story of this incident had already spread to three countries and four time zones!
Another hour or so later the facilities manager came up to check on V, and without even asking a "How are you?" he started on a tirade about how we are careless and that he can't be bothered to keep worrying about HSE if we keep running into things! Now that pissed me off! It wasn't like V woke up that morning and decided to run into a sharp edge. All the facilities manager has to do now is to either file down the sharp edge, or just cover it with some padding. He refused to do that! "Do you know how much time it's going to take? This is a very wide corridor, if you guys insist on running into these edges, I can't keep covering up all sharp edges." Umm, hello? That is exactly what you're supposed to do, that's what you get paid for. Instead he kept shouting at us, all this while V was sitting there. He apologized later saying that he was hungry and that that might have made him a little angrier. But basically he felt it wasn't his problem.
To be fair to him, it is possible that someone from above might have yelled at him and he was just trying to take it out on us. But that doesn't excuse the fact that he was way out of line in blaming V for the injury. It's amazing how many times the buck got passed around these past few hours. No one wants to be blamed for this. And no one is blaming either, just suggesting things to avoid situations like this in the future. But all that has happened so far is that the dirty attitudes of some people here have been exposed.
About 11am this morning, the power went out, and the generator was out of diesel. The UPS units lasted for an hour or so, but soon the computers shut down and we were sitting idle. Eventually some went down to smoke and the others were walking around the office visiting other sections that had power. As I was standing downstairs chatting with someone, the tallest guy in our office, V, came running to me with his palm on his head. "I hurt myself, could you please take a look?" he said, even as blood started appearing from his scalp, flowing down over his forehead. Turned out he had bumped his head on the sharp edge of the cover for a shutter. This was bound to happen since the stairs area narrow and have low ceilings.
We rushed him to the hospital and then the circus started. Our boss made a few calls to the finance dept. asking them to go to the hospital and pay for the bills. Then he called the Health and Safety department of the company to make an injury report. An hour later I got a call from the HR asking me if it was I that got injured. I told her I wasn't but gave her the story. Turned out she got a call from the Dubai office asking if a certain person with my name got injured! (V's last name is similar to my first name so that explained the last part.) But I was surprised that the Dubai office heard about this this fast, and since the HR was calling as a courtesy, and not in her capacity as HR, it was clear that it leaked out of the Dubai office as gossip! Fifteen minutes later our manager, who had driven V to the hospital got called, to file an incident report. At this point out manager who, as I've mentioned before, isn't the more mature guy in the office, started complaining about how much paper work he had to file. He was doing this to be funny, but it was clearly bad form to make the injured guy feel bad, even if you don't intend to do so. I wanted to tell him, "Dude, I'm so sorry that V's injury is causing you this much pain. I'm sure V will no longer band his head so hard that he bleeds to save you some paper work." (V was fine by the way, no stitches, just a bandage and some pills.) The manager had to fill out a bunch of forms and had to narrate the entire story over the phone to an HR supervisor from Singapore! The story of this incident had already spread to three countries and four time zones!
Another hour or so later the facilities manager came up to check on V, and without even asking a "How are you?" he started on a tirade about how we are careless and that he can't be bothered to keep worrying about HSE if we keep running into things! Now that pissed me off! It wasn't like V woke up that morning and decided to run into a sharp edge. All the facilities manager has to do now is to either file down the sharp edge, or just cover it with some padding. He refused to do that! "Do you know how much time it's going to take? This is a very wide corridor, if you guys insist on running into these edges, I can't keep covering up all sharp edges." Umm, hello? That is exactly what you're supposed to do, that's what you get paid for. Instead he kept shouting at us, all this while V was sitting there. He apologized later saying that he was hungry and that that might have made him a little angrier. But basically he felt it wasn't his problem.
To be fair to him, it is possible that someone from above might have yelled at him and he was just trying to take it out on us. But that doesn't excuse the fact that he was way out of line in blaming V for the injury. It's amazing how many times the buck got passed around these past few hours. No one wants to be blamed for this. And no one is blaming either, just suggesting things to avoid situations like this in the future. But all that has happened so far is that the dirty attitudes of some people here have been exposed.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
What really grinds my gears about the local autodrivers
As I mentioned in a previous post, I finally found a life form that is lower than the scum known as the Chennai Autodriver. The Chennai Autodrivers, to those that aren't familiar with them, are notorious for overcharging passengers, especially from the railway station. Many drivers, in spite of having a working knowledge of other languages like Telugu, Kannada, Hindi or even English, steadfastly refuse to speak in those languages to secure their position while bargaining. They don't use meters, which means they can ask for whatever price they want. Fundamentally they have a sort of God-complex which was unfortunately secured by the Rajni song "Naa autokaaran".
Well, the Chandigarh/Panchkula autodrivers aren't that much different from their Chennai brethren. (Yet another factor that unites the two halves of the nation.) Basically there is no public transport in the city, or atleast, none worthy of note. I think I vaguely remember seeing a city bus sometime in the past, but I wouldn't know how to tell one from an inter-state bus. The alternates to the auto are the share auto and the cycle-rickshaw.
The biggest problem is that these auto drivers are sort of unionized. They'll never "bid" against each other and this means that if you walk into an auto stand and the guy quotes a price of Rs. 100 to take you to a place you just paid Rs. 60 to come from, the other guys in the stand won't deal with you for a lower price. And worse they seem to share the fares from all these trips and pool them. It's a weird form of communism. There's usually a "leader"-type guy who'll talk to you when you approach the stand and once you've agreed upon the price at which you'll be fleeced, he'll pick a driver, usually a younger guy, to make the trip. The only reason for this seems to be that they pay this leader some sort of extortion money or they're sharing their profits.
Of course, this isn't to say that the other problems like randomly inflating prices don't exist.
I wrote most of the previous paragraphs a while ago, when I first got to C'garh, I just never got around to posting this. Now that I've been here for a while, the situation is a little more tolerable. For instance, a few days ago I had to make a trip from C'garh to my apt. I stopped an auto and told him where I needed to go. He quotes Rs. 100. I said Rs. 80. "No sir, that's too far." Immediately I turned away from him and started walking away. He stops me and agrees to Rs. 80! I guess, like you do with dogs, you can't show any fear while dealing with these people
Well, the Chandigarh/Panchkula autodrivers aren't that much different from their Chennai brethren. (Yet another factor that unites the two halves of the nation.) Basically there is no public transport in the city, or atleast, none worthy of note. I think I vaguely remember seeing a city bus sometime in the past, but I wouldn't know how to tell one from an inter-state bus. The alternates to the auto are the share auto and the cycle-rickshaw.
The biggest problem is that these auto drivers are sort of unionized. They'll never "bid" against each other and this means that if you walk into an auto stand and the guy quotes a price of Rs. 100 to take you to a place you just paid Rs. 60 to come from, the other guys in the stand won't deal with you for a lower price. And worse they seem to share the fares from all these trips and pool them. It's a weird form of communism. There's usually a "leader"-type guy who'll talk to you when you approach the stand and once you've agreed upon the price at which you'll be fleeced, he'll pick a driver, usually a younger guy, to make the trip. The only reason for this seems to be that they pay this leader some sort of extortion money or they're sharing their profits.
Of course, this isn't to say that the other problems like randomly inflating prices don't exist.
I wrote most of the previous paragraphs a while ago, when I first got to C'garh, I just never got around to posting this. Now that I've been here for a while, the situation is a little more tolerable. For instance, a few days ago I had to make a trip from C'garh to my apt. I stopped an auto and told him where I needed to go. He quotes Rs. 100. I said Rs. 80. "No sir, that's too far." Immediately I turned away from him and started walking away. He stops me and agrees to Rs. 80! I guess, like you do with dogs, you can't show any fear while dealing with these people
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Barbeque Nation
I've been salivating over this restaurant ever since I first heard of
it. Grilling is my favorite way to cook food. It's so raw and so
healthy and oh, so delicious. So when I heard of this restaurant where
you grill your own food, I couldn't wait to try it out. The only
person in the city who I could ask to come with me wasn't too keen on
it. And then the new colleagues at work showed up and we all made a
plan to hit up the place on Saturday.
It's a fixed-price place. They have five veggie and five non-veg
appetizers on the menu. These appetizers are then placed over a small
grill that's kept on your table. You can use a few marinades they give
you to coat them, and then a few dips for after the items are grilled.
Personally I would have liked more choices of marinades but it was
still fun to taste grilled vegetables after a long time.
After you have enough of the starters, you can move on to the main
course, but then again, those are good but not great dishes. Pretty
regular dishes. So it's better to just fill up on the starters because
they're so unique. Good service as well, so very little to complain.
One point I'd like to mention is that they were good with the water
service. I always rate how well a restaurant keeps my water glass
filled as being one of the most important things they can do. And this
place not only kept refilling the water regularly, they were filling
it with cold bottled water! Now that impressed me as hell.
it. Grilling is my favorite way to cook food. It's so raw and so
healthy and oh, so delicious. So when I heard of this restaurant where
you grill your own food, I couldn't wait to try it out. The only
person in the city who I could ask to come with me wasn't too keen on
it. And then the new colleagues at work showed up and we all made a
plan to hit up the place on Saturday.
It's a fixed-price place. They have five veggie and five non-veg
appetizers on the menu. These appetizers are then placed over a small
grill that's kept on your table. You can use a few marinades they give
you to coat them, and then a few dips for after the items are grilled.
Personally I would have liked more choices of marinades but it was
still fun to taste grilled vegetables after a long time.
After you have enough of the starters, you can move on to the main
course, but then again, those are good but not great dishes. Pretty
regular dishes. So it's better to just fill up on the starters because
they're so unique. Good service as well, so very little to complain.
One point I'd like to mention is that they were good with the water
service. I always rate how well a restaurant keeps my water glass
filled as being one of the most important things they can do. And this
place not only kept refilling the water regularly, they were filling
it with cold bottled water! Now that impressed me as hell.
Monday, July 6, 2009
A smart checkout guy
On Saturday my colleagues and I decided to check out a restaurant I've been meaning to visit for almost two months now. (I'll be writing about the restaurant shortly.) We arrived a little early so to kill time we walked into a big grocery store nearby. This one called itself a "hyperstore" and stocked itself with a lot of slightly exotic goods that you normally don't get in the other stores. Stuff like foreign toiletries, snacks, some jewelery etc. I was thrilled because I found some stuff that I had given up hope of ever finding in India. We even ran into our sweet HR lady who was shopping with her kid and husband.
After picking up what we wanted from the shelves, we walked to the checkout counter. There were two and since someone had a big shopping cart at one, I stood at the other, with my two items. My colleague who had six items stood behind me. The checkout guy was scanning and bagging my items when this random guy showed up with a candy bar and a soda bottle, slid between me and my colleague and thrust his stuff into the checkout out guy's face and said, "Scan these two.". This is the kind of behavior that sends me into a white-hot rage. Normally, if you have a small number of items and someone in front had a much bigger number, it's acceptable to ask if you can move ahead, but you still have to ask. You can't just cut in without permission and particularly not if the other person has about the same number of items as you. If I was standing behind, I'd have politely asked him to move to the back but since I was ahead, I didn't have a reason to reprimand him.
The checkout guy finished my stuff, bagged it. I paid for the items and just stood there, waiting to watch what would happen. If he started processing the other guy's stuff, I would have interefered. But the smart dude calmly ignored the other guy's stuff, instead took my colleague's items and started bagging them! The look on the other guy's face was priceless. Funnily enough, even my colleague wasn't too concerned with all of this. The other guy started shooting daggers at all of us and I just stood there in case a situation developed. (The readers familiar with another incident that wasn't reported on the blog are probably slapping their heads right now!) Like I said, nothing much happened, he just kept staring at us even as we got our bags and left. Crisis averted purely by the quick thinking of the checkout guy. I really wanted to shake his hand and say, "Job well done." but I didn't want to antagonize the a-hole who cut in, so we just kept walking.
After picking up what we wanted from the shelves, we walked to the checkout counter. There were two and since someone had a big shopping cart at one, I stood at the other, with my two items. My colleague who had six items stood behind me. The checkout guy was scanning and bagging my items when this random guy showed up with a candy bar and a soda bottle, slid between me and my colleague and thrust his stuff into the checkout out guy's face and said, "Scan these two.". This is the kind of behavior that sends me into a white-hot rage. Normally, if you have a small number of items and someone in front had a much bigger number, it's acceptable to ask if you can move ahead, but you still have to ask. You can't just cut in without permission and particularly not if the other person has about the same number of items as you. If I was standing behind, I'd have politely asked him to move to the back but since I was ahead, I didn't have a reason to reprimand him.
The checkout guy finished my stuff, bagged it. I paid for the items and just stood there, waiting to watch what would happen. If he started processing the other guy's stuff, I would have interefered. But the smart dude calmly ignored the other guy's stuff, instead took my colleague's items and started bagging them! The look on the other guy's face was priceless. Funnily enough, even my colleague wasn't too concerned with all of this. The other guy started shooting daggers at all of us and I just stood there in case a situation developed. (The readers familiar with another incident that wasn't reported on the blog are probably slapping their heads right now!) Like I said, nothing much happened, he just kept staring at us even as we got our bags and left. Crisis averted purely by the quick thinking of the checkout guy. I really wanted to shake his hand and say, "Job well done." but I didn't want to antagonize the a-hole who cut in, so we just kept walking.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Sikh naming traditions
Tuesday was the most fun I had in recent days. Internet was down for most of the day, and since all our license files are accessed over the internet, work just stopped. So we ended up just chatting and discussing all sorts of things like philosophy and salvation! After that I went down to meet our HR who's a very sweet lady/girl to ask for some vacation time (she's Sikh). She showed me the pics of her daughter who's two years old. They named the kid Harnoor (which, incidentally, is the last name of a Kannada Hindu friend of mine!)
She went to explain how the Sikhs name their kids. Turns out you don't name the kid for the first 40 days after birth. Then you take the kid to any Gurudwara; obviously many try to go to the Golden Temple. There, in the morning, when they open the Guru Granth Sahib (their holy text) the note the first letter of the first verse that the book opens to. That's the latter with which the parents are supposed to name their kids. Interestingly, this particular "letter of the day" is somehow transmitted to all the gurudwaras (in the world?) and so the parents who take their kid to any other gurudwara also get the same letter.
Of course, some parents cheat and name their kid in advance, and then go to the gurudwara on the day that the letter of their choice is picked. Like my HR, who actually wanted to name her kid "Gurnoor", and ended up with the letter "Ha" when they went to the temple. She and her husband wanted to go ahead and name the kid Gurnoor anyway, but her father insisted on following the "rules" and that was that.
I also learned something about Sikh names that had been bothering me for a while. Basically Sikh boys and girls share a lot of names. In theory there are no "male" or "female" names. The only way you tell the gender of a person by their name is by the "Singh" or "Kaur" that follows the name. In fact in our office, we have a boy and a girl by the name Jaspreet!
She went to explain how the Sikhs name their kids. Turns out you don't name the kid for the first 40 days after birth. Then you take the kid to any Gurudwara; obviously many try to go to the Golden Temple. There, in the morning, when they open the Guru Granth Sahib (their holy text) the note the first letter of the first verse that the book opens to. That's the latter with which the parents are supposed to name their kids. Interestingly, this particular "letter of the day" is somehow transmitted to all the gurudwaras (in the world?) and so the parents who take their kid to any other gurudwara also get the same letter.
Of course, some parents cheat and name their kid in advance, and then go to the gurudwara on the day that the letter of their choice is picked. Like my HR, who actually wanted to name her kid "Gurnoor", and ended up with the letter "Ha" when they went to the temple. She and her husband wanted to go ahead and name the kid Gurnoor anyway, but her father insisted on following the "rules" and that was that.
I also learned something about Sikh names that had been bothering me for a while. Basically Sikh boys and girls share a lot of names. In theory there are no "male" or "female" names. The only way you tell the gender of a person by their name is by the "Singh" or "Kaur" that follows the name. In fact in our office, we have a boy and a girl by the name Jaspreet!
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