I Just Need a Stamp

I went to the post office the other day. Gripping, I know.

We left the office at about 11:30 in the morning. After a ten minute walk, complete with cars and motorcycles whizzing by my elbow (a feature of any walk to any destination here) we arrive at what best could be described as a “postal annex” and more accurately described as a “shack”. It’s a tiny little building featuring the requisite Indian chaos. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the organization of the papers, envelopes, and other objects I could see through the old-school, Clint Eastwood-style barred teller windows.

I tried to “speed post” the birthday card to my Mom (awwww, what a good son) but it was not to be. Apparently, we had to go to the “main” post office to do that. We determined this after a rapid-fire exchange of Tamil between my guides and the postal worker, who were soon joined by several onlookers, all who seemed to have an opinion or contribution to telling us how to get to this place. The rapidly spoken and nearly full volume Tamil flew everywhere and somehow I ended up right in the middle of it all. If I was a language-learning savant I would have looked like Trinity learning to fly the Apache.

Armed with our new directions, we hire a tuk tuk (or auto-rickshaw) for the ride. These things provide quite an exhilarating ride. The one wheel in front and motorcycle-style handlebars inside make them very maneuverable. We darted in and out of traffic and were making turns between two other moving vehicles. I think they’d be kinda fun to drive around. They’d be great for a version of bumper cars but they probably tip over easily.

We arrived at our new destination and this one looked more like a government office. Run down, peeling paint, signs everywhere, stacks of papers and folders all over, and more chaos. The concept of a “line” here is a bit different than in the US. If someone is conducting a transaction and there is a brief delay for, say, getting your money out of your wallet or some translation of the prices of the different delivery methods, the next person in “line” will just walk up, nudge you out of the way, and hand their letter to the clerk. I nearly, and I mean NEARLY, elbowed this guy out of the way the first time it happened. I mean, it’s so different than the American “please wait behind the yellow line” approach that my natural, almost instinctual, reaction was, “Dude, hello, WTF?!? Go wait your F’in turn, buddy.” But, hey, that’s how they do things here and it didn’t really slow down my transaction at all. I think it’s a product of having so many people in one place. I think. Dave says China is even worse in that regard, with cutting in line and other types of madness.

Christen comes in tonight and we’re off to Sri Lanka tomorrow. The blog posts will no doubt decline in frequency and may stop completely. We’ll be back in the US on the evening of March 25^th. I will no doubt be ready to come back to the US by then, although I am looking forward to lounging on the beach for a few days.

Temple and Random Thoughts

I did some sightseeing today after work. Manickam and Anwar took me to a temple not far from the office. The largest temple-type structure served as the entranceway into the complex itself. The vast majority of the structure consisted of a pyramid-shaped top, probably about 100 ft tall, on top of a cube, about 20ft square, with a 20 ft tall opening to walk through. Many, many carved and intricately painted figures depicting various gods and characters from traditional stories covered the pyramid roof.

After taking our shoes off, we walked through the entrance into the main complex. This was a courtyard type area with various shrines and smaller temples to various gods, also covered with the carved and painted figures. The stones making up the floor were pleasantly warm on my feet, although the thought of stepping on a wayward sharp foreign object did concern me a bit.

Some people wandered around, some sat on the ground, others waited in line to pay their respects to certain gods, still others bowed and kissed the ground at what seemed to the uninitiated (me) to be random spots on the floor. It was a much more chaotic, disorganized, and free form type of worship than that found in your typical Christian church. Some of the smaller shrines had certain routines associated with them. For example, at the shrine to the 9 planets of the solar system I could see a path worn in the stone where people walk (and were currently walking) in a circle around the 9 figures representing the planets.

Pretty cool experience. Too bad I couldn’t take pictures (not allowed). I did take a few from outside of the big entrance temple. Not like you’ll see them.

Iron Maiden is playing in Bangalore (about 2 hours from here) on March 17^th. Too bad I’ll be in Sri Lanka and unable to play with Indian madness.

At lunch the other day the water poured from the metal pitcher, presumably filled from the tap, was a nice shade of yellow. Um, can I have some bottled water please? Thanks.

There’s a brand of car out here called “Tata”. If you own two of them do people ask, “How are your Tatas?” Heh heh.

I spent all of Thursday on the way out here from California in the dark. I took off at 5 after midnight on Thursday morning. Darkness followed us all the way to Hong Kong where the sun finally came up on Friday morning as we reboarded our plane.

People out here point a lot with their middle fingers. It’s disconcerting and I still am not used to it. “Oh yeah, buddy? F you too, pal. You wanna go? Oh. Right. Sorry. Here’s your hat back.” Though I did just read it’s rude here to point or gesture towards someone with your left hand. I don’t know if it’s quite the equivalent of flipping someone off, but, well, I’m an American. Isn’t it just assumed I don’t know anything about anyone else’s culture? They can cut me some slack.

Shady Dealings

I spent today (Sunday) lounging by the pool on the rooftop of my hotel. I’m trying to get as much lounging practice in as I can before my trip to Sri Lanka. That and I need to tan my pasty white American skin.

Christen and I have one night to kill between Sri Lanka and Singapore. We’re staying in a beach resort south of Chennai. Very posh. It better be for the prices we’re paying. It’s spendy by American standards.

Paying for the room turned out more difficult than necessary. I booked the room over the phone, since the website wasn’t working. The lady on the phone told me I had to go to the 2^nd floor of an office in Chennai to pay for it. Why I couldn’t pay over the phone I don’t know.

So, Saturday morning, before going to work (total BS) I gave my taxi driver the address I was given and we were off. Turns out, this city is so confusing even my cab driver couldn’t find the place. It took the two of us, collaborating in very broken English before we could even find something that looked like the right building. It had some closed clothing store on the first floor. No obvious way up to the second floor immediately presented itself.

My taxi driver kept motioning me to go around the side of the building and into a darkened doorway. I couldn’t help feeling like Loraine Bracco in Goodfellas when Robert DeNiro is telling her he has some dresses for her “…just around the corner. Go ahead. Through that doorway. It’s ok, go ahead, right through there.” I have never seen a more dilapidated staircase. Broken marble, piles of trash and construction materials, the building looked abandoned. I just couldn’t picture giving my credit card info to someone in this building. I almost turned around and left but figured I might as well at least go up to the second floor. Up I go and I’m greeted not by an enclave of squatting feral children, but by the standard security guard seen in front of most offices. I ask for my contact and he directs me through a set of glass doors into an ordinary office. I went from “condemned building” to “everyday office” disorientingly quickly. Everything else went smoothly (I even got a receipt), although I’m still confused as to why I had to go to this strange office building to pay for my hotel room.

Did you know the mom from Six Feet Under shows up at the end of Scent of a Woman? And why does the HBO here have commercials? What kind of crap is that?

By the way, thanks to everyone for the comments, they make my day.

Road Rage

I finally witnessed my first fender-bender today. Witnessed it from inside one of the cars with the bending fenders. It wasn’t so much a bend as a scrape. The other car thought its dimensions would allow it to squeeze by my taxi. It was wrong. I just happened to turn my head as the car started going by and I thought, “This is gonna be close.” But so often I’d seen the maneuver done successfully in the past when I was convinced it would fail, I figured this time it would work out, too. Nope. Sckeee-rape.

More intriguing was the aftermath. If I haven’t made it clear before, these roads are narrow and jam packed with a variety of vehicles. The “traffic light” had just turned green and we were the second car in “line”. After the scraping did the two cars pull over to the side and get out of the way? No. They stayed just where they were, rolled down their windows and started yelling at each other in Tamil. I couldn't understand a word of their shouted exchange but I'm pretty sure it wasn't, "Pardon me, dear sir, for my vehicle's most terrible obstruction of your glorious right-of-way." "Think nothing of it. Here, allow me to pay for the damages to your most splendid conveyance."

It’s at this point I’m thankful I’m in India. I mean, at least I didn’t have to worry about seeing the barrel of a .38 poke out one of the back windows (Hi, my name is Eric and I live in Oakland). Meanwhile, everyone else is honking, and honking some more. The motorcycles and bicycles that managed to squeeze by either yell at the obstruction or make some sort of arm gesture. (Gee, I wonder what that means?). After 2 minutes or so of yelling the windows roll back up and the cars drive off. That’s it. No exchange of info or anything. Unless, of course, they were yelling insurance information at each other.

At least we didn’t hit a pedestrian. One of the travel sites I read said that if you’re in a taxi that hits a ped or a cow you should get out and run as onlookers have been known drag the driver (and sometimes the passengers) out and beat them. Dave suggested I take the initiative and drag the driver out and start beating him myself.

Interviewing the Liars

I’m working too much. How am I supposed to treat this as a boondoggle if they’re working me all day every day? I’m interviewing people like a coked up Larry King. Or trying to, anyway. The HR manager at CTS, Ragesh, has been lining up interviews like crazy. If 50% of the people actually show up, the day is considered a success. Whether or not those candidates are actually qualified is another matter entirely.

Apparently, it’s ok here to blatantly lie on your resume. “Familiar with” or “knowledge of” a product does not mean “I’ve heard of it” or “I saw the box once in a store”. We all exaggerate our resumes, but if you can’t even tell me what it does, don’t list it. Why put it on your resume only to flail in the interview? Most of these people can’t even answer the equivalent of “where is the on button?” about this stuff. One guy today, when I asked him to describe his specific usage of a piece of software his resume (of course) claimed he used extensively, started reciting what I now believe are the marketing bullet points from the website.

And the language barrier…I mean, I don’t want to be an insensitive American prick about this, but if you’re going to be working with a development team in America, and conference calling your American boss once or twice a week, when I very slowly and with perfect enunciation (I swear!) ask you “Where is your current development team?” you should not respond with 5 seconds of blank staring followed by “I work in QA”. Good lord.

Some of these people I actually feel kind of sorry for. Some are so nervous and twitchy and desperate seeming I want to hire them out of pity. What do I care? I’m not hiring for my product. One dude was practically deaf. I almost burst out laughing when I caught myself yelling simple phrases towards his good ear. It’s like I was interviewing a 7 year old Helen Keller with rudimentary QA skills.

Was that too far? Eh, you’ll be fine.

This extraordinarily shallow talent pool makes me just that much more thankful for the rockstar team I have right now. Too bad for the other managers that my product is all staffed up with the good ones and these other products have to choose from the dregs. Bwahahahahahahaha! *cough*

In more pleasant news, I booked tickets to Sri Lanka for Christen and me. Hooray for vacations. Doug is feverishly planning our tropical beach paradise itinerary, right Doug? I keed, I keed…but it will be nice to relax on the beach for a while. Civil war, schmivil war. My next vacation is gonna be in Sudan. I would have said “Iraq” but from what I hear there is no civil war there.

You’ll notice there are still no pictures on this magnificent blog. That’s due to the fact that, apart from not going outside as much on this trip, I broke my f’ing card reader. That’s what I get for bragging about it costing only $8. It broke due to operator error, not due to any sort of product defect…but still. Karma is a bitch. Not like it matters. They work me like a Himalayan Sherpa here, allowing me only glimpses of the sun through a dirty window as I trudge my way to the printer to pick up another superlative-laden yet criminally misleading resume.

Tuesday, Monday, and Last Week

Another day, another near death experience. Ok, not really, but yesterday I rode in a tuk tuk for the first time. (If you don’t know what a tuk tuk is, check out the December 2006 archives). The crazy Indian traffic intensifies further when one weaves through it in a three-wheeled tin can. Considering one of the guys in the office, Natarajan, offered me the choice between riding on the back of his motorcycle or taking a tuk tuk, I believe I chose wisely. Part of me really wants to take him up on that offer at some point before I leave.

That reminds me...today I saw two guys re-painting lane lines in the middle of a road as my taxi courteously gave them a 6 inch berth. Hahahahahahaha. That's a good one. I'm assuming they were part of a performance comedy troupe since the disregard for lane lines here is total and complete.

You may have noticed the lack of pictures on the blog for this trip thus far. There is a good reason for this; I have not taken any yet. Perhaps my sense of wonder and amazement is diminished as this is my second trip here in three months. Perhaps I continue to forget to bring my camera with me when I go outside. Perhaps they are working me like a dog on this trip with nary a moment to spare wandering around outside. I suspect it’s a combination of all three. I do have some pictures of Singapore but I have yet to determine if they are blog-worthy. A high probability exists they are not as I was extremely hungover when I took them and could barely see.

Today we ate lunch at a place called The Rainforest. At the risk of offending my coworkers who took me there, the place was quite silly. I think I ate in a similar place at Disney World once. Fake thunder noises, rain sounds, walls made to look carved from stone, as if you are eating in a cave. The best part had to be the stuffed animals. Tigers, snakes, and monkeys all scattered around the place. One poor monkey hanging from a clothesline looked as if he was strung up by his thumbs. Good food, though. Mmmm…tikka masala.

I don’t have malaria yet. At least, no outward symptoms.

It’s not as hot here as I expected. It’s toasty, but I experienced worse during the summers of my youth in Contra Costa County. Of course, it’s only March. It is, however, a drastic change from where I was a week ago. Where was that, you ask? Driving through a flippin’ blizzard. Coming back from Tahoe I drove through some of the worst conditions of my life. This from someone who lived in Colorado for 9 years. It was daytime and the falling and blowing snow prevented me from seeing more than 2 cars in front of me and sometimes only one. If someone up ahead had panicked or become disoriented or even blinked I think we all would have followed her off the road one by one like a pack of lemmings. After dumping snow for the previous 24 hours it dumped the whole way from Truckee to Auburn and showed no signs of letting up (in Auburn it turned to rain making the visibility even worse, which was quite a trick). When trying to leave on Sunday afternoon I shoveled a good two feet of snow from around the car. After being defeated on that attempt (no, really, I love spending 45 minutes traveling 50 yards in traffic that moves only when someone bails out and pulls a U-turn), I shoveled another two feet the next morning. I mean, seriously, if you’re not going to close 80 in those conditions, when do you close it? Some portions of the highway looked like Beirut with cars scattered all over, facing every which way, people wandering around in a daze. If the weather had been like that during the snow cave adventure I’m not sure I’d still have fingers with which to type this mediocre blog entry.

Snow cave? What is this snow cave adventure of which he speaks? That’s a tale for another day, perhaps when I’m sitting on the beach in Sri Lanka, drinking a mai tai.

Don't Touch My Stuff

Well, here I am, back in Chennai. And super tired, since I got in at 11:30 last night. Which is actually 3:00am in Singapore or something. And, if you'll recall, I was up until 4am the night before. Wah wah wah.

I hate the aisle seat. Why do people covet this seat? I had to get up about 6 times during a 3 hour flight to let my row-mates in and out. What a pain in my ass. And you, Mr. Window Seat, when Mr. Middle Seat gets up to go to the bathroom, THAT is the time for you to make your move. NOT 30 seconds after Mr. Middle Seat returns and he and I have settled back into our seats. What other conclusion can I draw but that you're doing this to us on purpose? No one is that much of an idiot.

Oh how I wish that last sentence were true.

And there was luggage drama. First, it took for-freaking-ever to get through the immigration line. By the time I got to the luggage carousel I could barely see the luggage meandering along on the belts due to the crowd gathered 3 or 4 people deep. We always hope, in this situation, to walk up, see our bag, grab it off the spinning treads and be off. Alas, by the time the same haphazardly duct taped box reappeared my bag had not made it's glorious re-entry into my life. 5 more sightings of the sad little box and still no bag. 10 sightings and now the crowd is thinning and I've moved beyond the "hoping my bag appears soon so I can get out of here" phase to the "please, god, I just want to see my bag even if it comes out looking as if it's been run over repeatedly by drunken baggage handlers" phase. Let's just say that there is no Singapore Airlines Customer Service counter in the Chennai airport baggage claim area. Half an hour has gone by and the last of the people are piling their bags on their carts and heading for customs. I'm all by myself. And now the baggage-moving belt has stopped. Terrific.

The only people left not going through customs are a group of about 8 people gathered in one spot, arguing loudly. I meander over that way hoping to find a customs official to start pleading my case to when what do I see? My backpack lying on the ground just outside of the circle of loud people. I can only assume they were fighting over whose turn it was to detonate the "unclaimed" bag. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to whichever motherloving fartbag made the courteous and helpful decision to take my bag off the luggage carousel and just leave it on the floor, out of view. I hope Dick Cheney personally gives you a full body cavity search in Guantanamo.

Oh, and hey, how about waking up at 5am in India scratching the side of my head where the mosquito who somehow found her way into my 5th floor hotel room bit me repeatedly? Fun times. Especially since it brought about the realization that I forgot to take my "24 hours before you arrive" malaria pill. If I get another fever on this trip I will not be calm about it. I will most likely panic.

I'm tired and I want to go to sleep. Not ask the same questions and pretend to listen to the same answers. Yep, I'm interviewing people.

12.13.06, 8:45pm – CTS Offices, Chennai, India.

Kevin just cancelled the demo that was schedule for 9pm, and my hired car doesn’t get here until 9:30 at the earliest, so I have some time to kill.

Yep, hired car. I guess that’s the easiest way for me to get around out here, but it’s kind of strange. I feel a bit like a rock star. A rock star in a third world country, but a rock star none the less. My driver is nice, but doesn’t speak much English. We say times back and forth to each other “hotel 8:30, office 7 o’clock” things like that. I tried to ask him if he drives a cab all day (because I was curious if he just sat around all day or took other jobs while I’m working, etc) but he wasn’t getting it so I gave up. Quick, if someone doesn’t understand “all day”, what do you say instead? I tried “morning, afternoon, night” and “full day”, even “entire day” (like if he didn’t understand “all” he was going to understand “entire”, nice) but to no avail. That pretty much ended my attempt at conversation. It’s too bad, as we’re going to spend quite a bit of time together.

I must say, I’m glad I have the car. All of the buses I’ve seen are PACKED, with the windows open, etc. I wouldn’t know the first thing about using them. I guess I’d figure it out, but, yeah…

Finally broke one of the bills I’ve been carrying. The poor cashier at the store had to go in the back and get an envelope full of bills to break my 500 Rs note. Of course, I was only buying 24 Rs of bottled water, but, really, I had to break the thing at some point. She just happened to be the unlucky victim. I don’t know how I’m going to break these 1000 Rs notes. Maybe the hotel can do it for me.

Work is going well. I spend a lot of time talking to these guys about the app. Honestly, I don’t know how I ramped up the other crew without visiting them. These guys have so many questions and the explanations can be so complex…no wonder I spend half my days writing emails to my testers.

It’s funny the things that remind you of home. When I was up in the early morning watching soccer, one of the graphics they used on TV had a sound effect every time it came and went. The sound effect sounded just like Finn’s cough when he drinks water too fast.

I’m feeling better today, sleep-wise and adjustment-wise. It was good to IM with the wife for a while. It was also good to go shopping on my own. Just a little affirmation that, yes, I can take care of things. Still haven’t eaten anywhere outside the hotel yet, though. Baby steps. It gives me more respect for what my sister and Brooke and my folks have done. Of course, they prepared a lot more than I did, but, then, they had to.

---Eric

Hello to everyone from Chennai, India.

This first post is going to be a long one, as it includes my entire travel log up to this point, spanning several days. Oh, and sorry for the lack of photos. My computer isn't recognizing the camera and I didn't bring the camera software with me. If I find a solution I'll start posting pictures.

Enjoy.

12.13.06, 5:30am – Rain Tree Hotel, Chennai, India.

Jeez, what a long trip to get here. The flight from SF to Seoul was loooooong, Seoul to Singapore was longer than I thought it would be (like 6 hrs). Walked around Singapore with Dave (in the middle of the night), slept a few hours at his place, showered, then back on a plane to Chennai.

The Chennai airport was a stark stark contrast to the Singapore and SF airports. Low-ceilinged, dingy, muggy, smelled like my Grandma’s basement. I was pretty sure my bag was not going to show up since it had to hang out in Singapore for 7 hours and make the transfer of airlines. But, after waiting only 15 minutes or so, there it was. A quick trip to exchange a traveler’s check (involving some sort of phone call on the guy’s part) and I was off to figure out…Red Zone or Green Zone?

I had no idea which customs line to get in. I decided I was going to attempt the Green Zone figuring if I was wrong someone would let me know. I walked up to the customs official and handed him my declaration. He barely even looked at it or me so I just walked by him and out of the airport. Why would anyone subject themselves to the Red Zone? I don’t know. I suppose if you have something to declare? Chalk this up to my relative ignorance of international travel. At least I didn’t wait in an unnecessary line.

First impression of Chennai? Third world. For some reason I thought it would be more modern here, but it’s not. Some things are, like the internet, my hotel accommodations, etc. But, really, it’s a far cry from my western comforts. I’m sure it’s just a matter of adjustment, but, wow, what a shock. I guess that’s why it’s called “culture shock”. Oh yeah, I forgot. After we landed and we were taxing to the gate I saw, in the shade of the navigation signs next to the runway, what I thought were monkeys. I don’t even know if there are monkeys in India (I don’t think there are). Nope, it was people. WTF were two guys doing hanging out in the shade next to the runway? Seeing who could go deaf first? I thought I imagined it but then I saw another dude in the shade of a different sign. I need to ask Girish about this.

I found my taxi driver (hired by the hotel) among the throng of other taxi drivers. He was holding a sign with my name on it. That’s a first for me. He offered me bottled water (seal intact!) and we were off to the hotel.

It was about a half hour drive to the hotel and wow, what a trip. I now understand why my mom does not like to look out of the taxi windows when she’s in India. The traffic is just crazy. Tuk tuks (small, motorized, three wheel taxis), motorcycles (almost all with two people on them and very few helmets), taxis, buses, even an ox-drawn cart, all sharing the road. And the lane lines? Why they even bother to drawn them on the roads is a mystery to me. They’re not even guidelines, they’re completely ignored. Even the center stripe (when present, which is seldom) is routinely ignored. Just don’t hit anyone, that seems to be the rule. And these drivers know the dimensions of their vehicles to the inch, or even millimeter. I found myself very surprised that the car I was in didn’t have any scratches or dents on it.

My hotel is nice. Very western, which is comforting. God forbid we should shock all of Eric’s delicate western sensibilities.

I called Girish, we had lunch at my hotel, then we went to the office. I met the QA guys, Senthil and Ram, and the rest of the staff in the office, checked emails, talked a bit with Ram and Senthil, then at about 4:30 I hit the wall. Hard. I went back to the hotel and could barely keep my eyes open.

I miss my wife. Tremendously. Last night was tough. I slept from about 6pm to about 1:30am (with a call from Manickam at about 9:30, welcoming me to India). Then I was up from about 1:30 on. Not good. I watched 2 Barclay’s Premiere League soccer matches on whatever ESPN channel they have here (yay, western culture) and dozed intermittently, when I wasn’t missing my wife or feeling lonely or stressing about work or just being here. It’s kind of stressful being here. Can’t drink the water, can’t eat salads, fruits, dairy. I have to rely on other people to get around. Even something like getting more bottled water…I guess I just go into the store next to the work building. Where's the darn 7-11? It’s just so different here it’s stressful. I’m sure I will settle in but this first chunk of time is tough.

I wish my wife was here. She and I are a good team.

My “wake up” call should happen any minute. I guess I’ll go down and eat breakfast. The hired cab is coming to pick me up at 8:30. I think I’m going to hit the wall early today. I may have to go back to the hotel and nap at some point.

Time to get dressed and go eat some food.

---Eric