The Routine

It has been a couple of days (nights?) since I have taken time to write. Working nights in Kolkata to accommodate the daytime in US has been hard to adjust to. By 1pm or so I start getting ready for work. The first few days I would be downstairs meeting co workers by 3pm. Meals can take a very long time especially when there are 6-12 of us. Getting the checks and then paying and then getting the charge slips can take half an hour. We don’t try to rush this (wouldn’t do any good), so we make sure there is lots of time for meals. At 4:30 we meet in the lobby then proceed to the cars the Indian company has sent for us.
Riding during this ‘rush hour’ is like no where else. There are no sidewalks, but the roads are lined with people. There are vendor booths with some kind of food products, working people, dogs, and other vehicles. Even though we are only traveling between 25-35 miles per hour, the brake pedal is rarely used. There are no lines in the road to define lanes. If someone is driving slower than the driver wants to go, he beeps the horn and goes zipping past, with maybe an inch between the cars. The horn is beeped just to let those around that we are coming at all of the aforementioned people and dogs. No one is insulted and pedestrians ignore the beeps at their own peril. There is no such thing as right of way. If it wasn’t for the median dividing the one way direction lanes, no one would ever get anywhere because there is no limit to the little tricks one will use to get where they want. The roads are bumpy, but not potholed on our route.
The employees I am training consist of 7 men and 4 women one of which is the Lead- Meena. The Indian trainer is Suman. They are all college graduates, very polite and respectful. I was warned that they might be too shy to ask questions, but that has not been so. They ask questions after I explain something and they ask for help while they are online working the system exercises.
The first cultural bump was in their not recognizing our US brand of addresses so I had to explain what Rd, St, Av etc means. I have had to learn to interpret the head bob means. A tilting of the head over the shoulders means they do understand my topic or question but a still head or slight nod means they do not, but do not want to say that. I hope they are learning that it is safe to ask for further explanations.
The restaurant in the hotel has very delicious food. I usually eat more westernized food at the hotel because at the office we have a lot of Indian food given to us. The first dinner we had a soupy dessert like the consistency of watery ricotta cheese. I didn’t get the name of it but it is apparently made with goat milk. It was very tasty and I finished it as it is a nice way to end a spicy dinner. Another dessert is like a donut hole that has been dipped in a sugar syrup. It was also very good, but the sugar in it caused me to be very sleepy in the latter half of training that morning.
It is very easy to still be confused about day and night. When we meet for our first meal after waking up, we say good morning, then remember it is 3pm; we say good night when we get back from the office when it is 3am. I am just trying to say ‘greetings’ or ‘good day’. 8>)
I have 2 newspapers delivered to my room each morning. One is the Times of India www.epaper.timesofindia.com The writing is very colorful and basically uncensored and un-sanitized. If a deed is dastardly, the article will say that. It is very interesting to read multi-syllabic and colorful words in comparison to US newspapers. – Go to the website and give it a try.
If you want to see what my hotel room looks like, it is EXACLTY like the one on the home page of the hotel’s website http://kolkata.regency.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/
Sorry if there are no exciting tales to tell just yet, but life is between hotel and office on these work days.