Why don't you take coffee or tea?!
I thought I was going to start running out of blogging material, but today is a big one. Sorry!
I am sure some are wondering what the work conditions are like at the CSS office in Chennai. Let me provide some insight:
Environment:
Of course it's air conditioned.
I made a remark to Laura and Tiffany in HR that I want better chairs based on the nice comfy chairs that they have in the CSS office. They told me we have nice ergonomic chairs already. I respectfully disagree:)
Bathrooms:
Is anyone dying to know what the bathrooms are like? Well, overall I'd say they are at least as good as our office bathrooms, if not better. Each toilet actually is it's own mini-room - there is a door, and it is completely enclosed, it is not a stall. One interesting thing to note is that there is what looks like a hose attached to each toilet with a spray nozzle. I am guessing it is used for umm...cleaning up after you know what.
There is an attendant in the bathroom that is constantly cleaning up and making sure the paper towels are well stocked, etc. The only downside? It feels like there's no air conditioning in there, so it is a bit stuffy:)
Why don't you take coffee or tea?!
There is a gentleman named Bhaskar (seen here in this picture, also notice the picture of the cubicles with little GD magnets) that goes around the office doing things like bringing coffee and tea to people in meetings and stuff like that. On the first day I got there he came by and asked if I would like any coffee or tea or biscuits (aka cookies, which are very yummy). I said yes to the biscuits, and no thanks to the coffee and tea. Now, if you know me, I don't drink any hot drinks at all - and I simply don't like coffee or tea. Well, that wasn't an acceptable answer to Bhaskar, who takes his position very seriously and has a strong and genuine desire to serve. So, he continued to come by every 30 minutes or so and ask me if I would like coffee or tea. I told him no thank you every time.
On the second day he figured out that I liked diet pepsi. So, that choice got included in the mix. However, he hadn't given up on wanting me to have coffee and tea, and I frequently received those requests. Yesterday he had given me a diet pepsi which I hadn't drank the whole day, and I actually felt so bad about it that I decided to take it back to the hotel with me so he wouldn't find it sitting in my office unopened!
Finally today he decided enough was enough, and asked me to please allow him to give me coffee, to test him (in his words), since he was sure I would like it. So, I said ok, and I had a cup of coffee...which I didn't drink much of. So, this afternoon I ended up with 2 more cans of diet pepsi.
Lunch Update:
For lunch Sathya took me to the Raintree hotel, which has a restaurant buffet of mostly Indian food. It was pretty yummy overall, and of good quality. The visit to this restaurant had a dual purpose - I was also there to scout out a different place for anyone coming over from GD (including myself) to stay in the future. The hotel is less than a 10 minute drive from the CSS offices, whereas currently I am currently up to 30 minutes away if you factor in traffic (it's probably really only a few miles at most, but traffic can be umm not good here). It also should be more cost effective:). The good news is that it was much more modern and newer, and we checked out the rooms as well and they were pretty nice. So, now we have a nice, comfortable, and modern hotel for visitors from GD to stay at!
I am sure some are wondering what the work conditions are like at the CSS office in Chennai. Let me provide some insight:
Environment:
Of course it's air conditioned.
I made a remark to Laura and Tiffany in HR that I want better chairs based on the nice comfy chairs that they have in the CSS office. They told me we have nice ergonomic chairs already. I respectfully disagree:)
Bathrooms:
Is anyone dying to know what the bathrooms are like? Well, overall I'd say they are at least as good as our office bathrooms, if not better. Each toilet actually is it's own mini-room - there is a door, and it is completely enclosed, it is not a stall. One interesting thing to note is that there is what looks like a hose attached to each toilet with a spray nozzle. I am guessing it is used for umm...cleaning up after you know what.
There is an attendant in the bathroom that is constantly cleaning up and making sure the paper towels are well stocked, etc. The only downside? It feels like there's no air conditioning in there, so it is a bit stuffy:)
Why don't you take coffee or tea?!
There is a gentleman named Bhaskar (seen here in this picture, also notice the picture of the cubicles with little GD magnets) that goes around the office doing things like bringing coffee and tea to people in meetings and stuff like that. On the first day I got there he came by and asked if I would like any coffee or tea or biscuits (aka cookies, which are very yummy). I said yes to the biscuits, and no thanks to the coffee and tea. Now, if you know me, I don't drink any hot drinks at all - and I simply don't like coffee or tea. Well, that wasn't an acceptable answer to Bhaskar, who takes his position very seriously and has a strong and genuine desire to serve. So, he continued to come by every 30 minutes or so and ask me if I would like coffee or tea. I told him no thank you every time.
On the second day he figured out that I liked diet pepsi. So, that choice got included in the mix. However, he hadn't given up on wanting me to have coffee and tea, and I frequently received those requests. Yesterday he had given me a diet pepsi which I hadn't drank the whole day, and I actually felt so bad about it that I decided to take it back to the hotel with me so he wouldn't find it sitting in my office unopened!
Finally today he decided enough was enough, and asked me to please allow him to give me coffee, to test him (in his words), since he was sure I would like it. So, I said ok, and I had a cup of coffee...which I didn't drink much of. So, this afternoon I ended up with 2 more cans of diet pepsi.
Lunch Update:
For lunch Sathya took me to the Raintree hotel, which has a restaurant buffet of mostly Indian food. It was pretty yummy overall, and of good quality. The visit to this restaurant had a dual purpose - I was also there to scout out a different place for anyone coming over from GD (including myself) to stay in the future. The hotel is less than a 10 minute drive from the CSS offices, whereas currently I am currently up to 30 minutes away if you factor in traffic (it's probably really only a few miles at most, but traffic can be umm not good here). It also should be more cost effective:). The good news is that it was much more modern and newer, and we checked out the rooms as well and they were pretty nice. So, now we have a nice, comfortable, and modern hotel for visitors from GD to stay at!
3 Comments:
Hi Eric,
Love you, Mom
Eric
Great job at the blog. Seeing your writing talents, I can just envision your next book title / subtitle.
"Debunking the myth of O-Word" Stories from the frontier of out sourcing and how it can help organizations grow".
"Offshoring Demystified"
A dip in the global talent pool by an MBA. Stories from the front lines"
"How I did it" (not the OJ one)
Streamlining the offshore development for fun and profit.
Now if you happen to choose any of these or remotely similar topics, I want my royalty bucks! :) Also, can I be the co-author.
My wishlist would be some writings about the
Infra-structure
Talent pool
How the latest internet cable cut issue has impacted the IT industry.
Maintenance Development vs. Innovation ratio.
Resource Availability
Keep up the great work!
PS. The bathroom spray thing u saw is a modified form of bidet, a French invention. It is commonly used in Asian especially Japanese toilets. There are lots of variations of it, from hand-held to automated wash and dry versions but the intent is the same. It seems quite environment friendly as compared to paper but don't have any stats to back it up. So here you go :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet
you should take a picture of the toilet so we can see what you're talking about.
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