One Bye One

The fact that my current employers believe in blocking every productive website that there is, accounts for the delay in writing the post and actually posting it...

Pune...Week 1...
Chill in the air, more than a slight breeze and random specks of a light drizzle hitting my face as I turned in towards the hotel entrance after a longish walk. Its 10.34pm and the end of week one in my new job location; Hinjewadi Pune. My first day off in Pune, even though only had half the day after the morning and afternoon were spent hunting for what seems to be an endangered species in this city, the 'To Let' apartment.

The Rajiv Gandhi IT Park is a distance from the city with sprawling campuses with every Indian IT major and not-so-majors. The Infy campus is easily the biggest (surprise surprise!) and while Phase I of their campus has a respectable capacity of 4000, Phase II is a gargantuan 15000. The arhitecture is something to behold, with the latest building under construction resembling a crash-landed UFO. The CTS campus, while not as dispersed, has a couple of large 'high-tech-looking' structures.

The week has been demanding and the opposite in different ways. Days filled with presentations from different departments, most of them, vertical, some horizontal. The organization, as has been pointed out to us, is very distinctly partitioned into discrete components that function with almost complete autonomy. After a Delivery Manager in the Manufacturing and Logistics vertical expressed surprise that I would be working for the Insurance vertical and how he wasnt aware if that vertical existed in Pune, I decided to form a new entity, the Diagonal! Our batch of 10 inductees promptly agreed that I should head it.The function of this diagonal is as yet undecided, but for those who specialized in geometry would have figured out that this entity would be longer than and therefore have more clout than the plethora of verticals and horizontals

Scouting around the city, looking at one apartment after another have removed all doubt in my mind that the business of brokering transactions between home-owners and hapless software professionals is far more profitable a vocation than the one I am in. Another couple of days of training and then Im guessing therell be more to my day than sitting back in dimly lit presentation rooms pretending to listen while typing out smses.

Mumbai...Week 2...
Training ended tuesday...elongated affair with 3 different hotel rooms...owing to miscommunicated reservations. Went in on wednesday, all spruced up to meet new boss. Located his cabin on the campus and went in with a resounding "Good Morning Mr....". His smile faded as I told him that I was there to join his vertical as a BDM. I didn't expect him to fall over himself wanting to hug me, but this?! Turns out he didn't seem to have appropriate work for me at this stage and therefore had informed HR that my services wouldn't be needed. So, I left wondering if my stint with this company was at an end...when I was informed by the HR contact assigned to make us feel at home that it'd be sorted out in a jiffy. Next morning, I get a phone call saying that my prospective boss was going to chennai for a meeting to decide what I could possibly contriubute to the organization...that kinda thing usually happens after I've spent a few months at a workplace...chuckle! So, am expecting a warmer welcome (and sniff...work!) come Monday morning...now for a hearty homely breakfast...bwaa haa haa....

Oh yeah...signed the lease to our apartment in Aundh...right now consists of 2 buckets, 2 mugs, a host of cabinets and little else...phase 2 of operation makaan to begin next week...

p.s: title of the post...saw it on a rickshaw this morning on my way here...for those who still look for logic on this page...