P1 - An artist in action

 Spui, Den Haag, NL

I'm Back!

It has been a long time since i have visited my blog page...6 years, 10 months and 3 days to be precise. Lots have changed in this while both on personal and professional front - from getting married to living in Europe and travelling across the continent.

I have been meaning to get back to writing but just found the best excuse that most of us use at will - lack of time. It is sheer coincidence that i was reading an article this weekend where the author talked about hobbies shaping up who we are as a person and how successful we become on professional side owing to the balance it provides.

May be its the article or my wife's suggestion to share my travel experiences or the sheer determination to break the excuse that i had been using as a shield; hear I am.

In my subsequent posts, I will share my experiences thru some posts or pictures. Is this a travelogue; not really. Its just a means to share something that catches the attention.

USA – Part 5 - The Value of Life

This post by any standards is not to say that USA is better than India or vice versa. Each human being is a blend of good and evil things and this goes same with each country. And, there is nothing wrong in admitting things that our own country lacks. It’s just a way to acknowledge that there are things that can be straightened to make our country a better place to live.

One starkling difference that I have noticed is the value of life out here in US. In India, one mostly gets the kind of respect or look from the society depending on the kind of work he/she does. For instance, if you are a rag picker, you’ll always find yourself being looked down upon. So is the case with numerous professions like waiters, peons, security guards, etc. But if you think of it, they are important part of maintain the balance within the society. Without them being functional, life would surely come to a standstill. Imagine the plight of a residential area where the rag picker doesn’t turn up to clear a pile of garbage. So when they are such important to the society to function properly, how can their life not be of any value?

One of the reasons of the success of US is that it doesn’t look any job with negativity or think inferior of it. Last week I had to substitute for one of my colleagues out here, who was on his annual vacation, for a tire inspection program. I was amazed to see the bunch of guys with over 25-30 years of experience enjoying inspecting used worn out tires to check for the kind of irregularities. And, they do this tirelessly every month. I doubt how many of us would even bother to bend down to check if the tires in our car are inflated.

You might be a CEO, you might be a salesperson or you might be a ragpicker; you need to yourself fill up the gas in your car; fill up the air in the tires! I feel such small things go a long way to shape up a person’s outlook towards other profession. And when one stops discriminating based on the profession the other person is involved in, one starts valuing the other person’s life. That is what you see out here in US and I think it is essential to have that approach for any country.

USA – Part 4 - The Working Environment

It has been almost four months that I have been working in US and I must admit the experience has been great; touchwood! The entire approach seems different from that back in India. The focus and priorities seem to be well defined.

This is my first experience of working from the client’s location. The first day I had been a little apprehensive of how things would turn out; but touchwood it has been like a party so far. The most amazing thing that I found was the amount of value they give you as a person. It took me a while to get the computer as I landed up in US on a short notice and the company has a lot of processes before they issue a computer. But, it was a pleasing surprise to be allotted a designated cubicle with name plates on it (This is quite different from working as a Service provider where often with the projects changing one has to play musical chairs and have no fixed place). My Lead Engineer got all the things arranged for me. From getting the required badges to internet connection and stuff; he got it all done.

I came to US at a time when the economy was still going down with no signs of it bottoming out visible. In such scenario, one would assume a lot of cost cutting measures being enforced. So I used to find it odd when my colleagues out here used to take color print outs of almost all the reports for review. Back at office in India, the color prints required special authorization and was out of bounds for common use. The entire approach as I mentioned is different. The thought process out here is that saving on the color prints would just result in a minor incremental saving; but if the efforts are channelized towards saving on some core activity of the company or product design activity, the benefits would be higher. And this is quite true! We often tend to get entangled in looking at trivial things that we almost end up being “penny wise and pound foolish!!”

Another important aspect that I found here was the self discipline in the people working here. To my surprise, there were no measures to check if an employee has turned up for work or not; no biometric system and no flash cards. The company expects the work to be done; they work on Management by Objectives. So it doesn’t matter if one works from home or here; the work needs to be done. The use of technology like webex is widely used for this purpose. A big difference that I also observed was in terms of the internet usage. Here Internet is treated as a source of information and so each and everyone has unrestrictive access to the internet while back in India there are a lot of curbs on using internet back in office (Some of them are justified for meeting clients security concern; but when such restrictions are imposed for marketing people, it defies logic).

Constructive Criticism; often heard in training sessions is seldom seen practiced in corporate. However, I have seen that being practiced here. People speak up their mind; put forward their views even if it is completely opposite to the immediate superiors view point. Atleast this created an atmosphere where people feel for the organization and associate themselves as being stake holders. The paradigm shifts from autocratic leadership style to democratic (participative) leadership style. And if, I assume such an environment is present across all the corporate in US, it just justifies the reason for numerous success stories (successful organizations) in this part of the world.

USA - Part 3 - The Transition Phase (Settling In US)

(This post might make me look a complete idiot but I guess all those who have had this experience can correlate to it and all those who are planning to come in US would get a preview of what to expect)

The first few days in US were a complete shock. Completely different culture, different processes and administrative norms; took me a while to acclimatize to the situation. I had left for the US within a couple of days of knowing that I had to leave for this assignment. So I couldn’t make most of the internet to understand the place and the cultural differences.

The journey till Akron was pleasant. I had almost everything sorted out. After collecting the baggage, I wanted to take a cab to the Hotel. There were a few counters of the rental car companies that were lined up before the exit and none for a taxi service. I was in a fix because I didn’t have a cell phone, no cab service number and no cabs in sight. Luckily though as I went out there was a cab present. It had come to drop off somebody and was waiting for passengers. It was a relief to get the cab else I would have had a hard time getting into the city. (So carry the details/ numbers of cab service at the place of arrival)

The hotel was about 15 miles (24 Kms) from the airport and I was amazed to see the greenery all around. It reminded me of the drive from the KL airport to the main city which was also quite scenic in nature. The best part of the time that I arrived in US was it got dark after 9.30PM. So it took few days to realize that it’s still quite late though it might be bright and sunny outside. I guess this also gave me loads of time to explore the place.

Over the next few days I realized what significance transportation plays in conducting the daily business. USA has an absence of a sound public system (except for the handful cities like NYC, Chicago & LA). So was the case evident in Akron. Without owning a car one is almost immobile out here. Each day, I used to miss my time in Singapore. I haven’t seen a place well connected by public transport (busses, MRT’s) as one would find in Singapore. So I really found it strange that a country as prosperous as US lacks a good transport system. The city of Akron does have a few busses which run within the city; but it’s neither at desired timings nor on the desired routes. Though there are a few cab services (Yellow Cabs) which operate in the city but it generally takes 20 minutes (which often extended to 45-50 minutes) for them to arrive and not to forget the expenses incurred each trip. It often happened that I would keep waiting and the cab didn’t arrive. So In the first 2 weeks, I had walked back home four times. I wasn’t averse to walking but just the fact that my house was about 11 miles (~18Kms) away and it took me roughly around three and a half hours to walk all the way back (Partially thru the downtown area and partially thru the Cuyahoga valley). So each day I used to miss being in Singapore and my desire to be there just kept getting stronger. When I look back today, I doubt if I’ll do that much of walking again, but it gave me the opportunity to explore this place.

The first evening in US was nothing less than eventful as well. After returning firm office I headed for Wal-Mart to buy a few stuffs and more importantly to get a prepaid connection for my cell. I’ll confess that I enjoy shopping groceries and household items and at Wal-Mart I felt like being in a park, happily exploring items that I almost forgot about purchasing the Sim card for the phone. After all the purchase I realized Wal-Mart doesn’t sell the Pre paid sim card (not the one that I went too) and so I was stuck without a cab. I tried calling up using the public telephone but couldn’t fetch a cab. Since the cabs are very few in number, it’s almost next to impossible to catch a cab on the road. With loads of struggle I went to a convenience store and requested them to call for a cab. The guys were very helpful at the convenience store. (I didn’t even know the area I was in as I had caught the cab to Wal-Mart from the hotel and he took me to the nearest place to my hotel).

Finalizing the house wasn’t an easy task as well. As I wasn’t aware of the good localities I had not taken the effort to find the place over the net before leaving for US. It would surely have not been possible to get this thing sorted without the help of my Lead Engineer. He took me to a few guys (Indians, Chinese, and Korean) who knew of a few places where I could lease an apartment for six months. I got the details from these guys and checked up on the internet to narrow down on the one that looked good. I didn’t have a car and so I knew I really have to be sure of this thing as I couldn’t hop places searching an apartment. Luckily, I found a good place at the place I had narrowed upon. I remember searching houses with Hemant back in Baroda (though he did the bulk of searching); I hated doing that. It is a tedious process. The differences were quite evident between India and US; back in India there would an agent introducing you to each room; each house personally while here based on the budget, kind of apartment I was given keys to a few houses. I had to go alone and check it out and narrow down on the apartment of my own choice. Just when I had finalized the deal, I realized it was yet not over. I had to walk a half mile (0.8Km) down the valley to get a money order as a security deposit as they didn’t accept check and Cash for deposits. Over the next two days I had to get insurance for the house and get the documents faxed to the rental office so that I could make it to the apartment quickly. The difficulty I had in all this process was to get the electricity on my name for which I needed to coordinate with first energy; that only used Credit cards from US banks to pay the deposits (Again my Lead Engineer to rescue).

When I look back to this sequence of events; I think I had an eventful first few weeks. However, it made me learn a lot about this place, the system, and modus operandi of the administration here. So not a bad deal I guess; after all travelling to a new place is not just for tourist purpose always.

USA - Part 2 - The Sir Culture

The queen of England bestows knighthood to people who have achieved excellence in their respective field. Post this, their name are prefixed with “Sir”. The case is a little different in Indian Corporate World and this starts right from the schools. I remember going thru a few ragging sessions back in school (Not the very serious types), where the seniors instructed all the junior batch students to address them as sir.

When you step into the corporate world, one generally ends up calling everyone senior as Sir. However, I have a problem with this. If one addresses someone as Sir out of respect it still makes sense but when it is out of compulsion that’s when you feel getting stretched within. By addressing someone as Sir, you show your gratitude towards that person for educating you / enlightening you. And, when one is compelled to address someone as sir; just because of his /her seniority, it leaves you with a bad taste.

This is one starkling difference in US. You address everyone by their first name. Be it a CEO or an intern, their first name is how they get addressed with. Though this might seem to be just a cultural nuance, but it does have an implicit meaning. It cut shorts the difference that exists between people. An organization success is not a single person’s outcome. It is like a mechanical clock with each part interacting with the other to make the instrument function the way it needs to. Addressing by first names just keeps you grounded. It removes any baggage one tends to carry or thinks of carrying. Years of experience, tenure in the current organization matter but not as much as performance and performance has no age barrier. Corporates have CEO's who are in their Early thirties.

I think this small thing can make wonders in the Indian corporate scene. Addressing a senior by first name is not a means of saying that an experience doesn’t count; it’s just a way to say that in this competitive world, fresh ideas weigh as much as the experience does.

USA - Part 1 -The Travel from India to the States

It's been almost three months that I have been in US. Before I left, I used to think I would write blogs more often than what I used to do back in India. But I guess I have been a little lazy (Little is an understatement). So I thought of breaking the trend and write about my experiences in this country. If I had to sum up my experiences of three months in a word; it’s got to be "enriching".

I had a North West flight from Mumbai to Detroit via Amsterdam. My experiences started from the check in process. There was an Indian guy (of Gujarat origin - I heard him speak in Gujarati) who was doing the check in process. He seemed to be very friendly with the foreign nationals but was quite rude to the Indian nationals. I had a family in front of me in the check in line who were travelling to attend a marriage in the states. The kind of expressions that the check in officer gave to them for carrying extra luggage could have been avoided. I knew Guajarati’s had a soft corner for USA, but I failed to find a reason that our own people be subjected to a lower treatment.

The flight from Amsterdam was better than that from Mumbai. I spent most of the time chatting with my co passenger who was a British National. Nice conversation, Nice food and some good sleep - A perfect flight. The decent to Detroit had a pleasing sight. The city seems to be never ending. The streets running zig- zag reminding me of the winding toy trains tracks; straight from the funskool toys of childhood. I had a little bit of anxiousness before the immigration clearance, which they cleared after finding my documents in order.

During this entire travel I found that US government has left no stones unturned to ensure a check on the people entering the country. Some people might complain of the heavy security measures, but then when you see it in terms of the larger picture and the benefits of the process, you'll generally not mind undergoing the process. Such kind of security becomes indeed essential when the stakes are really high.

It's Time for me to move on......Time to say goodbye!!

{This is the mail that I had sent to the entire batch of GMBA Jan08 (Singapore) on the 26th of November 2008. One of the most emotional moment when I had to bid farewell to people who have become an important part of my life in the one year we spent together. }

Dear All,

First and foremost, thanks a lot for making this entire journey memorable. Over the course of this year long program, I have had the opportunity to interact with all of you on numerous occasions. From the initial orientation program to the crazy holi celebrations, numerous group works , late night library studies, numerous late night ice teas at Singapore to sharing awesome food at Fringi Pani; the journey at Singapore was memorable in many ways. Dubai was a completely different experience altogether and the time we came wasn’t an ideal one aswell (with the rising mercury levels). However, it wouldn’t have been fun without you people being around.

I also take this opportunity on behalf of Placom to thank you all for being very supportive and understanding. It was heartening to see people coming to help us in the process selflessly. I am really thankful to you people for also supporting me when I was going thru a lean phase. I’m sure that it was your good wishes that helped me sail through it.

I pray for all those who have got the jobs thru the placement process for being successful in life while I pray even hard for those who are working towards it. I am sure good things lie ahead of you, waiting to be grabbed!!! If I had to single out the best moment that I have had in GIMBA, it definitely has to be my interactions with you during the placement process where I probably experienced each and every human emotion possible. I hope I have been able lend my shoulder when you needed the most!!It was the most enriching experience in this entire year!!

I would sign off with the lines of a poem, that has always inspired me to go on:

“The woods are lovely dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep!
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep!”

Hope you all have a great time ahead! Stay healthy, have fun and needless to stay do stay in touch!!
Goodbye and God Bless you all!!

Warm Wishes,

Arijeet
senarijeet@gmail.com

"The distance between the earth and sky is not the matter of altitudes but attitude!!"