First Day at the Office and Back to the Hotel

The Ascendum office is also in a gated property with security. This seems to be the norm. The building is very nice and I am greeted by Anunda (who arranged my travel) and Sudesh, the PM. I get my badge (Employee 007 - look out!) and am taken up stairs. The put in me in an empty office and I protest that a cube is fine, I am not a big wig, but they insist. I am later thankful of this as it is air conditioned in the office and rest of the office is relatively warm.

The office looks like a western office - nice cubes, conference rooms, etc. Sudesh, Rajiv, and I have a conversation outside my office and all of a sudden the whole team of 13 is standing around and we are having an impromptu meeting. We adjourn to the conference room to not disturb the others.

What can I say about the people in the office? Gracious, generous, hospitable, and polite is not enough - they are absolutely wonderful. I can't so much as say I am thirsty without several people offering to bring me a drink. They have a young man whose job is basically office concierge/server. I am told to just dial him up and ask for something (a drink from the fridge, etc.) if I am thirsty. I could not bring myself to do that, so I walked down to get a diet coke out of the fridge (plentiful here, thankfully) and he insisted upon putting it on a tray and delivering it to my office for me while I walked next to him! I hope I did not offend him. I just feel a little wierd being served upon like that. It's nice, don't get me wrong. I am concerned that they are simply expected to offer these things and I am expected to decline and by accepting their generous hospitality I am inadvertantly taking advantage. I don't want to offend either.

Sudesh and Rajiv are determined that I am going to have a good time here. Sudesh is taking me out Saturday morning and arranging a tour for me on Sunday with a western tour group that is evidently an all day thing. They are also going to take me out next weekend to Mysore, which is near here, and a national park that has wild animals (like elephants, etc.). I am very much looking forward to this and their generous hospitality is astounding.

At the office, we talk about the agenda for the coming weeks and then we go to lunch. Lunch is Domino's Pizza, a short walk down the road and around the corner. It's my first time out walking and I get a lot of people staring at me. They don't see many fat, bald, reddish haired caucasians in this area evidently. The weather is wonderful! In the 80s with no humidity and a nice breeze. Very, very nice. Later, back at the hotel, I see I am a little pink from the sun for about 20 minutes walking in semi-shade. Sunscreen is important from now on. I also pick up a six pack of diet coke in cans to take with me back to the hotel. I go into a local vendor with my guests and purchase it. There are little shops everywhere that are open fronts and I think they just roll down a metal door when they close, like a garage. Most are the size of a one car garage and packed with stuff.

I also had a chance to speak a bit to Kris Niar, the CEO of the Ascendum India. He also is a very gracious and generous person. We talked business a bit, about the project, etc. He seems to be a very saavy business person, like Mahendra, and I am looking forward to working with him. We also talked about photography and we both have digital Canon cameras. Since I brought mine with me, he as offered (and I accepted) to borrow his nice zoom lens for my weekend sight seeing.

Back at the office I am gettting a killer headache and am still pretty tired. Rajiv has to leave early, so we call it day and I take a car back to the hotel. I crash and burn for a couple of hours and then get up and work until about 10 PM writing up a new version of the FSD for Sant, sending out the database design to Sant for review. I play a little bit of Crayon Physics (very fun game - google it and get it). Then it is off to bed - Sudesh is supposed to call around 10 AM and pick me up around 10:30 to go see downtown Bangalore and do some shopping.