I got my official Employee badge yesterday, yay! It has my photo and, for some reason, my birth date. I no longer have a visitor badge with the big letter “V” on it (like I’m an alien from the 1980s.) Also, the CTOs from the global offices have been visiting the last few days, so it has been eventful at work. We had an activity where all the various development teams did a short presentation (make-something-out-of-cardboard-style) on What They Do. In a rare fit of social behavior, I actually went and chatted with everyone, learned about the cool stuff we do here, and took photos. Very fun! And it answered people’s curiosity about who the foreign woman wandering around the office is.

Pretending I’m giving our team’s nifty presentation
(but I could never do it as well as Deadpan)

Last night, we had a development team outing with the CTOs at a fancy hotel called Park Ascent. I looked it up on the map; it is right on the border with the mysterious sector 62A. I tried to get a glimpse of the twisty, curvy streets – I did see quite a few people in the area – but too quickly, we were pulling into the entrance drive with valet parking. As we ate appetizers (meat – mutton and chicken – were on the menu and there was an open bar! I guess they know what foreigners like…), I said to my co-workers, “It is amazing that, just on the spot, they arranged a dinner for over 100 people!” Then I checked myself and said, “Wait, I’m in India. The place where every wedding consists of multiple several-hundred-person events.” My co-workers laughed and LeadingMan agreed, “Yeah for just a hundred, we don’t even bother planning.” Indeed, the gathering reminded me of the wedding-related ones. The tables with tablecloths and the chairs with… chair cloths. Servers wandering around with appetizers on toothpicks and multi-colored soda trays. The requisite all-appetizers-at-once table and the dinner buffet not opening until almost 9pm. (I think they began early because we started lining up for it.) But the waiters here were quite friendly and some spoke English even.

I sat at a table with my paneer appetizer (paneer in Hindi means, I believe, CHEESE OMG YUM CHEESE!) and a couple CTOs sat at the same table and we chatted (yay, someone to babble at). I was relating the story of the overly-friendly autorickshaw shotgun rider, while a muzak rendition of Gangsta’s Paradise played over the speakers, but was very often interrupted by the men with serving trays. I supposed it was their job, but seriously, I didn’t want any more appetizers, so stop tempting me with the paneer already. Someone – the head waiter I think – approached the table and said, “Excuse me, ma’am, what would you like?” For the sixth time, I said, “Nothing, thank you.” then I suddenly understood. During my story, I had been stabbing the table to gesture. They assumed it meant I was trying to signal the attention of a waiter! D’oh. The British man across from me said, “Oh, does that work?” then he tapped the side of his empty Kingfisher bottle. “Another beer?” And the response was immediate.

(totally stole this image)

So today, they finally installed the software image on our computers so we’ll all have the requisite software and settings to do full-on Development. This meant that my computer was away from my desk (the monitor and power cords attached to empty air) the whole afternoon. It was actually a convenient day for the Axis bank representatives to suddenly drop by and explain that they had mistakenly opened a regular savings account for me instead of a “special foreigner account” just after I’ve finally gotten a paycheck. It’ll take “several weeks” to transfer. Great. This is a couple days after the message I got from payroll in the U.S. saying, “Whoops, we’ve been paying you when we shouldn’t and we’ll need that all back.” Good thing I have savings.

Besides the two bank visits (two because I had filled in my name Last First Middle instead of First Middle Last; the application did not specify which other than to show an example Indian name, which did not clarify), the CTOs had plenty of presentations on the roster luckily that I could kill time with while waiting for my computer. During a lull, some people on my team – also with missing computers – had gathered in the Game Room.

“Carrom” where the Queen Chip is the 8-Ball

I totally forgot we had a Game Room. I saw it on the tour on my first day, then promptly forgot about it. I learned a game today called Carrom. LeadingMan couldn’t believe I’d never heard of it before. Luckily, the rules are almost exactly the same as billiards / snooker. A large white chip, the striker, is the cue ball. Bank shots are permissible as you flick chips into the corner pockets. Two colors of chips like the solid/striped balls are what you aim for. A special Queen chip that goes in second-to-last is like the 8-ball. You can indeed become skilled at this as SmartNoob demonstrated, kicking all of our butts. Us foreigners managed one pocket apiece against the experts.

Game Room
Not pictured: Five of us doing acrobatics in front of the screen playing “Kinect Adventures”.

I impressed my co-workers today with my absolutely perfectly accented “Mein Hindi nahi samachti hoon.” (“I don’t understand Hindi.”) Being able to say that well is counter-productive to my cause however. So I said it purposely less skillfully to the tiny ladies room attendant, who has spoken to me a few times – not even a single word of English thrown in for me to make an educated guess as to what she could possibly be telling me. I think she understood, but couldn’t help continuing to speak in Hindi anyway. I’ll have to see if I can grab someone to translate next time.

They changed our office coffee machine today to “Nescafe” from “Cafe Coffee Day”. Wow, the excitement. Actually, the only excitement was not having caffeine during said changeover and almost taking a nap on the beanbag chairs in the Game Room.