Q-Center

It's been two weeks now that I have started working at the Q-Center. It has definitely been a great learning experience. I'm the only expatriate of my unit so everyone is always asking me questions and involving me on their projects. I hope that by the time I leave I will have learned all the skills necessary to make full use of the Q-Center back at home and share that knowledge around. It really makes a huge difference to actually work face to face with the people. My typical day starts around 8 am with all the login procedures and a quick inbox scan to see if any projects need immediate attention. Then I have a quick talk with the Q-Center manager and South East Business Unit lead. Since there's a 10.5 hours difference with the East Coast (India's ahead!), we usually try to have a quick call with the Senior or Manager from the US Office to get updates and resolve any outstanding issues before 8:30am. After that, I usually go and observe (and assist if necessary) the new hire training. They have two groups so I spend about 30-45 minutes with each. Then I get back to the Q-Center floor and make a quick round of the floor to see if anyone needs help (Someone almost always has a question). I usually spend couple hours helping with miscellaneous issues on different project and different software platforms. Lunch is around 12:30 usually (except when it's delayed, like today because of bad traffic or something). The typical lunch includes rice (of course!), some sort of curry, yoghurt, cucomber, chipatas (a sort of rice flour tortilla), and chips. One of the lessons I learned with indian food is not to associate color with spiciness (Red does not always mean spicy and white is most of the time NOT mild, except for yoghurt!). I always eat lunch with the Q-Center employees and bombard them with questions, usually about Cricket, Indian culture, or places I should be going on the week-end. These guys are very nice and helpful and I'm really enjoying working with them. After lunch, I go and spend some more time with the new hires and then do one more run on the Q floor. In between I spend some time preparing some training material for the experienced employees that I present on occasion. Since we're really busy these days, around 7 pm we try to have a call with the US offices and plan for the next day. Usually, employees leave at 4 pm (they arrive at 7am) but now it's more like 6pm or 8pm or 10:30pm (These are the times when the buses come to pick up/drop employees) Yesterday, I had brought some treats for the SouthEast team (they always works late!). They love anything with chocolate! I had brought a big bag full of candy from halloween in my suitecase and they've been enjoying the occasional snacks! (No M&Ms, Crunch, KitKat in Bangalore!)
About twice a day, everyone takes a 5-10 min break for tea. I usually get a small bottle (20 ml...very small) of Pepsi (9 Rupees which must be about 20 cents). Today I gave the guy 10 Rupees but didn't have the change so he gave me a Vicks cough drop...Interesting... I wasn't sure what to think. Maybe he though that I looked so white that I was probably sick, not sure...
Well, last night was the second leg playoffs of the World Cup qualifiers. I stayed up until about 4 this morning to make sure the French would qualify...and they did! YEEPEE! Now there will be something worth watching this summer on TV. ALLEZ LA FRANCE!
This week-end I plan on going out to a Safari Zoo natural reserve. It should be fun. I was promissed to see tons of monkeys! I'll take pictures and post later!
Also, Pete is in town Friday so we're going to go out Friday night. Probably to some Western Restaurant (Hard Rock Cafe is in Bangalore and they have BURGERS! which is a rare feast in India...Do I have to explain?)