India – country of the future

You can scarcely pick up a business magazine without some mention of all the call centers and outsourcing in India. Indeed this is old news. However this picture of India does not fit in with a recent meeting I had at work.

IT Manager: we may have some problem supporting Site A

Me: We will have 8 people there and they can call the help center

IT Manager: the help center is not in India, they can’t make international calls

Me: it’s Ok we have an India free phone number

It manager: it probably won’t work on our phone network and even if it does we don’t have enough lines

Me: how many lines do we have

IT Manager: 9

Me: 9 for more than 400 people!!!

IT Manager: well one for the manager and 8 for the rest of people and only 1 of the 8 can dial internationally

Me: can we get more?

IT Manager: no, the exchange is full

Me: can we move to VOIP (voice over IP – you know calls over internet, just like skype)

IT manager: network bandwidth won’t support it

Me: OK, next topic, let’s see if we can get the IT hardware out of customs (it’s been lingering there for a few days now)

I don’t even want to discuss bandwidth in India – we’re having major problems. Seriously does this seem like the type of conversation you would expect in a place where you outsource IT and other services!!!

Marriage Proposals and Engagements!

Apologies that I have not been blogging for a while. Work has been consuming most waking hours and some hours usually earmarked for sleeping. As you may have gathered from earlier posts my brother was here for a few weeks. As my brother left my boss arrived with a large contingent of important people, important people who needed status presentations, travel companions for the various locations; you know things that generally require time and effort. Happy to say though the visit went off splendidly (apart from some exhaustion on my side).

Finally I packed off the important people on plane on November 16th. On November 18th (Saturday) the plan was to fly to Singapore. I had arranged to meet up with my friend IK who was there for a few days with her family. The original plan was that I would fly on Friday but all the flights were full so I booked Saturday. Given the busy sleep deprived few weeks preceding the trip, I was very tired so decided to pack in the morning (the flight was at 8.10). All went well, the alarm went off at 5.30, the driver arrived at 6.50 (a little late, original plan was 6.30). However the original plan was that I shower and pack between 5.30 and 6.30 but it ended up that I fell back asleep and only woke when my driver called the bell. No time for shower; scarcely time to pack. I finally left my place at 7.10 – the airport is a good 20km away. I arrived at the airport at 7.40, not very optimistic about getting my flight. Yes, the Jet airways flight to Singapore was boarding, the check-in counter was abandoned. Then I saw somebody from Jet airways. She asked me to wait a minute. I launched into a long speel*– I know I’m really late but please check me in and let me try to catch it. Amazingly they checked me in, I ran to the front of the passport checking line where a lovely German man allowed me to crash the queue. There was no line at security and at 7.55 I was at the gate. I wasn’t even the last one on the plane. Amazing, and given my experiences at Delhi airport I would have said unbelievable. Jet airways – why can’t the other service providers in India be more like you? It would make the country a much better place

I arrived Saturday evening to Singapore, met up with IK. It was really lovely to see her and catch up. We went on a bus tour to see the Christmas light-up ‘Christmas in the tropics”. The lights were nice but the warm weather seemed wrong. And wow was Singapore warm – over 30C and very humid – and this is their winter!! Summer must be unbearable. On Sunday we went to Sentosa – Singapore’s tropical island paradise (or so the tourist brochure says – for me it was tropical forest with many shops and services to take your money, but at least it was well organized). Also we took a cable car over the the island – it was well cool to go over the sea on a cable car.

On Monday, I had planned to see some more of Singapore but instead spent the entire day in retail therapy. I don’t think I have ever spent so much money in marks and Spensers (M&S). M&S is what I usually call a mother’s shop. They sell good quality, reasonably priced, comfortable clothes. I do have a lot of clothes from M&S but it would never be my first port of call for clothes shopping. Food shopping is another matter as the milk chocolate swiss mountain bar and white chocolate covered dried fruits are divine. In any case, I was excited to see a regular shop where goods were priced and had clothes that fitted me and where a size 14 is a size 14 and not a random number as seems to be the case in India. In addition to M&S there were other purchases in the luggage shop, Esprit and a few Christmas presents. I’m not really the sort of person to travel somewhere to go shopping but India is challenging for shopping (no marked prices, bargaining the norm and many people trying to rip you off because you’re not Indian – though the Indians tell me that they try to rip off Indians too but it’s just easier to rip off foreigners!!).

I bought two Christmas cakes at M&S in Singapore and on Wednesday brought them into work to share with my colleagues. I asked the administrative assistant to get plates and knives and to send a mail to the office (in the 5 minutes I managed to find between meetings). At 5.30 we went and cut the cake. There was much curiosity as to why I had brought cake – the administrative and said in her email Helen would explain why we were having cake. A reasonably innocent and innocuous comment I thought. However in the 45 minutes between email receipt and cake cutting my colleagues had concluded that I had gotten engaged over the weekend in Singapore!! They obviously think I have a lot more free time than I really have!! Christmas cake was a big hit and I had quite an interesting time telling some latecomers that no really I wasn’t engaged as they came up to congratulate me. It seems gossip spreads very fast in my office, if only work was done as quickly as rumors were spread, my life would be much easier.

Then on Thursday, I got an email from my friend L in Canada who just got engaged. It’s a surprise and not. L and J have been together for 7 years. For many years we kept waiting for an announcement and every Christmas we would speculate if this year would be the year. However nothing happened and gradually one stops asking. Congratulations – L and J – I’ve tried to call you a few times, hopefully we get to talk over the weekend.


*Irish slang for a long explanation/prepared speech

Guest blogger entry

So as you know my brother is here and becasue he writes well and I had a extremely busy week at work, I am posting my brother's email (with a few minor editorial comments).


Hi All,
this will be just a quick email as I'm writing on a dodgy old computer(think our old computer before I put the extra RAM in) and I'm afraid I'll lose all the info before I get to send the email........ This is my first travel email for quite soma while so it's time to reaquaint yourseves with the diet of unfinished sentances, obscure analogies and spelling that appears in no (English) dictionary. Anyway the trip has gone very well so far allthough thanks to Helen's input the pace has been fairly hectic....arrived in Delhi, was barely over the jetlag when I was taken out for a look at the famous red fort and walk around the market in the Muslim quarter in old Delhi. The red fort is was impressive with mosques and palaces and stuff. One problem with Delhi is that it is fully of beggars and people trying to sell you stuff you don't want (allthough I managed to accumulate enough of the latter in Ireland without any pressure). The problem in Delhi is getting stuff you do want, beer would be easier to find beer in Chicago during prohibition, junk food and ready meals are easier to find in our (new) fridge at home. All in all the place is though going but not as bad as Helen makes out (that would not be possible). (Helen - hey the first day I thought India was OK too, he should wait and see)

Next day we flew to Nepal, had a look around the city, we saw temples full of monkeys (not sure how this would work in St. Agustines Helen - local church in Cork. no wildlife there). Continuing the tour (think American tourist in Europe pace but in a country with no infastructure) we went down to the jungle area in the south of the country for a 2 day safari. We were staying in a bueatiful lodge in the middle of the jungle, very atmospheric place, I felt like a British Explorer from the 19th centurary, all I was missing was the shotgun and hip flask. The views were spectacular but the wildlife took a little patience, we were hoping to see the elusive tiger, but we found him deserving of this adjective..... howevr we did see rhino's up close, crocadiles(the good ones ie hrbivores), deer (only in the distance, funny to think you try to avoid them in the Pheonix park Helen - large Park in Dublin where my brother lives) and pay good money to see them in Nepal.) All in all it was a brilliant experience. From there we left for Pokhara, (Mum I think I saw the atlas in the drawing room) and that's from where I write this email. Helen is flying back to Delhi on Friday morning and I'm going on a 6 day trek in the Annapuerna mountain range, will report back aftterwards.

Helen - The brother returns tonight. Seeems like he had a good time on the trek.