I am finally home for Diwali.. Its been 6 years since I have been with my family during the festival of lights and it really feels good :).

Its been around 4 months since I have been working in India and everyone asks me this one question “How does it feel to work here?”. Everytime I reply in a very polite way, “feels alright and not too bad.” But seriously working in India sucks. You have 10 people to bring you down for every positive step you take. The title or designation means everything here, even though that person may not be knowing jack shit about the topic. Also usually people take their titles to their heads and can get really arrogant. There is bureaucracy at every single level. There is lack of transparency in how things get done and they take forever to get done. You ask for something and it usually takes 3-4 days to get done, when the same thing can be done in a day in the US.

A lot of importance is given to the number of hours you put in the office. So if I am working 9 hours a day and my colleague works 12 hours a day, then he is more hardworking than I am, even though we achieve the same targets. I personally believe that efficiency takes a back seat here. The attitude is like yea, we will put in more hours later and get it done. If you actually work your shift and leave at the end of it, people actually look at you as if you have committed the biggest sin of your life. The quality of personal life here also sucks. Some offices here work for 7 days a week. Now, tell me where does that leave time for spending with family etc? The sad part is the supply of labor here is abundant and cheap, so most of the people here have no choice but to suck it up and work. Now, though with the advent of IT companies, the work week here is now a 5-day affair for most IT employees.

The other part I hate the most is, whenever there is a client visit. It seems like we go down on all floors just to please them. People who have done nothing on the project will be there to show that look we have made this sucessful. The entire office gets revamped when the client visits and the employees are asked to dress in their best. I have never seen anything like this happening in the US. It just makes me feel like for 150 years we were ruled by the British and now we are ruled by Americans.

The other thing I have observed is people here lack puntuality. I am very serious about this. I have never been late for any meeting in my professional life, be it US or India. Here if we have a meeting at 1pm, people walk in at 1:15 – 1:20pm, as if other person’s time has no value. It can get really annoying to wait.

So yea.. this is what I really feel about working in India. I could be wrong.. but this is what I feel.

I used to watch this show when I was in the US. It is probably the best show about nothing.. here are some of the quotes that I like.. enjoy reading them

1. I was the best man at the wedding. If I’m the best man, why is she marrying him?

2. It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.

3. What is a date really, but a job interview that lasts all night? The only difference is that in not many job interviews is there a chance you’ll wind up naked.

4. You know you’re getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It’s like, “See if you can blow this out.”

5. Men want the same thing from their underwear that they want from women: a little bit of support, and a little bit of freedom.

6. Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them’s making a poop, the other one’s carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge.

7. Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason

8. The Swiss have an interesting army. Five hundred years without a war. Pretty impressive. Also pretty lucky for them. Ever see that little Swiss Army knife they have to fight with? Not much of a weapon there. Corkscrews. Bottle openers. “Come on, buddy, let’s go. You get past me, the guy in back of me, he’s got a spoon. Back off. I’ve got the toe clippers right here.”

9. Seems to me the basic conflict between men and women, sexually, is that men are like firemen. To men, sex is an emergency, and no matter what we’re doing we can be ready in two minutes. Women, on the other hand, are like fire. They’re very exciting, but the conditions have to be exactly right for it to occur.

10. I will never understand why they cook on TV. I can’t smell it. Can’t eat it. Can’t taste it. The end of the show they hold it up to the camera, “Well, here it is. You can’t have any. Thanks for watching. Goodbye.”