First impressions from work
On Monday, the 19th of June was my first day at work. Ujjvala, the vice president of Aiesec Bangalore came for me and brought me to work. The company is located in Whitefield, a complete new area in Bangalore. It is completely different to the rest of the city. You find here a lot of construction areas,
coz a lot of companies discovered the Indian market and want it to conquer from Bangalore. Probably all of the most famous IT companies in the world like Oracle, Dell, IBM, Igate, Infosys, or SAP settled in Whitefield, Bangalore. Well, and my company, HCL Capital Market Services settled there as well. HCL Capital Market Services is a subsidiary of HCL Technologies, which is Indias´ biggest IT company. In former days it was called DSL Software. But when it was bought by HCL Technologies and merged completely to HCL it was renamed. When you enter HCL, nothing reminds you that you are in India. All is absolutely western oriented and sophisticated. Air conditioned and well furnished rooms with the newest equipments and cleaners wherever you look. Each department has even its own office boys, some unlearnt employees who support us. Hence, for example they make copies for us, having a look at the equipments and so on.
Labour force in India is so cheap that the company can afford to employ quite a good many of them. In the HR department we have 5 for example. A cleaner, to whom I have talked, said to me that he draws a salary of 2.400 Rupees per month, which would be about 45 Euro! So you can imagine, that I am living here like a king with my salary of 17.000 Rupees per month. I earn even more than some of my colleagues. What I forgot, by the way, the cleaners are really necessary, coz just in front of the company area, there are still dusty streets and some small “shops” on wheels. I would never buy there anything, coz you never know how hygienicly it was prepared and if it is fresh or not. So whenever a customer or employee enters the company, his shoes are dusty in any case, you can't avoid it. Unfortunately, my boss, Mr. Vadiraja, wasn’t there at my first days. But I will get acquainted with him in two weeks they said. Then he will be back from his journey. I was introduced to all the others like Rashmi, who will sit next to me for the next 6 months. Furthermore, the training team is completed by Ammeta, Dakshyani and Prathibha. In detail, my tasks for the next 6 months will be to teach employees in German language. All together, I was planed that I hold lesions for three different levels – absolute Beginners, advanced speakers and Business speakers.
But due to the fact that for level 3, the Business speakers, only 3 people enrolled, this level was cancelled. Furthermore, I will help to develop a German learning software as well as to coach the staff and attend to recruitment meetings in order to judge the applicants German skills. Lunchtime is usually at about 2 p.m.. The reason is, that we don’t start working at 8 a.m. like in Germany. Working time is from 9.30 a.m. to 18.30 p.m.. You need more than one hour to go to work. Usually I am picked up at 8.20 a.m. by the company owned transport system. Well and then due to the traffic it takes more than one hour. The traffic, especially in the morning is unimaginable. Cars and motorbikes wherever you look. Therefore, the air pollution is very high. You don’t even see the road any more. And there are no traffic rules, everybody does as he pleases. But it works, so what. The cafeteria is on the roof, which is then the fifth flour. Thus, it is very windy sometimes but nevertheless very convenient. But what can you eat there? Well, rice of course. Actually, it is part of each meal, except you choose sandwiches. All summed up, you can choose between non-vegetarian and vegetarian. But you will have a spicy meal in any case, you can’t escape it. Then usually you get Chabati, a kind of bread, curd, which is very similiar to German butter milk and actually tastes like that. Normally,
I don't like butter milk, but due to the fact that it isn't spicy, I began to like it. The range of prizes is from 5 Rupees for a plate of rice till 35 Rupees for a non-vegetarian meal. The Indian food is really tasty, but I’m afraid, in my opinion, it is a little bit too spicy. My colleagues usually take their own food with them and share it among themselves. If I want, I can always taste their food. Some of the food looks really strange. One meal Rashmi offered me looked like a dead insect which was then boiled afterwards. Fortunately, it was no insect, and besides it was tasty. In the meanwhile, by the way, I am rid of my upset stomach which I had for the first 2 weeks. I have no problems with Indian food any more, doesn´t matter how spicy it is. A funny story occurs in the cafeteria when you want to get a drink. Coz there was a self service machine for drinks displayed. But unfortunately, it doesn’t work. So what did they make?
They have engaged a person, who is now in charge for the drinks instead of repairing the machine. Crazy, isn’t it. And now, for all who got sick of German banks, here is a great story coming up next - real customer service as it supposed to be. The company wanted me to open a bank account here. In my judgement, it would not have been necessary, coz I will only stay here for half a year, so it is not worth the trouble. But ok, if they want to, I will open a bank account, I thought. The next day then, a bank consultant of ICICI Bank came to the company. Then I had to fill out a form and sign here and there and that was it! He didn´t want to see an identity card or something like that. Incredible, isn´t it? But my astonishment
was going on, as he gave me a starter kit which included a Mastercard, PIN, some cheques and so on. So, my bank account was already opened, it just had to be matched with a person! Indian way of living is so easy. I dare say that I am rather content with my colleagues, my tasks and so on. They are all very nice and the tasks are very challenging. So, it was definitely the right decision to go to India instead of China.
coz a lot of companies discovered the Indian market and want it to conquer from Bangalore. Probably all of the most famous IT companies in the world like Oracle, Dell, IBM, Igate, Infosys, or SAP settled in Whitefield, Bangalore. Well, and my company, HCL Capital Market Services settled there as well. HCL Capital Market Services is a subsidiary of HCL Technologies, which is Indias´ biggest IT company. In former days it was called DSL Software. But when it was bought by HCL Technologies and merged completely to HCL it was renamed. When you enter HCL, nothing reminds you that you are in India. All is absolutely western oriented and sophisticated. Air conditioned and well furnished rooms with the newest equipments and cleaners wherever you look. Each department has even its own office boys, some unlearnt employees who support us. Hence, for example they make copies for us, having a look at the equipments and so on.
Labour force in India is so cheap that the company can afford to employ quite a good many of them. In the HR department we have 5 for example. A cleaner, to whom I have talked, said to me that he draws a salary of 2.400 Rupees per month, which would be about 45 Euro! So you can imagine, that I am living here like a king with my salary of 17.000 Rupees per month. I earn even more than some of my colleagues. What I forgot, by the way, the cleaners are really necessary, coz just in front of the company area, there are still dusty streets and some small “shops” on wheels. I would never buy there anything, coz you never know how hygienicly it was prepared and if it is fresh or not. So whenever a customer or employee enters the company, his shoes are dusty in any case, you can't avoid it. Unfortunately, my boss, Mr. Vadiraja, wasn’t there at my first days. But I will get acquainted with him in two weeks they said. Then he will be back from his journey. I was introduced to all the others like Rashmi, who will sit next to me for the next 6 months. Furthermore, the training team is completed by Ammeta, Dakshyani and Prathibha. In detail, my tasks for the next 6 months will be to teach employees in German language. All together, I was planed that I hold lesions for three different levels – absolute Beginners, advanced speakers and Business speakers.
But due to the fact that for level 3, the Business speakers, only 3 people enrolled, this level was cancelled. Furthermore, I will help to develop a German learning software as well as to coach the staff and attend to recruitment meetings in order to judge the applicants German skills. Lunchtime is usually at about 2 p.m.. The reason is, that we don’t start working at 8 a.m. like in Germany. Working time is from 9.30 a.m. to 18.30 p.m.. You need more than one hour to go to work. Usually I am picked up at 8.20 a.m. by the company owned transport system. Well and then due to the traffic it takes more than one hour. The traffic, especially in the morning is unimaginable. Cars and motorbikes wherever you look. Therefore, the air pollution is very high. You don’t even see the road any more. And there are no traffic rules, everybody does as he pleases. But it works, so what. The cafeteria is on the roof, which is then the fifth flour. Thus, it is very windy sometimes but nevertheless very convenient. But what can you eat there? Well, rice of course. Actually, it is part of each meal, except you choose sandwiches. All summed up, you can choose between non-vegetarian and vegetarian. But you will have a spicy meal in any case, you can’t escape it. Then usually you get Chabati, a kind of bread, curd, which is very similiar to German butter milk and actually tastes like that. Normally,
I don't like butter milk, but due to the fact that it isn't spicy, I began to like it. The range of prizes is from 5 Rupees for a plate of rice till 35 Rupees for a non-vegetarian meal. The Indian food is really tasty, but I’m afraid, in my opinion, it is a little bit too spicy. My colleagues usually take their own food with them and share it among themselves. If I want, I can always taste their food. Some of the food looks really strange. One meal Rashmi offered me looked like a dead insect which was then boiled afterwards. Fortunately, it was no insect, and besides it was tasty. In the meanwhile, by the way, I am rid of my upset stomach which I had for the first 2 weeks. I have no problems with Indian food any more, doesn´t matter how spicy it is. A funny story occurs in the cafeteria when you want to get a drink. Coz there was a self service machine for drinks displayed. But unfortunately, it doesn’t work. So what did they make?
They have engaged a person, who is now in charge for the drinks instead of repairing the machine. Crazy, isn’t it. And now, for all who got sick of German banks, here is a great story coming up next - real customer service as it supposed to be. The company wanted me to open a bank account here. In my judgement, it would not have been necessary, coz I will only stay here for half a year, so it is not worth the trouble. But ok, if they want to, I will open a bank account, I thought. The next day then, a bank consultant of ICICI Bank came to the company. Then I had to fill out a form and sign here and there and that was it! He didn´t want to see an identity card or something like that. Incredible, isn´t it? But my astonishment
was going on, as he gave me a starter kit which included a Mastercard, PIN, some cheques and so on. So, my bank account was already opened, it just had to be matched with a person! Indian way of living is so easy. I dare say that I am rather content with my colleagues, my tasks and so on. They are all very nice and the tasks are very challenging. So, it was definitely the right decision to go to India instead of China.
posted by Thorsten at 7:59 AM
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