JoelBoucher.net

New Project

Yesterday, Kishen (my manager), took me to meet a few new people who I will be working with. Up until now, I have only been working on one project. And, I have been doing pretty well. So, Kishen asked me if I wanted another project to be working on concurrently with my current one. I eagerly agreed to this. This is an opportunity to see more of the company and expand what I am doing. Really, the project is very similar to what I am doing now. Although, instead of Flex, it is Silverlight. I have been told that my contributions to this project are going to be more of a user interface design, not a full coding aspect with interface design stuck in there. Although I would rather work with Flex, I am now doing both.

  I am interested to see how quickly this project progresses. I only have another three working weeks here! The time goes so fast, especially in Bangalore! As I was saying, I was told about the project yesterday (Wednesday). The guys that I met are in training for the next three days, so our first meeting is not scheduled until Monday. OK, three weeks to see what I can do for them. This is looking to be a pretty tight time line. On top of the tight schedule, Dr. Petrick is coming to Honeywell for two days next week (Wednesday and Thursday) to give an Innovation Workshop.

It should be interesting and actually nothing like that IBM commercial, but I do think it is a funny commercial.   Also, I like this video. Enough YouTube, the basic idea is ...

Honeywell teams will be introduced to various decision-making processes by Dr. Petrick, and will consider the way that individuals and teams differ in their decision-making practices, especially when considering regional and cultural differences. Participants will consider the natural tensions that exist between design, sourcing and manufacturing choices, and will identify Honeywell-specific issues for further consideration. Through group discussion and breakout sessions, participants will consider the various types of decisions they face in the innovation and new product development process; will explore the underlying motivations for these decisions; and will develop ways to identify competing priorities and balance them when making choices.

That info is from an email I received about two weeks ago, and I'm sure the main idea hasn't changed, but some things may have shifted a little bit. I will tell you more about the Innovation Workshop after it happens. Back to my short time line, this is now getting even shorter! The workshop is going to knock me down to two and half weeks of working time left. Not much time at all.  I will just have to go with it and see where it takes me.

Last night we went out to dinner with some interns from Infosys. We met Margaret at Angeethi. Going to dinner is always an adventure. Not necessarily the meal, but going there.  Don’t get me wrong; the meal was great and the company was even better!; I just want to explain the journey there first. We have become quite accustomed to leaving our hotel, standing on (or in) the road and getting a rickshaw to take us around the city. They are pretty cheap and relatively quick in traffic. Since they are small, they can drive in between cars, squeeze through tights spots, and when necessary, they are not afraid to drive on the sidewalk (or at least the thing that is supposed to be a sidewalk).

The process normally starts out with us getting to the road, hailing an auto, and trying to tell him where we want to go. Since there is no good postal system here, addresses don’t mean anything. You can’t tell the driver somewhere very specific, and don’t even try to just tell him the name of the place – it just won’t work. You have to tell him something general, like a major road name, or a landmark. And then once you get close, you can further direct him. Even if you do manage to tell him where you want to go, and he knows where it is, he might not take you. He might just drive away. If the driver doesn’t speak English, he will probably drive away. If the driver doesn’t want to take you there, he will just drive away. Yes, the driver just might not want to go that way, and he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to. I would like to see a taxi in New York City try to do something like that. There would be racial lawsuits and problems everywhere!

So far, the trend has been hailing three rickshaws to find one that will take us to where we want to go. I start our saying the street name that the place is on, like last night, it was on Museum Road and Church Street. But, the auto drivers had no clue where that intersection was, even though it was a block away from MG Road and Brigade Road (one of the bigger, more active intersections in the city). So, then we have to broaden the circle, we moved on to just saying MG Road. Well, the second rickshaw we flagged down didn’t want to go that way. So, he just drove off without saying anything. Third time is a charm; this guy said he would take us to MG Road. So, we negotiated a price and made our way to the restaurant.

Well, we finally made it, only a little bit late because we got off too far down MG Road and then had to walk a little. But, not a problem. The restaurant is made too looks like a street market and is supposed to sell street vendor style food, but a safer, more hygienic version. I have been walking down the street some days and caught a whiff of some little vendor’s stand, and it smells soo good. I have been really tempted to go get some of it. But, it would be one of the worst ideas of my life – at least from some stories I have heard. So, I have yet to try any “real” Indian food. But, the food at Angeethi was great! I really liked how the Infosys interns were really on top of what food is what.

 In my opinion, the food here basically has the same name(s), or at least the very similar words in all the names. I love eating it, I just don’t really know the difference of what I am eating. I should take some time and learn some more of the specific food names, not just the generalities. I can look at a menu and have a basic understanding of what I am going to get, but, everything looks the same to me. I also want to learn to cook some of it so I can bring India back to State College.  So Kev, Todd, and Chris, I hope you like Indian food, because that's what I'm making for dinner at the apartment now. :)

  Until then, I think I have a little cold.  I woke up this morning with a little sore throat and very congested sinuses.  Not fun.  Time to double up on my Vitamin C pills.

Professional

India

Sponsered Links