First day of work....kind of :)

My first day of work was a Tuesday. At that point, it had been about 10 weeks since I quit my last job, and I was actually quite excited to start working again, minus the whole getting up early to an alarm. Ok, not so early, 7:30, but still, earlier than I’d like to. Fortunately, there is guaranteed to be a cup of chai waiting for me in the morning, or at least once I get to work.  I’d spent the night before picking out my clothes with Ramona and deciding on my first day “good impression” outfit. Wasn’t quite sure what exactly the dress code was for my Indian office.

The office opens at 9:30am (yes!) but is in South Delhi, and I’m staying in central/NW Delhi, and the drive can take up to an hour with traffic.  I figured better to not be late, even though I have no idea if it is 9:30am sharp or 9:30 Indian time. Vishal drives me my first morning. Feels a bit like the first day of school. When we get to my office, he asks if I want him to come in with me or just drop me off. At first I tell him to just drop me off, but then we decide he should just come in to make sure I’m fine before abandoning me for the day. We head into the building and up to the third floor.

(Side note: the 3^rd floor is actually the 4th by American standards, as India is like Britain and first = ground, 2^nd = 1^st. Except in the case where you have Lower ground, upper ground and then first, which is how Ramona and Vishal’s building is, so the address reads “First Floor” or FF, but by American standards it is actually the third floor.)

So we get into my office about 9:20am…..and it is under construction and no one is there! And it’s not just because we are early. Well actually there are a bunch of construction workers and a few others (turns out they are the office staff). I am thinking that maybe I got the day wrong or the address wrong, but Vishal talks to them and one of them gives a call to Kalpana, our office manager, who says she will come soon. So good thing he just didn’t leave me there!

At about 9:40 another girl, Rimsy, shows up. It is also her first day and she didn’t have any idea about the construction or anything. Turns out she commutes by metro and that the first train is the same one I would take so we decide that Vishal doesn’t need to pick me up but Rimsy and I will take the metro and she’ll make sure I transfer correctly. She’s my age and is now my commuting buddy most days and my first real non-relative friend in India.

So Kalpana shows up about 10:30/11ish and asks us why we didn’t get the email saying to not come in until 1pm. Well turns out the announcement was sent to only staff emails (our new work emails included) and no one thought to email the new people’s personal emails. Coming from my NBR background where you aren’t given email access until you’ve been thoroughly briefed/had the fear of God & “the bad guys” instilled in you, I hadn’t set up my work account, as the email I’d received the week before had just given an overview saying we could change our passwords once we started working, and I assumed I should wait. Ha!

So Rimsy and I sit around for a while, eventually are given chai and our laptops and later after that the tech guy sets everything up so we can actually use the laptops. Renovations are still going on, and will keep going on for the next two weeks. (I’m writing this on Jan 21, and I think we might be done, but not entirely. Our desk phones were just set up on the 19^th). I ask where I should sit, and I was told to just pick a spot, where I sat for the next two weeks until renovations were far enough along that all the cubicles are set up so people can be permanently assigned a position.

I would say that about half the office showed up that day, with the full staff not being all there until the following Monday.  My first week was pretty low-key given that my boss and teammate were included in the group that didn’t show up for the first few days, although they had both let me know that would be the case. What a start!