In addition to the regular office colleagues, we also have
several other staff. There is a receptionist/general office trouble-shooter,
Shifsing, general building reception (several men who sit at the table at the entry
to the building), a woman, Meena, who helps in the pantry (Becka—a chaiwalla J)—she’s very sweet and
brings us our lunches and chai and water throughout the day. There’s also two drivers
and two guys who do the cleaning. All of them are very nice and help me
practice hindi, although their English is quite good too.
(Another interesting side note: cleaning of the outside
windows was done by one of the construction guys just squatting on the ledge
outside—about a foot in width—when my boss (an American) tried to tell them to
come in as it was dangerous, to which others responded that why was he worried
as the ledge was quite large. Not quite the same safety rules here.)
Everyday our office lunch is like a potluck. People bring
their own lunches, and Meena warms them all up, and brings them out. She also
brings out dishes—plates and spoons—and then everyone just stands around and
eats together. If you didn’t bring food you can order it. And by order it I
mean that you look through various menus and tell Shifsing (receptionist) what
you want, give him money, and he takes care of it for you. People literally just eat each other’s
food. The first day I thought we were being provided lunch due to the
construction and it took a while to catch on to the potluck phenomena. So you
have to make sure to bring something you can share, but if you are too lazy to
make something you can also technically just get fed. In fact, they keep
yelling at this other new guy (intern from New York) as to why he keeps
ordering food when there is always enough for him to be fed lunch. The other
day someone had this paneer dish I really liked (yes, sisters, I’m eating
paneer!) and when I tried to find out whose it was to make sure they didn’t
mind if I ate a lot, I was told what did it matter and just to finish it. And
the owner of that lunch wasn’t even eating with us at that point!
Last thing to note—the ongoing office renovations by no
means interfered with people getting back to work or us hosting guests at the
office. Guests were just told we were renovating, and people would move around
a bit depending on the noise level or fumes (from painting/staining tables). The plans were constantly changing, and
the construction people were just told how to do things if some decided the
plans should change. We even got to vote on what people thought the main
conference room table and fixtures should look like/what should be there.
(side note of interest for NBR friends: we now eat our daily
potluck lunches in the conference room. It is both like a daily birthday lunch
(without agenda/commentary, but still with a bit of pomp and ceremony), but you
would all be horrified to see the water stains and scratches from dishes being
pushed back and forth all over the table (due to potluck sharing phenomenon).
There is also no heat (winter lasts about a month) so we
just have space heaters and mobile radiators that we move around with us. The
desk next to mine is empty (no one can replace you Nui!) so I get my radiator
all to myself J
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