1st week @ office
Day one
Got up early on Monday 6 AM. We had to catch Bus 22, we had 7 mins at the bus stop...there we were standing besides the road and seeing almost every type of car bmws, lexus, merecdez in all shapes moving at high speeds but still disciplined - following lanes... the big wall mart truck.. the list goes on...all your dream cars moving around you...Were we in some kind of a wonderland???...Pedestrians waiting for their turn to cross the roads... This is really good...back in India where you can max see 6-7 companies Honda, Maruti, Hyundai on road full of bikes, auto rickshaws and pedestrians... But one thing i did not like was that people here were wasting so much of fuel driving alone...Why is public transport not that developed here??? Pooling can save a lot of fuel... where's all this effort to go green, save fuel.. Aren't these guys doing something??? i do realize Time in Money here, still there is some scope here...ahah
There our bus came and we moved inside...we didn't even know where the bus will drop us..( We knew far sure that it will drop us near our office but where was the big question??) luckily last stop of the bus was cal train station which is 50-100 meters from our office...1 dollar and 3 quarters were the bus charges and you need to have change otherwise no chance of getting it back...We reached CalTrain station and started figuring our way to the Office...
There is these pedestrian system on all roads where you need to press the button and wait for the pedestrian walk symbol (Patent pending is their claim, i don't know what and what all can get patentable... its such a simple system...well thats how it happens now) ...You cannot cross roads even though the road is completely free. you need to take the pedestrian walking... Who cares... Is this what we do in India?? but we had to..it was our 1st time and did not want to invite any trouble...and we both finally agreed upon "Follow the rules" policy...
We were finally in A9 Office, met all the biggies who decide our projects and directions back in India...My mind started playing the song "Boss kaun hai maloom hai kya, boss kaun hai??" from the movie Jhankaar Beats... Remote inhi ke paas hai and i am serious... nothing funny here :-) It was nice to see everyone in person... Anil, Slava, Vijay, Tamar, Ilya E, Ilya L, Raja ,Syam,Yoni and the great Mihnea... Everyone in office has a separate personal cube...somehow i did not like this system, I still miss the open cubes that we have in our office...could be since my first job was amazon and we always had open cubes :-)...kisi se baat karni hai... just wave hand... checking out funny youtube videos together... bettings for cricket...hello-hi...yaha to room mein hi pade raho... ek Computer bhai hi hai... tumhare gile shikwe sunne wale... I guess thats the reason for 9-5 system working here unlike India.. socially jyada involved nahi lagate hai yaha.. Apne kaam mein mast...(could be a completely wrong 1st impression, lets see aage aage hota hai kya...)
We had our 1st big grp meeting and not sure what was going in that meeting but I carefully noted down comments from one of our favorite US senior peer (Mr Phd, lets call him for now) ... He is an idol to us and his statements are worth revisiting and full of humor and something which will always keep you pondering... as an example "If in infinite we still continue to have the same revenue what we do.. Statistically speaking its gonna be that case..." and many such great one liners.. sorry there were many such witty one liners... can't write here..confidential information hmm...
Lunch : We went to a Jordanian restaurant ?? (forgot name...names here are difficult to remember, will need to get used to this or probably my memory power is reducing... Chywanprash ke doses lena chalu karne ka samay aa gaya hai lagata :-) Recalling one of ganguly's Ad - " sona for chust sharir and chandi for tej dimag"... just kidding..This restaurant served Mediterranean food..Everything in the menu was beef...beef and beef. If something is veg it may still have egg...so one need to be very cautious, huh ... I wonder how can these people eat non veg every day... (Back in India these guys would be cribbing in a very similar way... he he) There were 3 veg options so I ordered Veg Platter which looked the best option may be because of the veg word in it)... In US restaurants you need to say "Water with NO ICE" otherwise water served will be full of ice cubes..next time u are here, remember to ask for it ...Veg platter had Hamas, Falafal... soma ghas fuss served as salad and rice... I had some rice and a bit of hamas and falafal ...Bill was 45 Dollars... + 15% Tip...Aamdani athanni kharcha rupaiyya, Itni badi tip??? I will elaborate my thoughts on tip in my next blog post...Although I and Omkar keep arguing on this front... he is fine with it.. 1st foreign cuisine, half filled stomach, kya aisa hi chalne wala hai???.. kept thinking for a while... I cant afford to lose weight now :) After all the ha ha..OKaaay..coo-ool ..Ohhh... stuff our 1st foreign lunch was over...Thank God, our office pantry is a big saver..it has lots of veggie stuff enough to get you going in the day...Breakfast aur dopahar ka chutur mutur to aaram se office ke bharose... i felt completely relaxed ki chalo agar i am not able to eat properly i can still keep eating in small intervals...
There were some old mans also having lunch together a group... they had gone for cycling somewhere...US mein BUJURG log bhi kitne active rehte hai, cycle itni badi umra mein bhi chala lete hai... definitely worth admiring...
Afternoon : Then started all the code walk through and what we gonna do..blah blah...(This is not very interesting... lets not talk about it here at least) Other than one release for which i had to do spend some time... It was a great day full of great faces all around...
2nd Day
Work started and code walk through, wikis...nothing great here.
Lunch : Our senior colleagues gave us a treat in a Chinese restaurant...Vijay one our peers in PA knows lot of veg items to eat and he's our guide, rescuer and safest bet for veg food... I don't remember what i ordered probably a veg TOFU with lots of GhasFhoos but it was good.. I liked it.. Till now both foreign cuisines were good but still difficult to get to the taste which can wholly suit my taste buds...could be more due to the fact because i prefer Indian food above anything... kaafi waste jaata hai yaar, appetite badani padegi... folks in PA go outside for lunch everyday which in a way is good i feel...This is the time when folks talk informally share their stories at home, jokes, taxes or offers they get while having their car wash from the car washer... felt good to be part of their discussion...
We played TT for an hour... looks like people rarely plays ping pong in our office...sabhi apne apne kaam mein busy...dedicated hai yaar...( i did beat omkar once or probably twice...final score though was 4-2 or 5-1 in omkar's favor, anything...does not matter.. but omkar can correct me and i am ready to update the blog...)
Aaram ki zindagi hai yaar yahan... 9 to 5 kaam aur phir ghar pe aaram... kewl
Hump Day
work as usual and some small meetings...
Lunch : This time we went to Whole foods.. Its a big super market where you will find all sort of organic healthy food to eat... Ordered a Veg sandwich..only once choice for veggies there...aside bread i was not able to eat anything... It was awful...really bad...Well thats what it gonna be here i said to myself, you cannot always play it safe and be in your comfort zones...
4th day
pretty much the same thing
We had a talk from one of HP's Director...very nice talk on Collaborative web and its dynamics..forgot the actual topic...but it was more or less revolving around it.. It was good and very informative presentation..We tried swimming... ulti thanda tha yaar paani... but sir pe to bhoot sawaar tha swimming seekhne ka.. after tasting success in wonderla, Bangalore i wanted to make sure i can swim more...thande paani me literally waat lag gayi yaar...but we did not give up...Let the fighting spirit prevail we kept saying to each other... After that we went to Sauna (Warm room) to beat the cold.
TGIF
We played american soccer in one of grounds near stanford (yup, Stanford - the great university, dream school for many students worldwide)...Our team won 5-4, i managed to crack 2 goals, can you imagine? I have rarely played football and this very day i continued playing the worst football that i had been playing till date, though quite lucky...Omkar was in the other team (loser team..he he) He made some really good moves and made 3 goals...soccer exhausted all of us and after some rest at office we left for the day back to our hotel... our legs and backs were still paining...
Got up early on Monday 6 AM. We had to catch Bus 22, we had 7 mins at the bus stop...there we were standing besides the road and seeing almost every type of car bmws, lexus, merecdez in all shapes moving at high speeds but still disciplined - following lanes... the big wall mart truck.. the list goes on...all your dream cars moving around you...Were we in some kind of a wonderland???...Pedestrians waiting for their turn to cross the roads... This is really good...back in India where you can max see 6-7 companies Honda, Maruti, Hyundai on road full of bikes, auto rickshaws and pedestrians... But one thing i did not like was that people here were wasting so much of fuel driving alone...Why is public transport not that developed here??? Pooling can save a lot of fuel... where's all this effort to go green, save fuel.. Aren't these guys doing something??? i do realize Time in Money here, still there is some scope here...ahah
There our bus came and we moved inside...we didn't even know where the bus will drop us..( We knew far sure that it will drop us near our office but where was the big question??) luckily last stop of the bus was cal train station which is 50-100 meters from our office...1 dollar and 3 quarters were the bus charges and you need to have change otherwise no chance of getting it back...We reached CalTrain station and started figuring our way to the Office...
There is these pedestrian system on all roads where you need to press the button and wait for the pedestrian walk symbol (Patent pending is their claim, i don't know what and what all can get patentable... its such a simple system...well thats how it happens now) ...You cannot cross roads even though the road is completely free. you need to take the pedestrian walking... Who cares... Is this what we do in India?? but we had to..it was our 1st time and did not want to invite any trouble...and we both finally agreed upon "Follow the rules" policy...
We were finally in A9 Office, met all the biggies who decide our projects and directions back in India...My mind started playing the song "Boss kaun hai maloom hai kya, boss kaun hai??" from the movie Jhankaar Beats... Remote inhi ke paas hai and i am serious... nothing funny here :-) It was nice to see everyone in person... Anil, Slava, Vijay, Tamar, Ilya E, Ilya L, Raja ,Syam,Yoni and the great Mihnea... Everyone in office has a separate personal cube...somehow i did not like this system, I still miss the open cubes that we have in our office...could be since my first job was amazon and we always had open cubes :-)...kisi se baat karni hai... just wave hand... checking out funny youtube videos together... bettings for cricket...hello-hi...yaha to room mein hi pade raho... ek Computer bhai hi hai... tumhare gile shikwe sunne wale... I guess thats the reason for 9-5 system working here unlike India.. socially jyada involved nahi lagate hai yaha.. Apne kaam mein mast...(could be a completely wrong 1st impression, lets see aage aage hota hai kya...)
We had our 1st big grp meeting and not sure what was going in that meeting but I carefully noted down comments from one of our favorite US senior peer (Mr Phd, lets call him for now) ... He is an idol to us and his statements are worth revisiting and full of humor and something which will always keep you pondering... as an example "If in infinite we still continue to have the same revenue what we do.. Statistically speaking its gonna be that case..." and many such great one liners.. sorry there were many such witty one liners... can't write here..confidential information hmm...
Lunch : We went to a Jordanian restaurant ?? (forgot name...names here are difficult to remember, will need to get used to this or probably my memory power is reducing... Chywanprash ke doses lena chalu karne ka samay aa gaya hai lagata :-) Recalling one of ganguly's Ad - " sona for chust sharir and chandi for tej dimag"... just kidding..This restaurant served Mediterranean food..Everything in the menu was beef...beef and beef. If something is veg it may still have egg...so one need to be very cautious, huh ... I wonder how can these people eat non veg every day... (Back in India these guys would be cribbing in a very similar way... he he) There were 3 veg options so I ordered Veg Platter which looked the best option may be because of the veg word in it)... In US restaurants you need to say "Water with NO ICE" otherwise water served will be full of ice cubes..next time u are here, remember to ask for it ...Veg platter had Hamas, Falafal... soma ghas fuss served as salad and rice... I had some rice and a bit of hamas and falafal ...Bill was 45 Dollars... + 15% Tip...Aamdani athanni kharcha rupaiyya, Itni badi tip??? I will elaborate my thoughts on tip in my next blog post...Although I and Omkar keep arguing on this front... he is fine with it.. 1st foreign cuisine, half filled stomach, kya aisa hi chalne wala hai???.. kept thinking for a while... I cant afford to lose weight now :) After all the ha ha..OKaaay..coo-ool ..Ohhh... stuff our 1st foreign lunch was over...Thank God, our office pantry is a big saver..it has lots of veggie stuff enough to get you going in the day...Breakfast aur dopahar ka chutur mutur to aaram se office ke bharose... i felt completely relaxed ki chalo agar i am not able to eat properly i can still keep eating in small intervals...
There were some old mans also having lunch together a group... they had gone for cycling somewhere...US mein BUJURG log bhi kitne active rehte hai, cycle itni badi umra mein bhi chala lete hai... definitely worth admiring...
Afternoon : Then started all the code walk through and what we gonna do..blah blah...(This is not very interesting... lets not talk about it here at least) Other than one release for which i had to do spend some time... It was a great day full of great faces all around...
2nd Day
Work started and code walk through, wikis...nothing great here.
Lunch : Our senior colleagues gave us a treat in a Chinese restaurant...Vijay one our peers in PA knows lot of veg items to eat and he's our guide, rescuer and safest bet for veg food... I don't remember what i ordered probably a veg TOFU with lots of GhasFhoos but it was good.. I liked it.. Till now both foreign cuisines were good but still difficult to get to the taste which can wholly suit my taste buds...could be more due to the fact because i prefer Indian food above anything... kaafi waste jaata hai yaar, appetite badani padegi... folks in PA go outside for lunch everyday which in a way is good i feel...This is the time when folks talk informally share their stories at home, jokes, taxes or offers they get while having their car wash from the car washer... felt good to be part of their discussion...
We played TT for an hour... looks like people rarely plays ping pong in our office...sabhi apne apne kaam mein busy...dedicated hai yaar...( i did beat omkar once or probably twice...final score though was 4-2 or 5-1 in omkar's favor, anything...does not matter.. but omkar can correct me and i am ready to update the blog...)
Aaram ki zindagi hai yaar yahan... 9 to 5 kaam aur phir ghar pe aaram... kewl
Hump Day
work as usual and some small meetings...
Lunch : This time we went to Whole foods.. Its a big super market where you will find all sort of organic healthy food to eat... Ordered a Veg sandwich..only once choice for veggies there...aside bread i was not able to eat anything... It was awful...really bad...Well thats what it gonna be here i said to myself, you cannot always play it safe and be in your comfort zones...
4th day
pretty much the same thing
We had a talk from one of HP's Director...very nice talk on Collaborative web and its dynamics..forgot the actual topic...but it was more or less revolving around it.. It was good and very informative presentation..We tried swimming... ulti thanda tha yaar paani... but sir pe to bhoot sawaar tha swimming seekhne ka.. after tasting success in wonderla, Bangalore i wanted to make sure i can swim more...thande paani me literally waat lag gayi yaar...but we did not give up...Let the fighting spirit prevail we kept saying to each other... After that we went to Sauna (Warm room) to beat the cold.
TGIF
We played american soccer in one of grounds near stanford (yup, Stanford - the great university, dream school for many students worldwide)...Our team won 5-4, i managed to crack 2 goals, can you imagine? I have rarely played football and this very day i continued playing the worst football that i had been playing till date, though quite lucky...Omkar was in the other team (loser team..he he) He made some really good moves and made 3 goals...soccer exhausted all of us and after some rest at office we left for the day back to our hotel... our legs and backs were still paining...
posted by Chandan Maloo at
11:02 PM
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