Toto, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

So, work is good. Different—definitely different. And busy, as you can see from the distance between this blog and my last, back in February. But work is good and culturally entertaining at times. When I arrived, my firm seemed to have made the decision to go from 0 to 60 overnight and I have been reaping the rewards—like a retriever sticking his head out of a car window—of the high speed zone.

For example, during my first two days, I marveled at the fact that in the entire office—an office that houses the communications and publishing operation of a consulting firm, a venture capital fund, and an online crafts portal—there was only one land-line phone. When a call came in, the phone answerer would walk the headset and base over to the intended recipient of the call, and then that person had a conversation in front of the entire office. The open conversation format has not changed. However, on my third day, lo and behold, we all received new phones. I asked my cube neighbor if these were new phones to replace the old phones. Perhaps they had phones before I came, and were just in a holding pattern in the past few days, using only one phone? “We never had phones before,” he said.

As for our cubes, you’d be embellishing if you called it a cube. It is a cubby. About 2 ½ feet wide. Home to a computer. And a new black phone. There’s a square foot of white board on my backboard, and that’s it. Done. Here is your cubby. But, the thing I love about the set up is that everyone has a cubby. From Associate Vice President to Senior Associate to Analyst to Accountant. No hierarchy has been established based on how much real estate you have or whether your cube has a door. The message is effective: we are all here to do the work…we are the same…you are no different than I. I happen to like it. Communication is efficient. If I want to brainstorm with my team, everyone is within eight feet. No need to yell down the hall, or walk out of my office. Everyone is right here. Its close quarters like almost everything else in India, so I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s just different.

I work in Malad. It’s what I call “the Bronx of Bombay,” but only because it has a similar geographical location to Bombay as the Bronx does to Manhattan. It takes me an hour to get to work—either in a car or on a train (to those who read my train entry: my door to door travel time has turned out to be not so different by taking the train)—and we work in a medium-sized, 8-floor office building behind a mega electronics store. Our address is Palm Spring, which makes it sound beachy and oh-so-Miami, but the next part of our address is “Beside D Mart,” a reference to the mega store next door (like Walmart's little step-sister) that everyone knows.

The description of what we are next to is typical of an Indian address—there must always be a landmark. Streets are so poorly marked and buildings so rarely numbered, that highly visible temples, stores, and brands serve as guideposts for everyone—which means you can be Hindi-illiterate like me and still survive, or you can speak not so great English, like many rickshaw drivers, and still help customers get to where they need to go.

Inside our building there are wealth advisory firms, small banks, a restaurant, a film production company and a call center or two. In fact, a girl I started talking to on the street the other day asked me if I work at a call center. Anything’s possible. If this doesn’t work out, perhaps I could be the next person you hear when you call about your cell phone bill. “Hello, this is ****. My ID number is 5555555. Are you calling from your T-Mobile cell phone? Can you tell me that number madam?”

There are four young men who hang around the office in tight waisted, wide leg pants who are on hand to brew garam chai—hot, milky sweet tea. These young chaps do other things too—they run to D-Mart if you need some biscuits with your tea. When we send out a mailing, we can enlist their help sliding magazines into envelopes. But mostly, Mahesh and Sandesh and Ganesh make tea. We all receive a small teacup when we arrive, which is anywhere between 10 and 11 (the traffic in Mumbai is so horrendous that you can’t expect to get to work any faster…and India just gets to work later). Around 3 PM, we all get another one. Without even asking. The best part is, when you get to the last sip of the tea in the petite porcelain cup, there is a mound of undissolved sugar, ready and willing to be slurped up. I will miss this when I go.

But, I won’t be leaving anytime soon. The conclusion of this little diatribe is that I’m quite enjoying my work. I’m the editor of a niche magazine in a niche sector. Learning the ins and outs of a new sector keeps me engaged in my work. The work is fast-paced—and I’ve been able to meet some amazing people and go on some eye-opening field visits.

The people I work with are wonderful—endearing, no ego, hard working women and men. I am quite certainly almost the oldest person in an office of super smart 20-somethings. The work is challenging, creative and fast-paced.

And, I’m starting to actually like my commute.