My first U.S. trip - Life at Redmond!
I took a cab (I knew transportation is on Company's expense) from Seattle-Tacoma airport directly to my hotel in Redmond and reached there by late evening on 15th November and checked into my room. After finishing the much postponed ablutions all throughout the entire journey I visited a colleague of mine staying in the same hotel, Kundan, who was here for the same purpose as me but a day in advance. We went out, had dinner together and returned to hotel. After a few mails to office folks back home in India, I forced myself to bed early so i may not be plagued with jet lag the next day. It all worked as planned, and starting early morning the next day I'm all set to work in U.S time zone… normally! Series of meetings, knowledge sharing sessions with regular updates to folks back in India office followed for the first half of the week. In all those sessions that I interacted with folks in U.S, my respect for Redmond work culture just doubled. There is frankness, no information held-up (as I perceive to happen with many people back home in India) is sensed. People know and show that others inputs are valuable and that their success is interdependent with success of their associates. Little did I see anyone of the sick mind-set that 'information is wealth and with-holding it allows to exercise power', which when i reel through is unfortunately pampered heavily by some of the Indian counterparts I ran into. People feel the importance and even demand for knowing how things are changing in the environment and at the same time show a commitment to the work overall as a team they have to accomplish, without looking for excuses. That's what I'd say is a better approach towards a successful team work than anything otherwise.
Last few days of that week and the subsequent week went in to prepare for and run a series of reviews for my one pager specs and for my colleagues’ specs as well.
It's thanksgiving time in U.S and add to that Seattle snowed in November after many years, the temperatures went so low (sub-zero) on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (22nd through 24th November) that people stopped coming to work. We took a cab drop on Monday, the 22nd to office, but had to come on foot in the evening and that's when we learnt the lesson why people here dread snow so much. Roads were skidding with precipitated ice; vehicles are swaggering when the tyres run onto icy portions on the road. The next day even cab service folks threw up their hands and didn't come to pick us up, which made us 'work from hotel' (status message still remains WFH) and make the scheduled appointments into online meetings. Thanks to Lync, business got accomplished. Tuesday the promised 1 page spec review with feature team back in India finished and on Wednesday after the sun showed up in the sky close to noon I visited office in one last attempt to catch hold of anyone who could impart some more 'gyan'. Not surprisingly, building was so lonely. Weather coupled with holiday season beginning Thursday onwards was reason enough for the regular ones to remain at home on Wednesday. In the evening after waiting for 1hour we were lucky to get a cab back to hotel. I returned to hotel and packed my bags ready for an early morning check-out, as I had a flight to catch the next day morning. As a closing ceremony fete Bindu-Sivakrishna hosted a dinner (second one in a span of 7 days) which was duly followed with a game of least count where the subtle cues of Santosh tricked me fall flat. I successfully attended a conference call with India office while at their house, thanks again to Lync. End of call, end of dinner I headed back to hotel, weighed my bags and hit bed at around 00.30AM only to wake up at 4AM to get ready and head to airport. Given the snowy weather outside as well as possible delays likely owing to full body scan protests, I did not want to take chance so started early to airport and was there before 6AM for a 8.15AM flight.
Enough of work, the actual reason that prompted me to pen down a blog for my U.S trip is the affection and hospitality shown by my friends and family relatives back here in Redmond. More on those to follow in my subsequent posts!
Last few days of that week and the subsequent week went in to prepare for and run a series of reviews for my one pager specs and for my colleagues’ specs as well.
It's thanksgiving time in U.S and add to that Seattle snowed in November after many years, the temperatures went so low (sub-zero) on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (22nd through 24th November) that people stopped coming to work. We took a cab drop on Monday, the 22nd to office, but had to come on foot in the evening and that's when we learnt the lesson why people here dread snow so much. Roads were skidding with precipitated ice; vehicles are swaggering when the tyres run onto icy portions on the road. The next day even cab service folks threw up their hands and didn't come to pick us up, which made us 'work from hotel' (status message still remains WFH) and make the scheduled appointments into online meetings. Thanks to Lync, business got accomplished. Tuesday the promised 1 page spec review with feature team back in India finished and on Wednesday after the sun showed up in the sky close to noon I visited office in one last attempt to catch hold of anyone who could impart some more 'gyan'. Not surprisingly, building was so lonely. Weather coupled with holiday season beginning Thursday onwards was reason enough for the regular ones to remain at home on Wednesday. In the evening after waiting for 1hour we were lucky to get a cab back to hotel. I returned to hotel and packed my bags ready for an early morning check-out, as I had a flight to catch the next day morning. As a closing ceremony fete Bindu-Sivakrishna hosted a dinner (second one in a span of 7 days) which was duly followed with a game of least count where the subtle cues of Santosh tricked me fall flat. I successfully attended a conference call with India office while at their house, thanks again to Lync. End of call, end of dinner I headed back to hotel, weighed my bags and hit bed at around 00.30AM only to wake up at 4AM to get ready and head to airport. Given the snowy weather outside as well as possible delays likely owing to full body scan protests, I did not want to take chance so started early to airport and was there before 6AM for a 8.15AM flight.
Enough of work, the actual reason that prompted me to pen down a blog for my U.S trip is the affection and hospitality shown by my friends and family relatives back here in Redmond. More on those to follow in my subsequent posts!
posted by Jayachandra at 11:12 PM
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