Transportation at your service - What service??

People say “An idle brain is devil’s workshop” but I differ in my opinion over this I say “An idle brain is curios and curiosity is the mother of invention”. What two days of idle time can do to a person – I started to blog. While this idle time was the outcome of an over protective manager but it couldn’t kill the palpable sense of excitement that was brewing inside me – just for the thought of returning home after three and half months of arduous time at Gurgaon.
After four days of what I would say nonchalant time at office, I decided to work from home on Friday, the day I was planning to return to Hyderabad. I guess it was day full of drama that I can’t resist posting it here. The action hero of the drama was ‘Transportation service in gurgaon’.

I was booked on a Kingfisher flight at 2040 hrs on friday evening. In the midst of the usual ‘Thank you’ mails to all my colleagues/customer contacts, I called in for cab service at 2 PM after the usual foray with the Meru IVRS, I finally could reach the customer service agent who politely responded that they are not open for booking cabs for the evening and I would have to call after 3 PM. While I was waiting for time to kill itself, I went through the motions of packing the infinite list of things that I had bought on my wife’s insistence. Little did I realize that I was running overweight for a domestic airline carrier – for that matter I was running overweight for an international carrier as well (considering the revised baggage limits recently published by most major airlines). Half way through this, an idea was doing the rounds that I should leave some luggage for my team mate to carry on his next trip to Hyderabad. As soon as the idea was generated, it was struck off as usual by the right sided brain that I have.

I promptly called back meru at 310 pm and booked for a cab for 630 pm with the regular response that the cab confirmation will be given 30 minutes before arrival of the cab at the source. I don’t understand why the cab would be confirmed 30 minutes before the departure time – so what is the commuter supposed to do if the cab service is declined for a request that was made a good three and a half hours before the scheduled time. I think customer service has been overridden by pure ROI but be aware my friend (Meru cab) you are operating in the most service oriented business where each unhappy customer influences 12% more (some statistics read on the net).

I didn’t receive any SMS about cab confirmation by 6 PM so I called the service back for status update. I was given a response that the driver would call me in about 5 minutes time and the driver promptly did call me in 5 minutes that he was about 5 minutes away from my residence at IFFCO Chowk. IFFCO chowk is an amalgamation of 5 roads and causes huge traffic jams during peak hours – the addition to this complication was the seasonal theerth yatra by residents of haridwar who travel by foot to amaranth via Gurgaon. I couldn’t imagine that the cab that was supposed to come to my residence at 630 PM would finally arrive at 740 PM. Isn’t that plain crazy that a ½ km stretch would take 100 minutes?? That’s Gurgaon unplugged for you. In the meantime, I and my roommate called in for another local cab driver who also didn’t turn up before 745 pm once I had started on meru’s cab. We even deliberated over hiring an auto to the airport but that idea was an overkill for an auto driver to cross the Gurgaon-Delhi border to reach the airport .. See the complications.

The drama was not yet over in the least of senses. I had promised my colleagues that I will meet them at the office on my way to the airport. I called in one of my colleagues when I started but didn’t receive a response. My friend called me back when I had gone half way thru to the airport – conveying that the team had planned for a farewell gift for me and they were waiting. Thanks to the cab service that it didn’t allow me to be part of this last meet also.

What a service .. M impressed !!! I think the entire cab infrastructure in NCR is struggling in terms of customer service. I really don’t give a s**t whether they make a penny out of this business but I would really like to have all the merus, easys, quicks, greens etc on some common complaint service where such mayhem /shortcomings are highlighted and resolutions sorted out.

Oh! What a beginning

Bamboozled steps – they were as I met HR at virtusa on 26th August 2010 at 930 AM in the morning. Some extremely mixed emotions had overtaken me just for a brief while as I was being escorted to their new office in Gachibowli. I don’t think even in my wildest dreams I would have imagined that it would turn out to be such an eventful and marvelous one.

I went through the usual motions of joining formalities and the HR executives at virtusa were nothing less than professional and very helpful/cooperative in their approach. Lunch was surprisingly hosted by a quite and simple HR director in the virtusa cafeteria. I had joined this company on the most happening day wherein – the gym and library at the new campus were inaugurated and the quarterly recognition award ceremony was scheduled for the evening. After three hours of continuous clapping and appreciating some of the performers of Q1 – FY 11, I had quietly returned to my place to silently call it a day. Little did I know, that it was not to be. The same HR caught me in transit and rest is a scintillating evening that I had very unknowingly become a part of.

It was all but the most relaxed environment I had seen for a leadership team to meet. From loud ecstatic music and karaoke-ing to the wild-lachak-machak dance moves by one an all, I think this was by far the most fun-filled formal evenings I had gone through after the one at Satyam in the winter of 2001. The aura of delivery head’s story-telling to the uninhibited singing/dancing by one and all – It all had come together for me and one message was writ large that ‘TEAM SPIRIT’ was overwhelming and was overshadowing the general spirit that almost everybody was gulping. This team gelled together very well and I think in the general this team could achieve anything on earth. Not for one moment did anybody make me feel that it was my first day and suddenly I was feeling that I have been part of this whole crowd for quite some time. It had calmed the initial nerves I had when I joined them all at this languid venue. Even after four hours of continuous singing and dancing I didn’t see even one face fatigued or simply short of energy.

Kudos to delivery head – who leads by example and I am guessing or should I say I am confident that I will have a wonderful experience in this organization. Welcome to virtusa .. venu .. Best of Luck.

Did I call it a day …. Satyam Asadhyam

Even to this day, the feeling doesn’t sink in that I have called it quits to the company that I had once thought of retiring in ... No kidding – I mean it. I am sitting at my home on 20th day of August 2010, just one day after all the above happenned. I did try to laugh it off with my family but deep inside me there is and will be a thought that I have lost some part of my soul.

It all started in January 2009 when Mr. Raju whom I still revere as a charismatic visionary leader had called the worst shots of his life – what followed is history. This in turn started a different kind of spiral for all the employees of Satyam. While some had to go through the gruel cycle of layoffs and some through forced calling quits, while others were struggling to regain identity in the not-so-clear remodelled Mahindra Satyam. Even after several confidence building reiterations by senior management, I don’t think the essence of integrity/credibility to “No Layoffs” would ever be created with either the ex colleagues at Satyam or any of the lateral hires that will join satyam.

The last week for me was the most niggling as it was very hard for me to sit idle on one side and on the other the puzzled/mixed feelings I had for the new beginning I was about to embark upon. There were inquisitive questions from all old friends/colleagues and teams – some were difficult to go by but some had me pondering whether I made the right decision. Some making me realize that it was a wise decision and some poking me that they had least expected this from me for all. For all that matters is that this association with satyam that lasted close to nine years will have a special place in my heart and this will be one experience that I will remember all my life.

In all optimism, as people have rightly said ‘All good things have to come to an end’ – so has this association with the most cherishable company for me on earth. Cheers .. Signing Off – Satyam .. on all hopes that future has something even more challenging and brighter for me.

Three gruelling months...meeting my roots

It started with a request from the boss two levels above mine which eventually convinced me to go on this trip to Gurgaon from the unperturbed confines of my home in Hyderabad. Just the thought of travelling to my roots brought in excitement which knew no bounds - little did I think how drastically different the whole thing would turn out to be. I felt I jeopardized my own situation a little bit by not thinking about the inevitable misfit this place will pose itself to be. Courtesy, when excitement takes over righteousness and some of your brain cells don’t support you in the right spirit.

This city is a series of contradictions – on one side it’s a concrete jungle with skyscrapers everywhere and on the other there is no proper mode of transportation – you are talking about a place in the vicinity of our national capital – isn’t that plain outrageous or out right unacceptable. In the only mode of transportation available, you would have to share space in an auto with thirteen other human beings of different shapes, sizes and smells. And you end up getting stuffed into them in different order and shapes to say the least. Somedays are better in terms of the company you end up with in these autos - the beautiful girls in delhi. It sans thoughtfulness if I dont mention them in my first blog post.

An authentic reality in gurgaon is that even if the girls here have outnumbered the malls but the malls have beaten them in terms of the most happening entities around here. Malls have come in every tit-bit corner of the place that retail stores or the so-called kiranas/dabbas have forgotten to exist. Shall we call this "India Grooming"?? OR just that this place is running 10-15 years ahead of its time where the autowallah is still called bhaiyya rather than some modern chauffeur/cabbie.

One other thing that drives me crazy is the complete ignorance the people (literate and illiterates) of this place have towards oral cancer – they will be chewing on almost everything that they can lay hands on involving tobacco. One of the most readily available products at every nook and corner other than the paratha centers. Statistics say that Asia has one of the highest rate of oral cancer in the whole world. Not to underestimate or undermine the stink that comes along with this chewing that you want to just speak to the consumer from ten meters apart (Grrrrrrrrrr……rrrrrrrrrrrrr).

The only silver lining to this entire trip were the couple of days I had spent with childhood buddies, past neighbors and relatives in Faridabad. I just felt it was a wise decision to leave this place 27 yrs back after completing my schooling in Faridabad.