Yesterday before going into the city, I visited ThoughtWorks. This is a company that I've applied to twice in the past - once in 2006, and once in 2007. In 2006, I was not in a good mood, and I quit my interview process early when I found out I had a waiting offer at Advatech Pacific. By 2007, ThoughtWorks was looking for Rails developers and they rejected my lack of experience with it. My intention was to come to Bangalore with a job through them, but obviously that didn't happen. By coincidence, their sole office in Bangalore is also located within my complex. I didn't plan it this way, this just happened to be where I found Ankit. I introduced myself at the front desk and was told to have a seat. Phani Kumar, the recruiter, came to meet me. He chatted with me in an office that was separate from the main work area. It was very pleasant to meet him, and to see the ThoughtWorks open-plan office. I subscribe to the belief that an open-plan office is hard on concentration, but besides that, this is probably one of the best companies for me to work for in all of India. I need to generate income.
Today I sent my resume. This is the second resume that I have sent out since being here.
While working on the resume in the morning, the power went out twice. The first time it was out for about thirty minutes, and the second time I was too angry to wait to see when it would come back on. I went to run errands instead.
I went back to Nokia and returned the GSM cell phone that I bought last week. I will continue to live without a cell phone.
According to Ankit and according to my receipt, returning the phone was not really acceptable. When I took the phone back, they only gave me Rs. 700, while I paid Rs. 1990 for it. They also did this "off the record" - what they actually (told me that they) do is call a vendor who sells used cell phones, and ask him what he is charging for that type of phone. They pay me cash for it and then give it to him to sell. For all I know, this will be a street vendor in the middle of the city. They explained this to me in a friendly and patient manner.
For having an Indian phone number (to give to Pizza delivery people and what not), I will depend on a landline. Shashi has one. I had completely forgotten about landlines for awhile, but now that I remembered them, it is a relief.
I accept the loss as a careless purchase. I am not sure why I was so insistent on having a cell in the first place. I think I went out and bought one just so I could feel like I was "getting something done" - as if spending money on something counts as getting something done.
In the evening, I went to meet some people from the IndiaMike website. IndiaMike is a huge forum devoted to travelers around India. Two others showed up to the "meetup" - Anita and Sidhart.
Sidhart grew up in Dehli and now works in Hydrabad, but he had done tons of traveling throughout Northern India. He had also visited Europe for a little while. He had a knack for languages, and was familiar with about a dozen of them.
Anita grew up and lived in Bangalore. She had recently taken a year off of work to spend time traveling. She comes and goes every few weeks and organizes her schedule around spending time with her family. She also works with an NGO and had good ideas about how I could get involved.
If I do spend time volunteering, it will be a terrific opportunity for me to spend some time around kids. I will regard it as my first opportunity. She also said that it would be a great way to meet other people.
The three of us chatted for about an hour and a half. Midway through our conversation, we got some drinks. I ordered a hot chocolate. Ganesh, the barista, knew me by name. I had come in the day before to ask about the place, and before I left he asked "What is your good name?"
My good name...
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