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First day in OFFICE

Well the day arrived 16 th July my start day of my first job. After a long time ( since early morning PURDUE interview Visits ) I got up at 6 am , left home by 7. Reached the office reception and introduced myself as an NCA ( New College Associate ), came the reply " please take your seat Tech Trainer will meet all the NCA's at 8:30, you are early by 30 min". On my way to the sofa met 4 desis in formal dress with tie and couple of chinkis in full arm shirts and leather shoes and 3 more female NCA's all dressed in formal staring at me wearing a round neck wrangler shirt, trendy painter blue jeans and sandals. Missed a heart beat for a sec, for the first time I looked under dressed or wrongly dressed. Not a nice way to start your first Job . To my agony saw a couple of senior staff dressed as well. 8:30 Tech Trainer dressed in suit boot guided us to the training room. All the time I was guilty of myself in jeans & T shirt, but not any one objecting it.

Tech Trainer introduced himself and asked every one to introduce themselves and what each had a view about company. PURDUE has great respect in my office, so I had my head high as I was from IUPUI under "Purdue School of Science". As the introduction began there were couple of PURDUE students. So when I said I am from Purdue, Master of Science the trainer said you guys must be knowing each other? you would have get time here.

See the way we use Purdue is like how "Yudhistra of Mahabharata used Ashwothama Mritaha". Not actually from Purdue but we dont say that we are from IUPUI. We get the degree from PURDUE though.

So I was caught in a Jinx, didn't want to spell out the bean on the first day in front all NCA's and managers. Used my sixth sense (a thread of Desigiri) both the Purdue folks were Undergrads!!!!

I said "Not really you know how big PURDUE is and there are over 40K grads & undergrads and really difficult to know most of them". One of the PURDUE folk was a desi, he probably understood what I was hiding off . Fortunately for me he kept his mouth shut. Not used getting up early and eating cereals at 6:30 am, I began feeling hungry the session started. Luckily for me the trainer said "lets meet after 10 min when the projector would be fixed, I was the first person to get up and ran towards coffee machine.

Then we were asked to switch on the computer, me being a mozilla freek /quickly installed it. It had been long time now that I hadn't checked my mail (8 hrs). So typed gmail.com , quickly I received a access violation message got really scared. Coincidently the instructor began to explain security features of my company & there were no personal emails and messengers. My heart missed a beat, no messenger got to be kidding. Then he told me "If incidentally someone does that he get a violation message", he showed what the message looked like. Guy beside me whispered "man u r really fast" sarcastically, instructor realized what was going on. I gave a fundoo ans "Know the rules of the game before you play" he was astonished. Imagine the scene in a room where every one wore formal nobody spoke a word, me in fundoo jeans giving dialogs. But the best thing was ORKUT was not blocked, since its "not personal". I have been rigorously using ORKUT before its blocked.

During the training he had a slide that my company has relaxed culture and that there was no restriction on type of clothing, I felt like I passed the test of Day. I thanked my friend had told me that companies in bay area have relaxed culture. At last I felt home.

Then we dispersed for lunch provided by the company, met a lot of Managers Directors and HR. Suddenly from behind some called me "Manish how are you ? you have lost weight and grown long hair. Did u see your cubicle 5-1-438". He was one whom I had spoken about Linux and Ubuntu during my interview. Found out that he was a Principle, Software Eng of the team I was part of. Later of I began speaking couple of other folks whom I met during the lunch at interview. One (PURDUE alumni) of whom said "Its really glad that you accepted this offer". I was like I had no other option so!!!!!! Sometimes talking too much to too many people helps. :). One of my fellow NCA came up to me & asked how did that guy know your name and cubicle ??? I said man PURDUE connection. Thats when I felt 2 years of hardwork and snow shit worked out. Later on I found out that E*TRADE has a heavy PURDUE connection.

Now I regularly( forcibly) meet, chat and discuss with PURDUE alumni. I am one now!.

Bottom line "In a yes/ no question reason for y/n is not asked".

29 th state of INDIA

I thought a good place to start my blog would be the place where most of the software companies started "the bay area", (I call it the 29th state of INDIA) which is between San Francisco (SFO) & San Jose(SJ). Cost of living increasing from San Jose to San Francisco, so most people(including me ) stay close to SJ and travel towards SFO.

Desis concentrating mostly around SJ area, where you see only Honda n Toyota in comparison to Merc, BMW, Lexus, Ferrari, Porsche etc in SFO area. The weather here varies between 55 F to 75 F (when it varies from -4 F to 100 F in some places), thats a real bonus in US, idea temperature for Desis to expand their empire. For the first time here in US I could hear children cry and yell in shopping malls ( donno why only Desi children cry ). You can see parents and senior citizens walking and shopping with small bag on their shoulder, or going for morning walk in parks. You can see the Desi attitude while they drive and shop here. Let alone the customers ,the sales person in bank, security guards in office, taxi drivers are all Desis. Its good in one way that our feel good factor increases and things go smooth and easy.

Well in Corporate offices its fun you find only Tandoori chicken (Desis) and Chili chickens (Chinkies). And wide variety of Desis, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Gujarat to Assam. And each trying to speak in their own accent, its fun thought listening to it. And here and there you will here the whar ( where ) har ( hair ) , simbly ( simply ) also you hear apadiya, enna solla, cheppu, kai zhala etc in their typical accent, all these make you feel at home. But one thing I must accept that INDIANS clean your doubts in the nicest and most simple way.

Plate meal at "saravana bhavan" and Dosa n Filter coffee "madras coffee " will make you feel heaven on earth making you feel home away from home.

Well come to my Blog

Well its been 2 years in US and had quite a bit of hilarious moments so far, so thought of spitting out through this blog.

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