Monday, August 18, 2003
Big weekend.
Let me just start off by saying how tired I am of un-time-consciousness here! I understand that traveling in a foreign country is all about learning cultural differences, but common courtesy should have no borders.
Needless to say, I didn't go on my weekend trip. J., who is one of the other Texans over here with my company, and I were supposed to meet the rest of the group (all Indians from work) at our hotel at 9:00-9:30 Saturday morning. One of the managers at work, V., had supposedly made all of the travel arrangements and booked cabins for us. J. had been out of town in New Delhi and Chennai for a couple of days for work, and he took a 5am flight back to Hyderabad to get here in time to leave on our trip. So I spent Friday night packing and sleeping, and woke up early Saturday morning to have breakfast and stuff before we left. I was down in the lobby at 9:30 with my bag, and was shortly joined by J. No one showed up. At 11:00, we tried calling V. His dad answered the phone (most unmarried - and even married - Indians live with their parents) and said he hadn't arrived back from work yet... remember, our center works the night shift. He should have been back and left already. His dad said he hadn't mentioned anything about the overnight trip, and that V. had probably been out with friends after work.
I checked with the hotel desk to see if anyone had left us a message. Nope. J. checked his email, just to see if V. or any of the others had left any notice about the trip being cancelled. Nope. I was so angry. Both of us had gone out of our way to prepare for this trip, and no one even had the courtesy to tell us it was off. This was, of course, not the first time people from work had not shown up to do something with me. I've been stood up for lunch, shopping, or drinks. But this took the cake. I can't even imagine someone back home doing something like this. Not to mention that we are from the corporate office, and that J. is the interim Area Manager for this center. It doesn't look good to do that to workmates, especially superiors.
So after I got over my frustration, I decided do to some shopping. I went with J.D., one of the TX girls, to Shilparamam Craft Village, which is right next to Hi-Tec City, where I work. It's a great place, with gardens, scupltures, and craftspeople selling their work. I had been there before, so we didn't walk through the entire complex, but I did get some trinkets for me and some gifts for the folks back home. Afterward, we stopped at the pearl shop in the hotel, which is fairly overpriced but has some great stuff. I got a really nice silver and pearl necklace, and a set of silver and garnet jewelry. I talked my way into a decent discount, as is the custom here. Did I mention that Hyderabad is the pearl capital of India? You can get pearls super cheap here.
Saturday night we had dinner with some of the Irish people, and then headed down to T2, the club in the hotel. The big sweaty Indian guy from last weekend was back, and was dancing with the girls again. I was sure to avoid eye-contact and stuff, but he still came up behind me and grabbed my waist to grind on me. I wheeled around and said "Get the fuck off of me!" and walked away. He left us alone after that.
After T2 closed down, we trekked out to Treasure Island, which is a club about 40 minutes outside of Hyderabad. We piled into a hotel car (six of us plus the driver!) and headed out into the countryside. We finally made it to TI, which was a really weird club. You have to cross a moat, walk up a couple of flights of stairs, adn then you're in a big room with a dancefloor and some tables. It's supposed to look tropical, so the roof is thatched with bamboo. They played marginally better music than T2. The big sweaty Indian guy made a comeback there (a lot of the T2 crowd goes out to TI, which stays open much later), and again he tried to grab me. So I stuck my finger in his face and said "Get the fuck off of me! I'm not kidding!" And he left us alone for a while. I got tired and sat down with one of the other girls. Some guy tried to hit on me, but in a much better way (by making conversation). Apparently there were a ton of mosquitos, because I've got about 11 huge welts on my legs and one of my arms.
After such a big night, I spent Sunday at the pool. Oops, got a sunburn. Not too bad though. I have to switch to the night shift again this week, 10:30pm to 6:30am. Yuck! I'm going to go take a nap so that I can stay up.
Let me just start off by saying how tired I am of un-time-consciousness here! I understand that traveling in a foreign country is all about learning cultural differences, but common courtesy should have no borders.
Needless to say, I didn't go on my weekend trip. J., who is one of the other Texans over here with my company, and I were supposed to meet the rest of the group (all Indians from work) at our hotel at 9:00-9:30 Saturday morning. One of the managers at work, V., had supposedly made all of the travel arrangements and booked cabins for us. J. had been out of town in New Delhi and Chennai for a couple of days for work, and he took a 5am flight back to Hyderabad to get here in time to leave on our trip. So I spent Friday night packing and sleeping, and woke up early Saturday morning to have breakfast and stuff before we left. I was down in the lobby at 9:30 with my bag, and was shortly joined by J. No one showed up. At 11:00, we tried calling V. His dad answered the phone (most unmarried - and even married - Indians live with their parents) and said he hadn't arrived back from work yet... remember, our center works the night shift. He should have been back and left already. His dad said he hadn't mentioned anything about the overnight trip, and that V. had probably been out with friends after work.
I checked with the hotel desk to see if anyone had left us a message. Nope. J. checked his email, just to see if V. or any of the others had left any notice about the trip being cancelled. Nope. I was so angry. Both of us had gone out of our way to prepare for this trip, and no one even had the courtesy to tell us it was off. This was, of course, not the first time people from work had not shown up to do something with me. I've been stood up for lunch, shopping, or drinks. But this took the cake. I can't even imagine someone back home doing something like this. Not to mention that we are from the corporate office, and that J. is the interim Area Manager for this center. It doesn't look good to do that to workmates, especially superiors.
So after I got over my frustration, I decided do to some shopping. I went with J.D., one of the TX girls, to Shilparamam Craft Village, which is right next to Hi-Tec City, where I work. It's a great place, with gardens, scupltures, and craftspeople selling their work. I had been there before, so we didn't walk through the entire complex, but I did get some trinkets for me and some gifts for the folks back home. Afterward, we stopped at the pearl shop in the hotel, which is fairly overpriced but has some great stuff. I got a really nice silver and pearl necklace, and a set of silver and garnet jewelry. I talked my way into a decent discount, as is the custom here. Did I mention that Hyderabad is the pearl capital of India? You can get pearls super cheap here.
Saturday night we had dinner with some of the Irish people, and then headed down to T2, the club in the hotel. The big sweaty Indian guy from last weekend was back, and was dancing with the girls again. I was sure to avoid eye-contact and stuff, but he still came up behind me and grabbed my waist to grind on me. I wheeled around and said "Get the fuck off of me!" and walked away. He left us alone after that.
After T2 closed down, we trekked out to Treasure Island, which is a club about 40 minutes outside of Hyderabad. We piled into a hotel car (six of us plus the driver!) and headed out into the countryside. We finally made it to TI, which was a really weird club. You have to cross a moat, walk up a couple of flights of stairs, adn then you're in a big room with a dancefloor and some tables. It's supposed to look tropical, so the roof is thatched with bamboo. They played marginally better music than T2. The big sweaty Indian guy made a comeback there (a lot of the T2 crowd goes out to TI, which stays open much later), and again he tried to grab me. So I stuck my finger in his face and said "Get the fuck off of me! I'm not kidding!" And he left us alone for a while. I got tired and sat down with one of the other girls. Some guy tried to hit on me, but in a much better way (by making conversation). Apparently there were a ton of mosquitos, because I've got about 11 huge welts on my legs and one of my arms.
After such a big night, I spent Sunday at the pool. Oops, got a sunburn. Not too bad though. I have to switch to the night shift again this week, 10:30pm to 6:30am. Yuck! I'm going to go take a nap so that I can stay up.
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