This is an obvious question, and almost everyone who happens to be either an Indian or a US citizen who has been to India will have opinion. However, I would still like to present my thoughts around it. I have been here for close to a month and though I have primarily worked all this time I could still sense some difference which is apparent.
1. Attitude of “being USA”: - “It’s not a third world country it’s USA” so what even if every citizen has a burden of USD42000 on their head due to federal losses. The attitude is killing, they never think that they “can’t”, every possible thing in the world is do-able. Now if we come to sit and think of it, guess it’s the attitude that makes you take first few steps. We as Indians are too much worried about “My bad luck”, “My destiny”, etc. and our favorite quote being “I tried hard but couldn’t make it”. These statements are something that you would never hear in here. It’s simply a sense of feeling that I belong to the strongest country in the world.
2. Population: - Now do I even need to write in here, guess, yes. I agree we are over 1billion and USA is much less with much more area, but the point that I want to make is, here too they have queues, traffic jams, cluttered shopping areas, etc. What is remarkable is their respect of being “you” which is very different then being an “I”. In India, we just do not have respect for people. I have never understood this in my entire life, why we do not have patience? I have never understood why we can’t ride our bikes straight? Or why we have to take a U turn where there is no U Turn, why do we have to throw the garbage on roads?
I agree the USA has better facilities, not that they do not have problems, but they respect the stuff.
3. The non negotiable approach: - My AC was leaking and the person in the apartment below was facing a problem. Hence, we received a repair-man at 12am to mend the AC. The fellow came in opened the duct (kept saying sorry for disturbing but kept working!!) and used the adhesive to fix the problem, he kept trying until the problem was fixed which was in about 15 mins. He kept sorry to us during this whole duration. First of all in india, it’s impossible to find a repair-man at that hour (despite we having so many people and no money no one will come to work at that hour!!) and second if he will come in, it’s impossible that he would say sorry to you for disturbing.
Guys, before you jump to conclusions that I am favoring USA, let me tell you I have always admired the way these guys work. The admiration has reached a different level with my onsite visit, however, I would be hugely proud and happy if even we get to these levels in our life.
Moto, change the Attitude.
• India’s economy has grown much more then USA
• India has best brain and best workforce
• It’s Indians who are running most of the companies in here
• It’s Indians who are becoming rich by the day!!
While riches can be earned, attitude can’t be, it either has to be home grown or live without it.
Lufthansa and the trip to USA
When I was very young, about 8-10 yrs of age, I heard someone talk “That uncle has just returned from foreign”. My small mind did a calculation, and decided that like India, Pakistan, USA, etc, foreign is also a country. My knowledge about geography was very poor :- ). Then some more countries got added to my world but foreign remained to be a big country where if someone goes then he returns with lots of money. This foreign dilemna got sorted much later in life. :)
Life moved on, I got introduced to Lufthansa, at first, it was the name that got my attention for being different, and then as I read more, I came to know that Lufthansa is the best carrier in the world for air passengers. I made an uncertain prayer to God that if I have to ever travel, please make me board it.
One day much later, about two months back from now, my boss called me and asked me to get ready for a USA trip. I almost ran back to my desk and search for tickets on Lufthansa. They were very costly, I suffered a heart break. I kept my patience, and kept holding on to that prayer of a kid who wanted to board a Lufthansa. Then the project dates kept delaying and uncertainty kept longing on. I kept my focus on the project asking God for all the help and energy that He can grant me with.
The dates kept changing and so were the flights, it was june and continental, july and some other carriers. Finally, things started rolling very fast and I was told to board a flight in one week’s time. I got busy with lot of work. One day, I received an email from HR manager, asking me if I am ok with a certain itinerary. Since I was busy, I said to her that anything is fine. Then in a break, I went and saw the tickets, gosh!! It was with Lufthansa. I ran 3 floors and straight into the cabin of Komala (my HR manager) to check if this is true. She looked perplexed about a 30 something man behaving like a kid, but she said, yes it is and you are going to travel with Lufthansa. I couldn’t believe that something of this sort is happening with me. I called up Nidhi and told her about it, she was excited too coz she knew about my thoughts. Then in a while when the whole excitement cooled a bit, I told komala about dream of a child that came true. She was excited too and was happy.
Though I had to focus on lot of work, I let myself bask in some glory of returning back to India in a Lufthansa. Then, the day came, when I had to actually board the flight. The plane was huge, a 71 mts jumbo jet. I couldn’t stop grinning, and kept on saying hello to everyone. I was so excited that I almost forgot to read the in-flight magazine. I had heard that economy class on long haul flights is not very comfortable, but I guess, it was due to my excitement that I didn’t find it tiring or maybe it was not the case with Lufthansa.
They served me good food, good tea, etc. I tried my hands onto some red wine too. The flight was very smooth and never shook at all. It climbed up to 38000ft and for most part of the journey remained at that level. The only turbulence we encountered was when we were descending for IAD. The touch downs and take offs were very smooth and the in-flight TV kept showing the route for us.
Exciting as it might be, I was very charged up when I landed at the IAD. Quickly went through immigration checks and was on my way to my apartment. Rest is all good, thanks to God to get me a chance to fly with my dream carrier and thanks to Komala for arranging whole of this.
Life moved on, I got introduced to Lufthansa, at first, it was the name that got my attention for being different, and then as I read more, I came to know that Lufthansa is the best carrier in the world for air passengers. I made an uncertain prayer to God that if I have to ever travel, please make me board it.
One day much later, about two months back from now, my boss called me and asked me to get ready for a USA trip. I almost ran back to my desk and search for tickets on Lufthansa. They were very costly, I suffered a heart break. I kept my patience, and kept holding on to that prayer of a kid who wanted to board a Lufthansa. Then the project dates kept delaying and uncertainty kept longing on. I kept my focus on the project asking God for all the help and energy that He can grant me with.
The dates kept changing and so were the flights, it was june and continental, july and some other carriers. Finally, things started rolling very fast and I was told to board a flight in one week’s time. I got busy with lot of work. One day, I received an email from HR manager, asking me if I am ok with a certain itinerary. Since I was busy, I said to her that anything is fine. Then in a break, I went and saw the tickets, gosh!! It was with Lufthansa. I ran 3 floors and straight into the cabin of Komala (my HR manager) to check if this is true. She looked perplexed about a 30 something man behaving like a kid, but she said, yes it is and you are going to travel with Lufthansa. I couldn’t believe that something of this sort is happening with me. I called up Nidhi and told her about it, she was excited too coz she knew about my thoughts. Then in a while when the whole excitement cooled a bit, I told komala about dream of a child that came true. She was excited too and was happy.
Though I had to focus on lot of work, I let myself bask in some glory of returning back to India in a Lufthansa. Then, the day came, when I had to actually board the flight. The plane was huge, a 71 mts jumbo jet. I couldn’t stop grinning, and kept on saying hello to everyone. I was so excited that I almost forgot to read the in-flight magazine. I had heard that economy class on long haul flights is not very comfortable, but I guess, it was due to my excitement that I didn’t find it tiring or maybe it was not the case with Lufthansa.
They served me good food, good tea, etc. I tried my hands onto some red wine too. The flight was very smooth and never shook at all. It climbed up to 38000ft and for most part of the journey remained at that level. The only turbulence we encountered was when we were descending for IAD. The touch downs and take offs were very smooth and the in-flight TV kept showing the route for us.
Exciting as it might be, I was very charged up when I landed at the IAD. Quickly went through immigration checks and was on my way to my apartment. Rest is all good, thanks to God to get me a chance to fly with my dream carrier and thanks to Komala for arranging whole of this.
Idexcel or a life changing experience
It was about 11 months back when I decided to leave my most loved organization MindTree. The initial thought was to get into a better role and some more money. I used to be very frustrated in those days and kept burning my red blood cells for no reasons. This was until one fine day (read completely done bearing my frustration!!) my wife decided to help me out. The thing that was a mere hit on a website eventually turned out to be one of the better experiences in life. Hold on!! I am going to talk about that too.
So, one fine day, my lovely wifey-Nidhi, who was more bothered then me coz I was so much frustrated, decided to give my job hunting priority over her office work and used her office hours to find out a better place to work for me. What resulted was a call from a certain Mr Srinivas (he is now a very good friend!!) for a un-heard, un-seen company called E2S Corp(now called as Idexcel Inc). He wanted to know if I am interested in a bigger, better position and a new place to work for. I decided to take a shot at this; I went met few wonderful people and decided to call it quits at MT.
My first day (I still very clearly remember that day) was full of surprises for me. No formal induction, no signing of too many documents, a neatly arranged machine, a clean bottle of drinking water, a notepad and a pen was arranged for me. Felt a little good until the day progressed, for some reason I was feeling out of place. Before I could release one month had passed and it was time for collecting bigger paycheck. Worst!! It got delayed, I was nervous, I was anxious and I was very scared. But I kept it to myself. Kept saying to inner self, things are going to improve and Nidhi kept holding on to my ever increasing frustration and now depression.
The salary came, and so did peace of mind. Thereafter, there was no looking back, things started to roll. One crisis after another, long working hours, fights and fights at office start becoming a daily routine. I started wondering if that’s how the life would remain. In walked my current boss, Kannan. A man of super capability someone who comes with huge amount of patience and diligence. He started guiding me towards new learnings. I was again finding the lost focus. With him being around, I had little to worry, one of the first things that he ensured was to get our faith in the company which until then was slightly shaky.
Projects began to become a little more stable, QA started earning respect within the company and then we bagged a big project - Mexico National Id for system testing. With this project, I decided to pull myself up and try and reach to next level. I always knew that kannan was backing me up and hence that fear of failure started to become less each passing day. One thing that I realized during this whole course was that if you have some kind of a shield from fear, then you can be confident of being successful.
This project gave us a new pathway, new learning and then the biggest break for most of us. A trip to client side to USA. I would be lying if I say that the thought of going to USA wasn’t exciting, but I would also like to tell you that it was the feeling that I am going to lead a team being at US that gave me super energy to be upbeat about it.
I have always admired the way people at USA operate, they are so much more professional then us, they are so much focused towards their work and aim. This project gave me a chance to learn and see it all very closely. As I am writing this blog, I am Frankfurt airport, waiting to board my connecting flight to IAD-Washington dulles airport.
I don’t think I will ever forget what nidhi said before I departed from home. She said “one year back we were struggling to remain afloat amidst all financial/personal crisis and see today you are ready to board a flight to USA trying to get where you always wanted to be. Whole of this is changed because of Idexcel. I think we must be thankful to them”. And I said, indeed I will be and I will try to ensure that this project remains sketched to be one of the better managed projects.
Thanks Idexcel was making me reach a little closer to my dream!!.
So, one fine day, my lovely wifey-Nidhi, who was more bothered then me coz I was so much frustrated, decided to give my job hunting priority over her office work and used her office hours to find out a better place to work for me. What resulted was a call from a certain Mr Srinivas (he is now a very good friend!!) for a un-heard, un-seen company called E2S Corp(now called as Idexcel Inc). He wanted to know if I am interested in a bigger, better position and a new place to work for. I decided to take a shot at this; I went met few wonderful people and decided to call it quits at MT.
My first day (I still very clearly remember that day) was full of surprises for me. No formal induction, no signing of too many documents, a neatly arranged machine, a clean bottle of drinking water, a notepad and a pen was arranged for me. Felt a little good until the day progressed, for some reason I was feeling out of place. Before I could release one month had passed and it was time for collecting bigger paycheck. Worst!! It got delayed, I was nervous, I was anxious and I was very scared. But I kept it to myself. Kept saying to inner self, things are going to improve and Nidhi kept holding on to my ever increasing frustration and now depression.
The salary came, and so did peace of mind. Thereafter, there was no looking back, things started to roll. One crisis after another, long working hours, fights and fights at office start becoming a daily routine. I started wondering if that’s how the life would remain. In walked my current boss, Kannan. A man of super capability someone who comes with huge amount of patience and diligence. He started guiding me towards new learnings. I was again finding the lost focus. With him being around, I had little to worry, one of the first things that he ensured was to get our faith in the company which until then was slightly shaky.
Projects began to become a little more stable, QA started earning respect within the company and then we bagged a big project - Mexico National Id for system testing. With this project, I decided to pull myself up and try and reach to next level. I always knew that kannan was backing me up and hence that fear of failure started to become less each passing day. One thing that I realized during this whole course was that if you have some kind of a shield from fear, then you can be confident of being successful.
This project gave us a new pathway, new learning and then the biggest break for most of us. A trip to client side to USA. I would be lying if I say that the thought of going to USA wasn’t exciting, but I would also like to tell you that it was the feeling that I am going to lead a team being at US that gave me super energy to be upbeat about it.
I have always admired the way people at USA operate, they are so much more professional then us, they are so much focused towards their work and aim. This project gave me a chance to learn and see it all very closely. As I am writing this blog, I am Frankfurt airport, waiting to board my connecting flight to IAD-Washington dulles airport.
I don’t think I will ever forget what nidhi said before I departed from home. She said “one year back we were struggling to remain afloat amidst all financial/personal crisis and see today you are ready to board a flight to USA trying to get where you always wanted to be. Whole of this is changed because of Idexcel. I think we must be thankful to them”. And I said, indeed I will be and I will try to ensure that this project remains sketched to be one of the better managed projects.
Thanks Idexcel was making me reach a little closer to my dream!!.
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