My first shuttle bus ride....

I took the Intel shuttle bus for the first time to work today. I waited with a colleague who just joined Intel on Monday. The stop was right in front of a Fiat car store, just a short 5 minute walk from the Intel guest apartment. We were waiting along with other employees from Infosys, Cisco, Dell who also were getting picked up. We were the last ones to be picked up and the shuttle was late due to the ruckus at the main intersection. Apparently the street at the Texas Instruments main intersection had collapsed. The city had been working on it for the last two weeks. They were adding a drainage system. I used to go through this intersection on my way to the Airport Rd. office. And each morning I would watch the workers while stopped at the light. There were around 15 male and 5 female workers. The males were working underground and the females would carry the bricks or dirt to the men. They carried it on top of their heads. I have seen this many times and it looks very graceful but its ironic because the work itself is not. The ladies have very strong backs. At any given time, there would be at least 5 people at street level watching the workers below. The division of labor here is very apparent, each person only does one task to allow for more jobs to be created.

Okay, so the drive to work was not very bad at all. It took 30-40 minutes from Koramangala to Whitefield International Tech Park. The distance was something like 25 km - I am not really sure. There were not any distance signs on the way. But still I was pretty surprised that we got to work around 8:40 am. On the way to work, we take Outer Ring Rd. (kind of like a highway), on this road you can see everything, from shanty towns, multi-plex cinemas, open grassland, old business buildings, to nice, newly built apartment buildings, to international business parks, and also the construction of new business parks, etc. Next to the new buildings being built there are rows and rows of shelter made out of corrugated metal. At first I thought they were shanty towns but was later told that they are the temporary homes of the construction workers. Rather then sending them home, they stay nearby in them. I can see them walking from the shelters to the construction zone with their necessary tools. I wonder if they are allowed to go home at all and what about their families? How do they eat? What do they sleep on? I haven't been inside one and I am not sure if it will be pretty.

But anyway, the bus ride to work made me feel like I was in school. There were over 30 buses at the parking lot dropping off employees. It is a different feeling of working for a multinational company in a developing country. I can't describe it yet because it is a new feeling for me. I can't discern whether it is positive or negative yet but it is definitely new. Perhaps this is what it felt like for workers 50-60 years ago in the States? I definitely felt like I was in a time warp. Or a different dimension. Its very exciting to be a part of this emerging market. Corporate culture seems to be very new here...everyone is excited to be earning a good salary, working for a large MNC, wearing their badges, mingling with co-workers, there's so much energy and life...its so hard not to get sucked in. It is just so different and exciting!