Bangalore Souvenir

Memories of Bangalore. I do love these people. I wish everyone at The Times would drop their inital bias against outsourcing (a bad thing, in general, for jobs in the U.S.) to understand that the deed is done. All the bright young people at the IBM helpdesk in Bangalore have the same goals we do. They work to do the best job possible, get the user up and working as quickly as possible, and learn as much about 7 different business units as quickly as possible. I visited for a week in mid-December to reinforce what we need and to learn what they need.

My first stop was a last lunch at Zen, one of my favorite restaurants at the Leelah Palace. Teena and Shinil joined me for lunch. I didn't know Shinil well. I'm thinking that he is not as comfortable with English as Teena is. Sort of like my niece Tara and her husband Ivan. I'm getting good at waiting for translation. Teena and I then had a massage. I had my 4th massage from Marmee. If you are ever in Bangalore and need a massage, ask for Marmee. I'm actually not an expert, but she has a very firm hand and I think my knees appreciated her work.

Do you remember the god Ramesh? He saw me at the airport and called my name. I'm so glad he did because I had the wrong phone number for him. He gave me his new number and so he was my driver for the rest of the week. I was able to give him the books I bought for his young son. Ramesh really wants him to become good with English so he can have one of these wonderful jobs that keep popping up in Bangalore. I hope he does.

Another person who remembered me was the man at Asian Arts Emporium. In fact, all the guys in the store remembered my name. I bought some requested pashmina and bought a most beautiful one for myself. It is black with amazing embroidary. Yes, the embroidary has a lot of orange in it. It is my Bangalore color.

Just look at these folks. Bill and Avinash and I traveled to many of the other newspapers, asking them what was working well and what could be improved with the Helpdesk. We thought it might be a good idea to do the same at IBM. I had 3 focus groups over two days. First was group 1, the group that has The Times in it. Teena was there to take excellent notes.

Next was group 2. Pinaki didn't take notes. But we heard a lot of very good information from them and I did take notes. The last group was supposed to be the people who are in what I call group 12. Some of the agents from group 1 have moved to group 2 so they can know everything. It's quite a task. Remember 7 different newspapers and their work flow and specialized applications. They are so valuable we couldn't spring them all. We had an ecumenical group instead.

This was such a good exercise. I learned a lot about things that aren't working as they should and roadblocks in the way for them doing the best job possible. I also meet with the supervisors/superusers. This included Avinash and Suresh, below. They were very specific about issues they are having. Poor Bill got lots of notes and suggestions. Since I am leaving The Times, it is all on him to help these things happen. I don't envy him. Even though things are improving all the time with the Helpdesk, there is a lot to do. I will just need to learn how to successfully back out of the room.

The final pleasant surprise of the trip was to find an old friend at the airport. I will just say that Gary was loping across the airport in that bright orange shirt. It was very hard not to notice him. We used to eat lunch together often in The Gallery, the executive dining room at The Times. I don't know what happened first. Either he left The Times or The Gallery was closed. Both did happen so seeing him in Bangalore was a trip.

Also a trip was getting to fly first class for the only time in my life. Bill and Harriet think it's funny that I was so impressed. But I had no expectations of ever flying first class in my life. I certainly would never pay that much to do it. It was fun. I still won't pay that much to do it again. There are too many wonderful things to do once a person gets off a plane.

Book reading goes on. I'll tell you more about that after I tell you about my last week at The Times. Another day.

Friends and Songs

I had dinner with my previous (never old) boss, Jeanne, and her husband, Bob. They are such good people. It's one of those stupid things about everyone being so busy that we don't get to see each other as often as we should. What a shame. Jeanne's niece now has twin babies. Bob's daughter is expecting her 3rd child. This is great. And all since we last talked (except for Bob's first grandchild.) I hope it will be easier once I have left The Times.
Jeanne is traveling all over the Western States, spreading her excellent Organizational Development skills. I remember when The Times was a developed organization. Once upon a time.

Doesn't mean we don't have good people who remain. Eddie on the left is one of my favorite people. Yes, he is a chocolate freak and member of the irregular chocolate tasting group - who meet irregularly, all other habits are regular. Besides that, he is brilliant at what he does. He came in as a contractor. That was good, but a waste of our money. Better to work him into an early grave at a lower cost to us. On the right is his boss, Joe. I'm pretty partial to him as well. He came from the Hartford Courant aeons ago, so we can't hold that against him anymore. Since I have seen what a pretty little town Hartford is, I don't suppose I can hold coming from Hartford against him either. He just gave me a great parting "gift" to test and return. It is a new broadband card that is interchangeable - domestic or global. Since I am leaving for India on Thursday, who better to test? It is pretty cool; but then so is Joe. I wanted him to smile, but the sneer is more natural. The smile made me laugh. I don't think that's the idea.

Peter is also a member of our chocolate tasting group. He works for Eddie. Bill is the other member of the group. Peter used to work on the helpdesk. Too few people had the opportunity to see his magnificently chiseled body when he was hiding on the phones. Now he wanders the building, managing the Windows Server group, thereby allowing all the ladies to swoon. :)

Finally, what is it about a really good novel. What makes it be so good? This is a story about Argus, North Dakota and the immigrants who settled there between the two world wars. The story is well put together. I hate books that leave you asking questions about major plot points. Not so with The Master Butchers' Singing Club. I don't think it has that apostrophy, but it should. Somewhere. Shouldn't it?

I loved these people, but I wasn't sad to have it end. It should have ended. The story was done and the final chapter was wonderful. I will say to my reading friends, "Please read this book for your own good." :) That might be overstating it. I was talking to my friend, Brent, late last week about novels and books in general. He and I used to belong to the Times Mirror Corporate book club. That's where I first started reading novels. I'd read Mysteries, Histories and Biographies before then. Boy, was I crazy. Novels can be very good things. Like this one.

The Man Who Smiled

My nephew, Mark, is engaged to the most wonderful woman, Trina. We had Thanksgiving at his house this year and we started the festivities with a toast to the couple. The wedding will be at the end of March. We are all beyond happy.

I cooked the meal with help from all friends. It was really good. We started with a magnificent hot crab dip that Natalie made. Wow. We had olives and salami and a great cheese that Karen and I found that reminded us of the cheese vendor in a market on our canal trip. I fixed Smoked Paprika/roasted pepper soup that Adrian decorated with sour cream and cilantro. Wow that was good.
The turkey was perfect. We were very lucky to have it, since I didn't think to order it early. Karen and I went to the Ferry Building farmer's market on Tuesday to gather food for the day. I don't know why I thought this great market would have my turkey without knowing I was coming. We lucked out and got an 18 lb. bird, no doubt because I looked like I was going to cry.
I made pancetta and ciabatta rosemary stuffing. And was surprised that they liked it. We had a butternut squash layered with creamed spinash; cranberry/zucchini muffins, slaw with pears and grapes, and mashed potatoes with candied shallots. Groan, moan. Dessert was pumpkin pie with ginger ice cream (or Kool Whip) and samples of wedding cake.

Thanksgiving included Trina and her mother, on the far left of the left photo. Maggie is looking over my shoulder at the book her mom made for me to celebrate my birthday this summer. It is full of great photos and thoughts from that very fun weekend. On the right you can see Maggie enjoying her dear grandmother. Karen is a great grandmother. She and Peter played with Maggie all evening. Maggie plays great by herself, but she is hard to leave to her own devices. I read one of Natalie's favorite books to Maggie. It always makes Natalie cry. I think Maggie might have been disappointed that I didn't cry. I did love having the little sweetie in my lap, but the book was about a grandmother who puts broken special things into a cupboard. All I could think about was how strange it is to take up real estate with broken stuff. The grandmother's idea is that it is just stuff. What matters is the memories of where they came from and the memories of using them. I know I have a few special things, but it's still just stuff. Maybe the grandmother had a really big house and lots of room to keep broken things.

My dear friend, Per, is a great reader. He tends to read in languages that would look like Scandanavian scratchings to me. He likes mysteries as do I. (Did you know that?) He's been recommending books about this Swedish guy. I found a Kurt Wallender book in Audible and thought I would try it. This is The Man Who Smiled, not Mark, although I like Mark much better than the guy in the title of this book. This is a series. So I think I came into the middle of it. As with most series, it doesn't matter. I like the detective. He is a little depressed, but what Swede isn't. It is a good example of the genre. And it was fun to hear Swedish names and places spoken out loud. I even heard about a guy named Per! I appear to be pronouncing it correctly. I'm just glad our Per does not have some of these other gutteral names. I may read other books by this author. But I think I will read about the Master Butcher's Singing Club next.

Oh, did I say that I am flying to India on Thursday. :)