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.