Fine

Have I ever suggested that people should eat a balanced diet? Or read a balanced library? Well, we should do both. There is nothing better than finding a gem in a genre that you don't often read. Fine Just The Way It Is is a gem. Some may know Annie Proulx from Shipping News. I wasn't a huge fan of that book; it was just okay. Others may know her as the author of Brokeback Mountain. Actually, she was the author of Wyoming Tales. Brokeback was one of the short stories in this anthology. Fine is also known as Wyoming Tales, Part 3. This, too, is a compilation of short stories. They are as varied as my reading list. A couple are about the devil. Verry funny. And there is a lot of bleak sadness, because Wyoming gets to be like that. This was a wonderful book to read between my Civil War trek.

They did it. Tribune Company decided to pull the plug on my dear friends in India. I know I should be gleeful that, for the second time, these people saw the error of their ways and in-sourced work. But they didn't. The consolidated Helpdesk is now in Orlando. I see little difference in Orlando and Bangalore. I have friends in both places. As much as I have wished that the move to India would succeed, I wish the same for Orlando. But it still doesn't put us where we were. Instead of highly competent people who know our users well and know their issues well, we have people in other time zones determining our needs. Sorry for the we and our references. It's just easier. One of the problems with the tribune company is that they are really eight newspapers. Each set up their computer systems differently. They are trying to standardize, but maybe that project should have been completed before doing this. Where is the picture of me hiding my eyes and shaking my head?

We got a Wii! I have started to do the Wii Fit module. The most fun is the step aerobics. It is supposed to help you with your rhythm. For all of you who have seen me dance, this is quite a task. I promise that I will do that every day and may someday have better rhythm. In the mean time, I will be having a lot of fun with this system. Maybe some day I won't run over 75% of the flags in the downhill skiing. When that day comes, I may actually allow other people into the room while I do this. This is a picture of the hula hoop game. I am okay at this, but you need to move in a certain way to capture a floating hula hoop. This gives you a better score. Walking and chewing gum. Swiveling and moving your body to catch a hoop. Some of us are just not co-ordinated enough to do this.

Yet

Easter with Pinaki

Pinaki is visiting The Times from IBM in India. He is alone and I know how even the most resourceful among us can miss companionship when alone away from home. We decided to meet on Sunday and go where ever he wanted. The beach. I loved to go to the beach with my brother Jeff when we were in high school, but that was a long time ago.

It was a beautiful, hot day. I'm sure it was in the high 80's, low 90's, even at the beach. Pinaki saw a volleyball game as we walked to the shore and decided to join the guys. He's very good. Much better than his team mates, in my opinion. Do you see that lunge for the ball in the top left picture? It was fun to watch him hustling out there. The sand was blistering hot, but, you know, he's from India, for heaven's sake. What's a little heat among friends?

Neither of us were dressed to go into the water, but we both rolled up our pant legs and got a taste of the Pacific. Pinaki commented on how cold it is. Bad move. I droned on about the dropoff of the continental shelf, heat retention, on and on and on. But it's true. The water at the beaches on the West Coast is cold, no matter how hot the day is.

We drove north on Pacific Coast Highway. Traffic was horrible. Pinaki needed to get back to the hotel to do some work, so I cut across one of the passes that would take us to the 101. It reminded me of the road to Ooty, very curvy. It was two lanes, so that was an improvement and it didn't have any potholes (not thanks to our mayor, I'm sure) so that was an improvement. We got to see a lot of beautiful big homes along the way. Poor Pinaki heard one too many times about the people from the Tribune who went to Bangalore and asked to see the homes where the rich people live. India has not learned how to do this conspicuous consumption stuff. Oh sure, the maharajas and that ilk had palaces. But these huge houses were much more plentiful on our ride through the mountains. The hills were green, but the houses were not "green."

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.

Did I Say I bought a Rug?

This is a little 6' x 9' silk on cotton rug. That means that silk threads are woven into a cotton woof or warp (whichever goes up.) I live in a little apartment, so this seems like wall-to-wall carpet. The carpet was shipped to my place and Adrian got to unwrap it and roll it to make sure it would lie flat and look pretty for when I got home. Re rolling it was a trip. Not a one person job.

I took the pictures when we re-rolled the carpet. I had to throw it over the couch. Where are those muscular guys from the store. I could barely lift the thing. Adrian had to help me re-roll it.


And speaking of the muscular guys - - When Bill was in India, he went shopping one day. Ramesh took him to Asian Art Emporium where I bought this rug. He told them he was from The Times or did some other secret signal, like "Peggy sent me;" because all the guys in the store said, "Oh, Peggy Norman!" My favorite salesman said that he would give Bill my special discount.


Good heavens, they are such salesmen. I told Bill that means that they raise the price by 300%. But this is the guy who made me the "offer of a lifetime." I was admiring a beautiful ruby necklace. The salesman (not mine) said it was something around $4000. No. Then I kept saying no and he got down to $3000. No. Really, I don't wear jewelry enough to warrent that. So my guy called me and said i could have it for $2000. I wonder what it was really worth. It was pretty, but Ms. Moneybags had left the room long before I got there.

My rug is beautiful. And I got such a deal.

How Was India? What's It Like to be Back?

How do you sum up 11 weeks? India was:

• Hot
• Crowded
• Absolutely opposite LA in every way
• Fascinating from a historical and cultural perspective. Also current events. This is a thriving old/new/developing country.
• Filled with gracious and beautiful people (opposite LA in most every way.)
• It was just like being at home until something typically Indian happens (house boy walks in, lights go out, hot water disappears in 3 minutes).

It was a great experience, I'm happy that I was there. I'm happy that I was there for 11 weeks so it could seem like being home. I'm happy that I'm home.

What's it like to be back?

This is weird. My job is gone. But not totally. We are in constant contact with the people in Bangalore. When they have a question, they instant message us. If it is urgent, they call us on the hot line. There are still 6 people in the office, but we will start leaving soon. It works out well. IBM is learning more every day so they won't need us as much.

I have time to work on projects, between instant messages, and see old friends. I never seemed to have time to walk around much when the phones were ringing constantly. We still have things to resolve for IBM and we have processes to put in place that will make things run smoother for both sides of the world. These are interesting. I can actually apply my whole brain to their solution. Imagine!

I had no problem with jet lag. I told Bill that I thought it was my hyper-slow metabolism. It will probably take a few weeks for it to realize I'm not in India anymore. I still have one more malaria pill to take. Do you think my body will realize I'm gone when it isn't filled with Malarone anymore?

I cooked a pork roast that we've been eating every day. Love pork and missed it in India. Adrian cooked fabulous salmon. Love salmon and missed Adrian's cooking. So the food cravings are out of the way. I don't eat much beef ever, so please don't ask if I missed it in India. I didn't. I even ate beef while there, but the beef and lamb both tasted a little off. I haven't eaten chicken and shrimp every day here like I did in India.

And so the blog changes

If you were just along for the India ride, I bid you adieu. Now you will be seeing pictures of my family, birthday party, trips across the US and miscellaneous thoughts about the future of the LA Times and Tribune Company. Thanks for joining me. It was fun to know that people all over the US were looking at our experiences in Bangalore. But I know that hearing about my personal journey to retirement won't interest anybody but me, really.

Bye, all.

And I Don't Miss You At All

Not

Every one of you holds a special place in my heart. I think I will have to call every help desk number at least once a day so I can talk to all of you so I can hear how you are doing.

Here are the four aisles of desks that seat the agents and their supervisors. Many wore Indian clothes on this day because I was wearing my new Indian shirt and pants that Ramesh's dad made for me. I wanted to say goodbye to each of them, they have all become a special part of my adventure. But I could not get one word out. They must all know how much I will miss them. I've put the rest of these pictures on the website: http://picasaweb.google.com/pnorman811

Laura and I decided to plan twin outfits for the day. This time the matching peaches was not a mistake.

I'm home. I left later Friday/early Saturday and arrived in LA at 12:36 on Saturday. Too time warpish for me. I'd like to say that I will only fly Business Class in the future. It certainly has its advantages. Price is not one of them. I guess I will have to remember that the trip is not the journey.

This trip and this journey were both fun and educational. Please stay tuned, however. The adventure of leaving The Times is just beginning. I have 4 more months before I actually leave. Tomorrow I get to see what has happened to The Times while I've been gone.

Another group of people that I don't miss at all are the friends who left during the recent buy-outs and terminations. It's happened before, we should get used to it, but each parting hurts. I was supposed to leave before these people left. I hope they all have interesting futures like I am planning for myself.

Stay tuned.

We Didn't Plan This

We didn't plan a lot of things. That it would take more than 11 weeks to get our team working 24 X 7, for example. An interesting thing is that we currently aren't open every second of the week. The LAT team is pretty much covering the hours that we are open in LA at 100% of calls. I can't wait to see what the folks in LA are doing now. I'm thinking they are still pretty busy.

One reason that the LAT team is feeling fairly confident is that they have great help in LA just a phone call away. Whenever they have a question, they are chatting. This almost takes the place of having a Fred on the other side of the partition from you (see several earlier posts for Fred references.) The guys in LA are fantastic. They do everything they can to help the team in India get better. We all have an immense loyalty to the people at The Times. It's important to make this work well.

LAT has merged with the team that handles 4 east coast Business Units. None of these are sending us a lot of calls, so they are able to handle the work load. One of the BU wants to go 24 x 7, but the other 4 aren't ready. I don't know how they will work that one with the limited staff and small number of supervisors. We don't want to let a BU down, so all effort will be made to do that.

Team 2 keeps improving. They are working hard to keep their 4 BU happy as they continue to learn. It's tough.

Another thing that wasn't planned was that Laura and I would be wearing the sameish outfit yesterday. She lives in 901 - 9th floor - and I live in 406 - 4th floor. Imagine my surprise when she showed up in uniform. We were going shopping, I wanted to exchange a little string of sapphires that no one could see on my big body for something more noticeable. She wanted to make undisclosed purchases for people who never will read this blog. We spent the whole day explaining that this was not planned. Ramesh was pretty amused.

What is planned is my departure. Nahum beat me in getting his suitcase packed almost a week early and just keeping out a few things that got stowed away each day after wearing them to work. I had trouble believing that all my stuff would fit into my big bag, my carry-onish bag and my green Book Awards book bag. Chandan was going to lend me a suitcase. So I had to pack all but a couple of things just to see if things would fit. They do! I'm giving away food and booze to those who will accept such things. All chocolate has been consumed by me and the folks at IBM.

Ramesh's dad finished my clothes. I'm wearing one thing today. I've asked that all the women in the group wear their pretty clothes today so I can take pictures of what has inspired me to try Indian clothes. I'm wearing it now. It is very comfortable. It's not as sparkly as theirs, but that isn't really me, anyway.

Look for pictures tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Adrian

Saturday was Adrian's birthday. He had disconnected Gtalk, so I didn't get to talk with him that day. That was sad, but we had the party anyway. I invited all the supervisors and their spouses to the apartment for dinner and cake. I hope everyone had a good time, I sure did. You know how I love to cook.

I've been complaining about the grocery stores in town. Chandan had directed us to one called Monday Through Sunday. I guess the name All Week was taken. There was a problem with the store the first time I was there, something smelly was broken and I was pretty disgusted with it. We went back Saturday morning and it was fresh and clean. Got lots of good stuff for the party. Ramesh directed us to a bakery for the cake. We filled in some empty spots at the little store in the complex.

The picture at the top shows me cutting the cake. There is a tradition in India of rubbing uneaten cake into the face of the celebrant. Barring that, they said the person cutting the cake would do. Don't know if you can see the knife I'm cutting with, but it is formidable. Nobody would consider coming close to me to do any rubbing.

The group, from the left is Avinash and his wife, Sowmya hiding behind him; Suresh; Teena and her husband; Pinaki and his wife, Daisy; and Rishi. Zuber didn't come and Vijay had to drive his dad to Kerala. The best food of the night was a mango and shrimp salad. I got the recipe from The Times this week. I was thinking it would be veg if I put the shrimp on the side. It had fish sauce in it, however, and that took it off the veg list. Adrian loves fish sauce, so I couldn't resist.

Santhos helped me cook again. So did Laura (that's a picture of her next to me while I cut the cake.) We had a lot of fun. As always, it took longer to make than to eat. As always, I made enough for a small army. Maybe I'll understand kilos by the time I leave. I bought two kilos each of chicken and shrimp. Who knew that was over 4 pounds?

Laura and I went to the Leela for my last brunch there. Good as ever. Then I got my last massage. Laura had never had one before. Neither had I before I came to Bangalore. Now I think they are required for healthy living.

Santhos had washed all the dished before he left last night. We had borrowed half of Laura's apartment for the party. Deepak (now her houseboy) hates for us to share stuff. He speaks only a few words of English, so he didn't understand when I told him that I was paying for 3 apartments and to leave me along while I borrowed stuff. By the time we got back from the Leela, all Laura's stuff was back in her apartment and Santhos was ironing my pants in a spotless kitchen.

I've started packing, seeing if all my purchases and my clothes can co-exist in the luggage I brought. I think I'll be okay. The big purchase, the rug, was shipped and is now rolled up at home, waiting for me to show Adrian the magic of the "look at this carpet" flip. I may have to move the furniture to do that. Hope I don't seem too excited about leaving Bangalore. It's been great here, but I'm pretty excited about seeing both my families - home and work.

5 more days. And counting.

They Are Almost Gone

"What kind of Malaria pills are you taking? Do you have to take them every day? Do they give you nightmares? Do they upset your stomach? Do I have to take them?"

Welcome to India. These are the first questions of every traveler as they get off the airplane. Malaria pills are a big topic. We were all quite envious of Nahum. He only took one every Monday. I guess men have stronger immune systems. We ladies have to take one a day and the pills do make you sleep poorly and, if not taken at the right time, can upset your stomach. Do I have the answer to the last question? No. If I were a doctor, I would be writing a blog complaining about Medicare.

When I got here, this bottle was filled to the brim. At two dollars a pill, that is an expensive brim. We are down to the bottom of the container. I have to take the pills seven days after take off from Bangalore International. I must be going home soon.

Going Native

Purely Personal

As you know if you've been reading, I find the women of India stunning. They wear the most beautiful clothes, regardless of their station in life. I am toddling around in my practical Land's End gear, looking like the Pasadena matron that I am. I've been dreaming of wearing my own shirt, pant, scarf outfit that the women at IBM wear. And we all know that I bought a sari on my second day in India. You need stuff to wear underneath this diaphonous 6 yards of cloth.

Ramesh's dad is a tailor. Ramesh was a tailor too until he spiffed up his English and started driving. I thought I'd be losing weight hand over fist and would be a waif by the end of the trip. Always dreaming. So I waited until the end of my stay to have the dad make me stuff to wear under my sari and a pants outfit. Based on current weight loss, we could have done this weeks ago.

The father and son visited my apartment yesterday. We decided what exactly I wanted and needed and I got measured. Ramesh's father is very nice and, as you can see, looks very much like his son. My new favorite color is orange, so the pants outfit is solid pale orange. I'm sure I will look like a pumpkin, but we shall see. I may need to find a different scarf when all is said and done. We are having a fitting on Monday. I think I will ask to have all the women of IBM wear their prettiest outfits next Wednesday so I can create a photo album to show you exactly what I've been admiring for 10 weeks. I've been admiring the men, too, but for their brains and good presence on the phone, not their tee shirts and jeans.

Business

The IBM team is doing very well. I've asked to have them receive 100% of all calls between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. on weekdays. It's a go. Those people who have been hanging up and hoping to get someone in the US can talk to their neighbor from now on. These guys in India aren't perfect, but are getting better every day. There are so many little things that come up that one has never heard of before, it's difficult to be spot on each time. But remember, they are very collaborative. As they find the solution, others learn. We also have links to the people in LA so we can ask for their assistance in seconds.

For example, there was an issue last week about how to find a seat license for Mac users who are installing VPN (remote access) software. I know, this means nothing to many of you. Think of how it sounds to a person who is responsible for coming up with an answer and doesn't have it. I reviewed the solution with the group. We got a call soon after needing the same information. The gang knew what to do this time and resolved the issue in moment. An actual Editorial person was actually pleased. And wrote a very nice note.

This is the trend. More nice notes, fewer disgruntled clients.

Travelers

Nancy is leaving tonight. But, ssshhhhh, don't tell her. On the drive home last night, I reminded her that she needed to be packed and ready to go when we drive in to work at 4:30 p.m. Thursday. She was stunned that she was leaving. Even though we have discussed this before, it was news to her. A difficulty with our coming and going is that the airplane usually arrives at 11:55 p.m. and leaves at 1:55 a.m. It's the same airplane, gassed up and ready to fly. So the plane leaves on Friday, but we tend to kick people out of the car at 11:30 on Thursday. Got it? I can't wait to see what happens today at 4:30 p.m. Expecting Chaos, praying for full bags and a cleaned out apartment.

I leave next Friday night. Laura got a flight that stops in New Delhi instead of Frankfort, Germany. Since the first leg of the flight is domestic, she will be leaving during the day on Saturday. I'll be leaving her my local phone so she can keep in contact with Ramesh at all times. She will be giving the phone to Ramesh when she leaves. I don't know what he'll do with it, but he was very pleased at the prospect.

I'm getting very excited about leaving. We discussed 11 weeks being a long time. But it's just time and it passes. I'd be just as excited if I'd only been here 3 weeks. Transitions are what is exciting. I am so looking forward to the next one. Who knows what being in LA at The Times without my old duties will look like? Will I actually have time to walk around the building and visit people, see how they're experiencing the new HelpDesk? Who knows? Pretty exciting stuff, no?

Coorg or Bust?

I've been wanting to go to Coorg since I came here. It is written about as an idealic, green slice of heaven - the Scotland of India. Chandan has been listening to this desire and we decided that we would go when his girlfriend came to town. Laura and Nancy agreed to go as well. And here is the foretelling statement - we were not able to get a room on-line, so asked Naveen, Ramesh's boss if he could find one. He said not to worry.

We set off earlyish Saturday morning. It's never the time that the driver would like, but it was early enough for us. The road we took is the old familiar road to Mysore. The turn off to Coorg comes just before Mysore. Ramesh had said the road was being repaired 6 months ago when he was last there. I'm sure he was right because it it still being worked on. In some places it was 60 mph to be stopped short quickly at a dirt road that merged into another speedy place. It just kept us all awake.

Our first stop was at the Golden Temple, a Buddhist temple. This and the surrounding area is the home of many Tibetan refugees. The monks were so colorful in maroon and beige-gold robes. We were also treated to the drums and horn playing that calls the monks to their prayers and mantras. It was very exciting to hear. The Temple was beautiful. It was amazing to see this totally diverse community in the middle of Karnataka. It was like having Chow Young Fat wandering around. These are very striking people.

Our driver was supposed to take us to a cultural event. But he suggested the elephant park instead. Chandan wanted to see the elephants. He had a vision of a wild animal park where the elephants roam fairly freely. I felt bad that he didn't get to share that experience with us. Instead, we were in a bamboo forest with two poor elephants being prodded into walking a short circle. I knew I wasn't going to get on top of any elephant. I'm too stiff and un-sure-footed. So I found this little elephant statue and climbed on board. Even that maneuver had my friends gasping for fear I'd end up head over tea kettle. I got on and give my best Yippie-ki-yi-yo whoop. A proud moment for all old ladies everywhere.

Nancy was more bold. She actually got up on the elephant. The trip was ruined for her, however, because all she could think of was "poor elephant." She feed the elephant 5 cucumbers when she got off the thing. That was the most fun for her. She is a pretty agile woman. She hopped down on to and up off of that elephant without a thought. I saw a lot of Indian's struggling to adjust themselves, but Nancy was all over the thing is seconds.
Despite Chandan's dismay, we had a good time there. Laura danced her way across a swinging bridge (fear drove her to scamper.) Chandan and Divya took pictures with Nancy's camera and chatted with us. They are such a nice couple. I would never ask Divya how old she is, but Chandan is younger than Adrian. He told Divya that he called me Mom. Mother hen, more like it. That has become the joke throughout the whole trip. One waiter stuttered on "Ma'am" and called me Ma'am Ma'am, which sounded like Mama. That was too much.

Have you guessed yet that we didn't find a room in Coorg? The driver and Chandan tried valiantly to find a place, but we had to go back to Mysore and stay in some dirty 2 star hotel that was found for us at the last minute. In the meantime, we were literally kidnapped and taken to a local Bollywood send up. Lots of people singing and dancing and making funny faces. It was all in Kannada, the local language. This was the cultural event that Naveen was determined to have us enjoy. Okay for 10 minutes amusement, but you know those Bollywood movies are 3 hours long. We left after 10 minutes and drove down the hill to Mysore in the dark. Got to the hotel at 11:00 at night.

I've been to Mysore 2 other times and have never seen the Palace. This time we did. I made it almost all the way through this beautiful building. Sweat was pouring down my back and I was afraid to lean on anything for fear of leaving a puddle. We left before we went up the long staircase to the dancing rooms. Our guide was so informative. We had a good time in there. You can see how pretty it is there. Isn't this a gorgeous bevy of beauties?

When Harriet, Harold and I were in Mysore 9 weeks earlier, we wanted to go up Chamundi Hill to see a panoramic view of the area. That day they had a "political protest" on the hill. Lots of police, lots of protesters. I finally got up the hill on Sunday. It was a pretty drive. There is a Hindu temple at the top of the hill. We didn't remove our shoes and walk through. We took plenty of pictures from the overlook, but Nancy and Laura both had their picture taken with a reclining cow at the temple. One of the sounds of this trip since Nancy arrived is "cow, cow, cow at 9:00." She is fascinated with all things cow. Divya and Chandan were in the back of the van this weekend. Divya often got Nancy's camera to try to get the one last shot of the cow. I think Nancy finally has photographed every cow in Bangalore and the road to Mysore.

We went back to the palace that night to get a picture or 100 of the palace lit up. This is what KJ and I wanted to see when we visited on our trip to Ooty. We just had gone to a hotel for a drink and then decided to drive by the palace on our way to dinner. There are more photos of everything: Palace, hill, temples, friends, on this website: http://www.picasaweb.google.com/pnorman811 . The palace is lit only on Sunday from 7:00 - 8:00. We timed this perfectly. Our driver was getting used to our unique style of traveling (changing our minds every two minutes.) It allowed us to see a lot during the weekend.

And now we are back "home", ready to go back to work. Divya is on her way to the airport to return to New Delhi and work. After all we did, it seemed like I had known her for a very long time. An all around excellent weekend.

June, It's June

"Fresh and alive and gay and young, June is a love song sweetly sung.
June is busting out all oooooooooooover." Love those show tunes. That one is from Carousel.

The week has been mostly work. We have moved the LAT people up to taking 75% of all Times' calls. It is a good thing. On Thursday, we only had 2 people on the helpdesk in LA. Gernard needed some personal time off. Dean's back would only allow him to crawl. That left Clif and Cynthia. As it was, we still rely on them to take care of some things we can't. Even when we are taking all calls in India, we won't have the ability here to correct some problems. When I get back home in two weeks, we can finalize exactly how this help will be offered.

The Newsday people are starting to take LA calls under the watchful eye of the LA people. I don't think they got many. Yesterday and today is the last day for many people at The Times. Right Sizing. Re-engineering. Gleefully dancing off the shipping. I still have 5 months. But I digress. I don't know what the IBM guys have in store for the LA team to learn the Newsday team material. Actually, they have had several classes, but have taken no calls. I know the clever folk of Bangalore will figure it out. They want to move to a 24 x 7 schedule for these two teams combined, but the US team wants more experience on both sides before they let that happen.

We are planning an excursion this weekend. We're finally going to Coorg. This is another hill town, but this time they grow coffee instead of the tea grown in Ooty. And honey. We don't get Ramesh this time because we have lots of people in the group. Nancy and Laura, of course, and Chandan with his girlfriend, Divya. Ramesh's boss has arranged an outing for us on Saturday night to go to a place that features local dancing and singing. Can't wait to write what that is about. Then on Sunday we go to Mysore and I may FINALLY get to see the lights on the palace.

Ramesh says I won't be able to do it. I told him I am fitter and can walk further. But he says I will have to cross a street, two of them. I'm still petrified of the traffic here. We will see how brave I get. Nancy has crossed the busy street in front of the Forum. I'm not sure if she is brave or crazy. I've asked her not to do that anymore. So has her relatives. The traffic is bad, but the sidewalks in Bangalore are trecherous.

If KJ and Sophie are still reading this blog, I want you to know that Nancy locked herself out on her balcony. I was in the apartment so it wasn't tragic. But really, ladies! This is getting old.

Dinner Party and New Arrival

Those who know me well know that I love to cook. I don't know why it has taken me eight weeks to invite people over for a party. I invited Chandan, Avinash and his wife Sowmya, and belatedly, Suresh, to dinner on Saturday. I had great plans to travel all over town getting what I wanted to cook, but decided to try to make a meal from what I have in my cupboard and what I could buy from the FabMall in the apartment complex.

I had such a surprise when I started to cook. The new houseboy I have here on the 4th floor saw me smashing garlic as I started to cook. I was making a chicken dish and had already brined the chicken. Adrian taught me that chicken always tastes better if you start by brining (soaking in salted water.) Since I wasn't sure of the quality of the chicken, this sounded like a great idea.

Anyway, Santhos, the houseboy, asked if he could help me peel the garlic. OK. Then he looked at me and said, "Onions?" Of course. So as I browned the chicken, Santhos cut onions for the chicken, then peeled and cut cucumbers, washed tomatoes in bottled water then sliced those, peeled and cut carrots into thin slices. That was salad, beautifully arranged on a plate. Then he cut cantaloupe and seeded it. He did put that in the freezer, so we had beautiful blocks of flavor. He seeded a pomegranate and put the seeds over the frozen cantaloupe.

I added dried fruit and chicken bouillon (from Per) and green olives and vermouth to the chicken and let it simmer for a long time. I sauteed shrimp, or rather Santhos did, and then I added pesto from Per and that was the appetizer. The rest of the meal was basmati rice that I cooked and two veg dishes that I got in packets at the store for the vegetarian Sowmya.

Yes, too much food and it was wonderful. The food was good, but the feeling of preparing it and working in such harmony with Santhos was wonderful. He came back when we were done eating and cleaned up. Then he prepared the dessert, mangos with vanilla ice cream. Chandan manned the bar. I didn't have to move much and as the evening went on, I couldn't. Avinash brought an excellent red wine from India. So there was plenty of reason to be immobile.

I did help Santos put things away, but he never let me clean. That is his job. Sauteeing chicken is such a messy business without a splatter screen. When I started to clean up when I was done with that, he told me that was his job. OK.

The next day we picked up Laura from Chicago from the airport. She had taken a long flight from Chicago to New Delhi, stayed 12 hours in Delhi (we had convinced her to go to a hotel, too long in that little airport) and then flew a domestic airline to Bangalore. For someone who hates to fly, that was an exhausting trip.

We got her at 9:30 and then went to the Leela Palace for brunch, as we like to do for new comers. I've become so tired of Citrus, even its excellent brunch, we went to brunch at Zen. They bring sate' to your table - lamb, chicken and shrimp on skewers. They brought dim sum and tempura shrimp and vegetables. The buffet was filled with sushi and marinated vegetables. It was fabulous. I think that will be the last of the Leela. But it was a great last hurrah. After brunch, Laura and Nancy went back to the apartment and I stayed to have a massage. Teena joined me for a facial. It was great. We all got to meet Teena's husband. I liked him in their wedding picture. He is better in person. Maybe we will get to meet and talk for longer than 2 minutes sometime.

Busy weekend. Fortunately, we took Monday off for Memorial Day. The ladies came over for tea and cookies (Nancy brought them to the party from a shop at The Forum. Really good.) It was a quiet day. A good day for memories.

Sorry, I'm Going to be Late Today

We are experiencing pre-monsoon weather or peri-monsoonal weather as we older women would call it. We left the apartment yesterday in thick air. In the car, I told Ramesh in an ominous tone that it would be raining somewhere in Bangalore today. He smiled and said, "no, it is raining somewhere in Bangalore right now." We laughed because he had done this Jedi thing before. Then, lo and grow old, it started to pour just a few minutes later. Pfoummm, all the water in the sky dropped. And a cow came ambling down the road. She was sort of aiming our way, oblivious to the rain. Had it been me, she would have been steak the next day. But Ramesh is a much better driver than me.

So on the way in, I kept imaging the phone call to work. "So sorry, I won't be in today. Ran into a cow when a monsoon hit." Only in India.

Then I asked Ramesh if he would drive us through the gates at IBM and into the compound, rather than have us trudge through mud and cascading rain. He agreed kind of quietly. I thought he didn't want to wait in the long line to get in through the gate. But he knew. Somewhere in Bangalore it was not raining. Like at IBM. Only in India.

Another Sad Goodbye

Nahum is leaving tonight. He has been such a productive member of our team, I will hate to see him leave. When he arrived, the group was just starting to take mock calls. He saw that they weren't using their tools correctly, so he spent a lot of time working with them and drilling them on how to use their Tribune tools. This has helped considerably. Group 2 has it very tough. They have two very demanding groups, Chicago and Orlando, and two less demanding groups, Sun Sentinel and Daily Press. There is a lot to know and remember. KJ always stressed using their reference material for Orlando and Nahum has done the same for Chicago. Please have patience, folks in those cities, they will get there, given a lot of calls and time. It will be easier for them because Nahum cared so much and worked so hard to get them started on the right path.

Sophie and Nahum will always be the eaters in my experience in India. The fact that they were picky eaters is beside the point. They didn't seem to like to eat at the apartment. That's where I'd rather be, but we tend to stick together. Now that Sophie has gone, we've eaten out less, but still more than my body needs. I did take Nahum and Nancy to the Blue Ginger on Tuesday. This was one of Harriet's favorite places and the place where KJ learned to eat with chopsticks. It serves Vietnamese food and looks like a cabana. It has a high roof and open sides. I ate my obligatory scallops and a mango salad. Nahum had lamb chops and shrimp fried rice. Nancy had a delicious chicken and noodles soup and a chicken dish. The food was great, but the fun was the monsoon. It started to rain, then lightning and thunder, then the skies opened and dumped water. You can't call it rain. It's like the shower I've been dreaming of. Hummm. Next time, I'm taking the shampoo outside and finally getting my hair really clean.

We got there before a drop of rain fell. This gave us time to admire their gardens and start our lunch. Then the heavens opened. Holy cow! You can see them lowering the plastic curtains to keep out the rain. Anyway, the plastic kept the rain out and the whole thing stopped just as we were leaving. This is some resaturant. They even provide a floor show.

Goodbye Hello

It isn't that interesting things aren't happening every day. They are. When KJ was here, we would check each other's blogs every morning. I had to get my thoughts up quick or my Karens (Jennings and Campbell) would be asking what happened. Then Nahum and Sophie came and KJ left. These two aren't bloggers. They are eaters. We were constantly out in the afternoon looking for food that they would eat. Nahum isn't as picky, but Sophie is pickiness champ. That took a lot of our time and energy and isn't very interesting to blog about.

On the work side of life:

The LA team is constantly improving and feeling more confident. Harriet came up with the brilliant idea to ask for phone number instead of name. Most times the phone number in our ticketing system is right. If you put a %last 4 number (%2591) you will get just a few listings and you can find the person very quickly. Brava, Harriet. This saves so much time in getting to the right person. We are making sure that all teams do this. We have had such complaints about this part of the call taking forever. But we have been able to cut down our average time per call from 11 minutes to 5 minutes. This will make for much happier callers. Well, that's a little optimistic, but that should be happier.

They should also be happier because I don't ever remember seeing a more collaborative group. They know they don't know as much as old-timers do, so they pore/pour (they both seem right to me) through every reference document they can find. Poor Ratish has been scouring the Right Answers knowledge base through TechLynx. He found that users could have a lot of profiles in Outlook. He came over to me and asked why someone would do that. How the helk would I know? People do weird things. But he was just interested and really wanted to know. Poor Ratish, he went away with just that type of answer.

We had one call from Duke Helfand, an education writer, asking about an Outlook issue. There were 5 people researching every aspect of the problem. It's sometimes difficult to get to the whole answer because you don't know the chain of events that lead up to the problem. But they were looking at every resource and trying all solutions to come up with a good answer for Duke. The folks in LA have experiences that they can rely on to give them quick answers. The folks in Bangalore will get that experience over time, but they have a great team to rely on.

On the traveler side of life:

Sophie left last Saturday early in the morning. Just before she left, Nancy Carey joined us from Newsday. The Newsday team was very happy to see her. Other than a delightful but brief visit from Rob, they haven't seen any of the people they support. So Nancy has been a welcome addition. Nahum and I took her down to the local food store and pool area at the apartments. There are a lot of families here. They have a children's playground, a basketball court and swimming pool by the store. The pool looks so inviting. I don't wear bathing suits for good reason, but I am so tempted to slip in one night in my tank top and shorts. Very late when no one is around. The big lock on the gate was pointed out to me. Nahum said I could climb the wall. Funny guy. I'm just now getting better at stairs!

We have cut back on our searching for food and have just gone out to restaurants a couple of times. We went to Citrus at the Sophie, er, Leela Palace for their Sunday brunch. I have to say that going there so often has completely taken the shine off that place for me. We enjoyed it, but I may try something a little different for Laura's first weekend. Nahum, Nancy and I had found a good Indian place in the Forum Mall around the corner. That was really fun. We got into a three wheeler and went around the block. Nancy is very game for this type of adventure. It was just her first day here. What a trooper! Nahum had wanted to go to a movie, but the show was sold out. Spiderman III. Someone up there was answering my prayers. So we went to this Indian place instead.

It was modeled after a train's dining car in the old Raj days. Totally beautiful. And very inexpensive. We all enjoyed our food. It was prepared and presented beautifully. And my camera was at home. Sorry, Lynda. We tried to negotiate our normal price for going home and the drivers all said no, there was no place to turn around. Who knew that Bangalore was such a hopping place on Saturday night? Not me, even after 7 weeks. We met 3 of the guys from the Chicago team and they negotiated a 30 rupee drive. Then we kept going on forever because, you guessed it, there was no place to turn around. I gave him 50, which is what the first driver said. Considering how much money I've spent here, you'd think I wouldn't fight over 50 cents. Shame on me.

I did have my camera for our trip to Sunny's. Nahum is counting down the days until he leaves. We are visiting some of his and Sophie's old haunts. This was a real favorite. He got his lamb chops, Nancy got a delicious looking pizza and I got tempura vegetables and shrimp. A little eclectic, non? Nancy took the pizza to work. It was huge.

Nancy is having problems with the wifi in her room. None of us remember KJ having this issue. However, it just came to me that she connected directly to her laptop from the modem a lot of the time. I hope that solves the problem. It is hard to be without connectivity when you are so far from home. And she is having problems with the phone and no clock. Talk about being adrift! Actually, it sounds like my first week. Except I have a Blackberry that has a clock and instant email access. Rob and I were in touch throughout the early part of his visit, thanks to our Blackberrys. I don't know how one can survive on a business trip without one.

I'm having problems downloading pictures after that first one. Maybe another day you can see the great picture I took of Nancy and Nahum. I should ask the LAT team why this is happening. There would be 10 bodies all over this laptop.

Go Live Party

We had a party on Monday to celebrate LA going live. We've been live for a week, but on Monday we started taking calls from 8:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night. We take 30% of all calls. I think Chandan almost had a heart attack when I said we should take 100% of the calls. We're still a little slow, because everything is new. But we will get faster as time goes on. The party was in the cafeteria. They had cake and prizes. We gave awards to the people who had done the best in each group. It was a gift certificate to a local mall, very nice. Group 2 (the one with Tribune, the Sentinels and Daily Press) gave two prizes because they are so big. The Times' winner, Avinash, is on the later shift, so he wasn't there to receive his prize. Pinaki took the picture of Chandan giving the prize. I can't take credit for that excellent job of capturing the excitement of the moment.

Bill has been getting feedback from our users. They hate outsourcing, so that is reflected. The realists at The Times understand that this is going to happen and that we have a room full of new agents, so they are gracious and accommodating. We are striving to make everyone happy, but there are some people that nobody could make happy and some who haven't had a good experience. The ones who gave us a hard time in LA are giving the people in Bangalore a hard time. The difference is that now someone is asking their opinion. Yikes. We're working hard to get better at the things that can be improved on this side of the world.

It will be easier for the LAT and Newsday teams now because we got our remote access tools working. I was showing the Times team how to use Carbon Copy. I was sure that I had remoted in to my computer in LA, but someone was on it! We started chatting using Notepad. I was so rude. "Can you move the task bar back down to the bottom." Who would do that to my pc! You all must know by now that it wasn't my pc. I had gotten two other asset numbers and remoted into some guys' computer by mistake. He was very nice to let me go on. But then, I couldn't hear what was being said in LA. He's too much of a gentleman to call me the names I think I deserved. We all lived and the LA and Newsday teams now know how to use Carbon Copy. They have done so and say that it is SOOO much easier when you can see what the user is looking at.

We are usually in the farthest right aisle of the 3 aisle production room. The other two aisles get inundated with Team 2 and 3 staff when they are taking mock calls or semi-live calls (a terrific idea from Newsday for their helpdesk to conference users into IBM and then stay on the line. Very helpful.) It is a zoo to me. People in India are used to sharing space and over-crowdedness. It makes me cringe. Some of the people decorated the room beautifully for the go-live celebration. This picture will show you some of that AND the plethora of people in the room. I sit across the aisle and ask Teena and our team to come see me for any questions. I can't get myself to be in the midst of all that noise. We seem to manage.

Somehow.

But First a Word From Heaven

This is the beginning of a very busy week for us. And I will write about that tomorrow. First, I want you to come with me to heaven. Sophie talked me into spending the weekend at the Leela Palace. Our goal was to have a massage and facial on Mother's Day. We did all that and more.

We arrived at 1:00 and I was hungry, of course. I threw my bags into my gorgeous room and ran downstairs to a restaurant called Zen. I had read on the web that they have dim sum. Say no more, I'm there. I ordered a wonderful green tea served in this adorable little cup. The room overlooks the most peaceful garden. And I was alone. Utter bliss. I had little pork buns, tofu egg rolls and sui mai dumplings. Yes, it was too much. No, I didn't eat it all. But it was bliss.

The other high point of the weekend was the shower. You all know my shower. Poor water pressure, a bucket, a dipper. Quaint, but home. Some day I'll show you pictures of every aspect of the room I stayed in. For now, you get to see the bath and million dollar shower. It poured hot water on you as long as you can stand it. That's pretty long. Stuff came out of my hair from the first week that I was here. Ahhhhhhh, heaven.

I seem to recall that we ate at Citrus yet again that night. It is Sophie's favorite. I'm okay with it. Especially when I can eat Confit of Duck and sauteed spinach. Yep. Even here. Duck. This is one woman's crusade to rid the world of this bird. Hopefully, I will never come close.

Sunday breakfast was compris (we already paid for it in the price of the room.) It's like the Sunday brunch, but a third the size. In my opinion, the good third. Lots of fruit, carrot juice and wonderful cheese. Then on to the massage.

No pictures of moby dick. This was the best massage I've ever had. I haven't had many, but this was the best. I will be back. Not to the room, etc. but to the massage. This woman was utterly fantastic. I felt like a million bucks. Thank goodness. The facial was also good. Much better than Delhi. She even massaged my head. They, too, had a shower to die for and a lady in the dressing room who dried my hair for me. Neat.

I went upstairs to finish the Easy Rawlings book that Harriet lent me. I like Easy and his friend Mouse. It was easy reading and enjoyable. KJ left me another summer beach book that I will start when I get home. I sat out on the porch and felt like a queen.

We ate dinner again at Citrix, but Nahum and Chandan came. Avinash and his wife came later to whisk the kids off to a loud disco. Yea, right up my alley. I happily went up to my room and played with my computer. She's aging. Sometimes gracefully, most often quietly. But happily.

Nahum came back the next day to have lunch and then go shopping, looking for some salt and pepper shakers that Sophie admired. They went to Citrix. I honestly couldn't do it again. What I could do was Zen. This time I only ordered two dishes. One was what may have been a pot sticker in bao-ish dough. It was really good. Then I had a sushi roll with lump crab tempura with salmon on the top of half and eel on the top of the other half. OMG, OMG, OMG. Abolutely fabulous. This, too, was too much, but I ate every grain of rice. Zen. I will dream of you. You and the weekend in heaven.

LA Goes Live

Sorry for the delay in posting. We have been busy. On Tuesday, we started taking live calls from Los Angeles. It was determined that we would start slowly, so 30% of the calls coming into the HelpDesk between 9:00 and noon would be funneled to India. We didn't consider that LA has 3 people on the HelpDesk and Bangalore has 10. Sure the guys in Bangalore are new to this, but they won't get any experience if they just take one or two calls a day. So on Wednesday we upped that to 100%. Even with that, the large number of people we had on the phones allowed each agent to have plenty of time to process what they were hearing and learning. The three guys to the left have new names because their names were misunderstood by LA folk. We have Nitish (Nick), Ratish (who was often called Radish, so we call him by part of his last name, Americanized to Shaker), and Prithvi (Paul, the cute Beatle.)

I remember my first days on the HelpDesk. I'm not a techie. I'm a people person. I knew most of the people at The Times and I knew exactly how everything operated. Everything except the computers. "I can't log on." It took me a long time (it seemed to me) to remember to say, "log on to what?" We have a lot of passwords, you can't make assumptions. I also had the advantage of Fred. Fred sat on the other side of the partition from me. I would listen to him to hear how he solved issues. I would ask him what to do. I would toss "dumps" over the wall. It wasn't the people I was dumping on Fred, it was a problem that confused or scared me. Soon the dumps got fewer as my confidence built, but I was blessed to have Fred there to help me. We have Sharon and Sowmya in the foreground to the left. Teena is watching over all that's happening in her beautiful embroidered blouse. Pratchi and Sanat have their backs to us. Working hard.

These guys in Bangalore have had a lot more training. They know computer hardware better than I ever will. But they don't know everyone in the building or the building for that matter. They are getting a sense of how things operate, how a newspaper goes together every day, but they still have a lot to learn. And they are learning. Every call is a learning experience. Boy, do I remember how that felt. I was over 50 when I started on the HelpDesk. Some old dogs can learn new tricks. I would marvel at all the new things I learned every day. This is how to keep a brain young. Learn a whole new language (tech). So these younger pups get to learn something new everyday, every call. And they have to do it without Fred. Avinash seems to be doing very well. He may become the Fred for future agents.

They have Teena and Suresh and me for now. When we were taking mock calls last week, I knew what the questions would be and I knew all the answers. In real calls, you get some pretty strange questions. It's kept us all on our toes. Another interesting thing is that none of them has the role of Fred or any of the other 10 people that used to be on The Times' HelpDesk when we had a large staff. I came into the department as the only new person so I had plenty of Freds around for support. This group only has each other. They are very collaborative and will work through solutions with others in the group. It's fun to watch. They will get an answer. And I'm there to make sure it is the right answer. By the time I leave in just 5 more weeks (but who's counting,) they will have some very good experience under their belts. Vishak was working next to Avinash yesterday. He is very charming on the phone.

On Monday, they start covering most of the hours that The Times HelpDesk is currently open. This is probably 2 shifts here. I'm not sure who will cover 8 a.m. to 5:00 and who will cover 11:00 to 8 p.m. We've been having some great review sessions with the whole group. I'm going to miss them. Since we won't be taking a high percentage of calls at first, I'm hoping to get training room time to review calls and perfect performance. It seems vital to me at this point. Chandan and Avinash can expect a visit from me on Monday.

Nahum is here from Chicago. He's just been put in the position in Chicago of helping us get our Citrix servers working and set up. He did that for the first pair and is here when the final work is being done. So he's been spending odd hours helping those who remain in Chicago with the set up of the last servers. He was on the helpdesk at Tribune for a longish time, so he knows how to troubleshoot "with his eyes closed" (that's how I answer questions on the phone when I can't see what's happening.)