I’m Working… I Swear

I guess two weeks is about how long it took me to get used to India. When I come back I feel like I won’t have any problems getting my stomach to be happy with me and I will completely be able to understand the differences between my culture and the Indian culture that make things hard at the beginning.

Today was a ridiculous day. We ended up meeting with about 5 companies providing search engine optimization services. At one point we got so double booked that one company walked into our hotel room as I was still talking to another company, that probably didn’t look very good. I learned so much by going through these meetings with different companies that by the time we got to the last company we ripped them apart. This company came in here with a pathetic proposal that had errors, blank tables and graphs, and a horrible pricing strategy and payment scheme laid out.

We basically told them that with what they laid out before us we could structure it so that we never had to pay them anything. They had zero answers, and apparently knew less about what to do than what me and Bala did. It was pathetic. I think they must have been ready to cry by the time we got through with them. They are supposed to send a clarifying e-mail but I’m pretty sure they won’t even bother with how that meeting went. Poor kids.

I felt pretty bad about it actually, like I was being a jerk to them. But at the same time, they wasted my time, I wouldn’t walk up to someone trying to sell them something and not know a thing about what I’m selling, that’s just rude.

Back to my point. I’m going to miss India, the people I’ve met here, and the lifestyle. On the bright side I’m wearing one of the most comfortable pairs of jeans I’ve ever owned. I was just explaining to Bala that I’m always on the look out for pants I can wear and still easily kick someone in the head. These pants are designed for just that, perhaps unknowingly. Bully’s beware, when I’m wearing my Indian jeans, best watch out.

In an hour or so I’ll begin my 24 hour long journey back to the US. Two layovers and 2-3 countries. No biggie, its just traveling to the complete other side of the planet. I was telling Bala that we better have a good dinner for my last meal in India, turns out it was, but he replied with “why, you’ll be back in just 3 months”. He’s right, and that made me feel better about leaving. I’m excited to come back, I hope that the next trip will be longer, the people here have demanded at least half a month so they can show me more, and I’m tempted to comply. I was telling Bala that when I get back to the US, I probably will be spending a lot less time in the office than I was before. I’ll be spending more time at the Lightning MMA Orange County gym and doing a lot more of my Circuit Assembly eStore work remotely. I really want to be able to do my work, stop for an hour and train at lunch, and then get back to work. I’m excited about spending time working on Lightning MMA. It’s a passion project for me. I barely think about the money that I need to be making from it because its just so much fun to work on. I could really care less as long as the gym breaks even, I just want it to be able to stay open so I can have a place for me and all my friends to train. I’m really excited about showing new people what it was that really changed my life four years ago, I hope it can do the same for them.

I’ve been reading this book that one of the people I met here gave me, its called “The Art of Living“. Its all about Vipassana meditation. I like the idea because unlike other forms of meditation it isn’t based in religion. Well, its based on what Buddha used to attain enlightenmnemt, but I don’t really consider Buddhism the same as traditional religion. It’s really quite interesting and definitely agrees with many aspects of what I’ve come to believe about life, spirituality, and the attitudes we need to have about life in order to be happy.

I guess my next post will be on the other side of the planet.

I realized today, while there were 25 Indian programmers asking me to be in a photo with them, that people seem to think I’m somebody. This trip to India is the first time I’ve ever really been the big guy in the meeting. It’s been weird interviewing potential employees for jobs, and meeting with companies and being introduced as the boss. Suddenly I’m the decision maker in the situation.

The weirder part to me is that although I’m pretty nervous at first to go into this kind of thing, I end up completely taking control of the situation and everything seems to workout well. Today I basically took charge of this meeting evaluating our new website with the head programmers working on it and found over 20 items they need to fix.

What’s my level of education in web design? I took an HTML class in highschool.

Despite all this I really love what I’m doing right now, getting to meet new people and interact with different cultures is awesome. Its refreshing to see how other people work and live and seeing how I can work together with them to leverage how I get things done and how much it costs me. If I continue down this road I see myself as being some kind of expert outsourcer.

It’s funny because so many people are terrified of outsourcing or even traveling to other countries to do the type of thing I’m doing. I absolutely love it, there’s so much to learn about people just by asking them questions about what kind of food they eat, and how they live each day. I feel like this trip has helped me to understand Bala so much better and I think it will really allow me and my work to improve leaps and bounds as a result of that understanding.

At the same time as soon as I’m done with meetings like this I revert back to my little kid jokes with clouse or whoever on AIM or facebook. I’ve even caught myself on facebook in very important meetings while someone is trying to come up with something to show me. Yeah, I’m a professional, except for the way I dress and secretely talking on AIM and facebook when I shouldn’t be.

Indian SEO Sign

And... The Entrance

Hey maybe if you could all keep up I wouldn’t have time to screw around?

Today was a cool day. No running or yoga today because my room mate went to temple in the morning. I was kind of thankful because my entire body is sore. I guess we’ll go back to normal tomorrow morning though. I bet its from never getting to eat any protein so I have no idea how my muscles are getting any nourishment, poor muscles.

The kids are really starting to warm up to me. The older one will come up to me and just start talking to me in english, she’s super nice. They are always bringing me snacks, its so cute. The younger one is a bit shy when it comes to talking but she is always saying “Hi” and “Bye” to me whenever. Also she will just walk up to me and smile and stick her tongue out and make faces and I make them back. I hope if I have a daughter that she’s like her, I’ll be stoked.

We interviewed someone today for a customer service rep job. Bala said he thought the guy would work for less than 4 dollars an hour. The guy has a bachelors in mechanical engineering. The US is screwed. I really don’t see why I would ever hire anyone in the US to work for me again personally, I’d avoid it at all costs. The people here are so intelligent, kind, hard working, and appreciative, I just never see that kind of person in the US.

Tomorrow we go back to Bangalore by train, looking forward to my 8 hour train ride and sleeping on the train. I’m gonna come back addicted to ambien, oh well.

Bala Taking the Kids to School