R2I - Work life, a sneak peek!

Please Note

1. The following points cannot be generalized; they are just based on my discussions with my husband + a few interactions with some of his friends who have also R2Ied.
   
2. All of them work for American tech companies in Bangalore. So, most of the points mentioned here only cover such a typical set-up.

Age: One of the aspects that stands out is the average age of the employees - much younger when compared to the average in a typical US office. Hard to say if this is good or bad, but certainly different! The slightly experienced (3-5 years) software professionals are still aiming for opportunities abroad. In an MNC, it is quite common to find the bulk of the middle management to be an R2I crowd, i.e. a crowd that has spent a significant portion of its work life outside of India.

Work Hours: The good thing is that there are really no "working hours". Most of the employees typically start coming in at around 10.00 AM and end up staying late, whether it is required or not. However, based on what I hear, sticking to your preferred work hours is doable if you are disciplined.
In general, if you are particular about spending quality time with your family, you can communicate with your team about your preferred timings, so that they can plan for meetings etc during the hours that work for you. Typically, it is up to you to convey that you will not be able to attend meetings or discussions that are outside of your preferred work hours.
Sticking to your time is more doable if you are an independent contributor than a manager working in tandem with a team. The good thing is a lot more companies are opening up to the value of individual contributors.
Late night or early morning conference calls that you can attend to from home are a given; a majority of the work at middle-senior level will almost always involve working very closely with partners, colleagues, or clients in other countries.

Commute: On commute, less said the better! You have the choice of living close to your work place, which will work well. And if you cannot do that, you can choose to commute during off-peak hours - before 8.00 AM or after 10.30 AM and before 5.00 PM or after 9.30 PM. My husband leaves home at around 7.30 AM and starts from work at around 5.00 PM and it seems to definitely be working for him, since we cannot live close to his work for other reasons.

Work Culture: Apparently, things are more "casual" at work in general than in the US. People seem to chat and “hang out" more than in a typical office in the US, where people are a lot more focused. This may be relaxing or distracting, whichever way you choose to look at it.
For people who have not worked in India before: Typically people do not address their seniors as ‘Sir / Madam’ in this industry.
In general, there seems to be an eagerness to want the title of a 'manager'. It looks to predominantly be a cultural issue; it is kind of considered that you have “arrived” if you are a manager and have people reporting to you. However, this is slowly changing - where some of them seem to be opting for the role of individual contributors and are also more comfortable with the responsibilities that come with it.
And if there's a cricket match going on (especially an interesting one), things are a lot more flexible. You know how it is with cricket!!

Travel - Overseas/India: Travel of some sort is always a given. And if you are back with work experience from abroad, you are very likely going to be traveling overseas to meet your teams, clients almost on a regular basis. This cannot be avoided too much, and is part of the deal!

Interiors & Facilities: On the whole, very nice office spaces and interiors. In most of the offices, the cubicles are designed to seat 2, 3, or 4 people. Some companies do provide individual cubicles, however these are few and far between. Many companies provide gyms, pool tables, ping-pong tables, carrom boards, fooz ball tables, etc.

Cafeteria: There is good food for lunch in the cafeteria. Usually, you get really good Indian food. Some offices apparently have 3 different counters - one for North Indian, one for South Indian and the another serving "diet" food! (My husband wishes that they serve desi Chinese at his place of work! I am quite sure there are companies where they do this too.) In certain campuses that house multiple companies, there are food courts where different cuisines are served. In general the peak lunch hour is between 1.00 and 2.00 PM.

Please add your own experiences/thoughts in the comments section.

Going forth, I will be writing about work opportunities for R2Iers and also taking a general look at the market salaries for the returning Indians. Watch the R2Blore space!

R2I - Bangalore: Everyday commute options

Before coming to the conclusion that cars are your only option for everyday commute after R2Iing, let us assess all the other available options. The only public transport that Bangalore has right now is the bus. There are a few kinds of buses for public transport; the absolutely basic blue-colored BMTC buses that you see in the pic below, the slightly better Pushpak buses, and the luxury Volvo buses. Unfortunately, the frequency of these buses and the rush of people in them will make you want to turn the other way when it comes to relying on them on a day-to-day basis. If you are a concerned citizen of the globe and want to really use public transport, you may have to wait for the Namma Metro project to complete. The Metro is made to seem like an all-in-all problem solver to our woes. Like always, I will wait and watch before getting too excited! Also, this project has recently kick-started, so we do have a long way to go.

Since there is almost no public transport option for now, you can consider relying on company provided transport for your commute to work. A lot of the companies provide real nice, comfy buses/vans for pick-up and drop-off. The only downside is that you will have to stick to their timings. But, I do know of people who are able to make this option work for them.

The next option would be a 2-wheeler. If you have been away from India for a while, riding a 2-wheeler may or may not be possible for you. Now, if you are going to be the dare-devil to try a 2-wheeler amidst this traffic, then the next deterrent is going to be the pollution levels, especially at peak hours. The smog will make you squirm on your 2-wheeler seat. My husband was one of those that considered a 2 wheeler for his regular office commute, mostly because he was going to be saving a little bit of time. Obviously, your ability to maneuver is far better on a narrow vehicle. Also you occupy much less space on an already crowded/narrow road, and in turn will help the insane traffic in your own small way. But after the initial few days of observing the traffic patterns, he just gave up the idea! :)
When I see all the bike guys halting at the red-light and balancing their 2-wheelers with their feet on the ground, I worry for the safety of their feet. One of my cousins was at the red light with her feet on the ground, and an auto just went over her right foot. Thankfully, the damage was minimal. Since all the vehicles are just inches away from you or your vehicle, the thought is scary. What if it was a bus that had gone over her foot? And of course, there are still others who have had many a fall from their 2-wheelers. Not to mention the inconvenience during the rains.

If you want to use the autos for your everyday commute, you will have to again cover your nose for the entire to and fro journey because of the vehicular exhausts. Whenever I take an auto, after a few kilometres I notice a fairly distinct smell in my hair; all the exhaust fumes taking their toll! The exhaust fumes also make me feel squeamish. The other factor of course is the meters - you may not want to see the auto meter reading all kinds of numbers, since most of the meters are rigged.

A sea of autos. Notice how our rear-view mirror is broken (bottom left corner of the pic).
A simple mishap when one of the other cars was very close to ours!

Your final option is the car. And because of the unbelievable traffic on the roads, owning a small sized car becomes a necessity as compared to owning a bigger one; your ability to maneuver on the already clogged Bangalore roads is a little better with a smaller one. And of course, you have the option of owning a 2nd, bigger, nicer, family car for your weekends and out-of-town drives since the freeways are quite good. Wouldn't you agree about the small sized car? Or is there any other way to look at everyday commute? Would love to hear your thoughts, more so because I like to encourage a more public friendly commute.

On R2Iing, buying a car will be one of your crucial decisions. The good thing is, there is a fair amount of choice for cars in the market, and definitely so for small sized cars. 'Cars' is an exhaustive topic and I will cover all the options available, over a period of time. I will write about the available small cars in the market when I write about cars next. I will also write about the available cars based on their sizes and their prices subsequently.

An R2I Tip: The traffic is really bad; can't stress enough. See pic below. If you are sure about your R2I plans, then the one thing you can already do is to slowly start losing your attachment to your cars/roads there. Things will not be the same here and preparing yourself for it in advance helps. And when you do get stuck in traffic here, you will have the choice of not letting it affect you. That way, YOU still have the power! And you can take that time to think about your true reasons for coming back. :)

Clogged traffic on Bangalore roads - A common sight

PS: If I sounded preachy in the last para, please excuse me. I hate sounding preachy!

Traffic! Less said the better!

OK, to begin with I must confess that I am a Bangalorean and love Bangalore, always have and always will. So, I am not going to do any 'Bangalore bashing'. However, it is really hard not to be frustrated with the traffic.

I am alright, in the sense, I am home most of the time and try and work/do stuff from home. But my hub needs to go to work on all weekdays. And by gosh, it sucks! His work place is a mere 12 kms from home, or 7.5 miles. And it takes him 45 mins one way on a good day. And it has taken him 2 hrs sometimes to commute 7.5 miles!!!! On most days, my hub is pretty tired coming home in the traffic. Then alone, he really is almost keen to move back to the SF bay area, where the commute and traffic are supposed to be "bad". We were about 10 miles away from his work and it took him anywhere between 15-25 mins to commute.

My cousin who lives in Nagarbhavi must commute to Whitefield on an everyday basis for work. Nagarbhavi is on the extreme west and Whitefield on the extreme east, but the distance is no more than 30 kms or about 19 miles! And he has a company provided van that picks up/drops off a bunch of people from his neighborhood to and from work. They leave really early to beat the traffic and it takes him about an hour in the morning, and about 2.5 hrs in the evening!!! Averaging about 3-4 hrs everyday on commute.

Work around for hub: Work from home on broadband. Leave home at 11.00 am and leave work at 4.00 pm. He is yet to put this plan into action. When he does, I will keep the blog updatted.

Familiar road sights ...

Can you imagine the plight of the patient in that ambulance?