Well today is my last day in India and my flight leaves at midnight.
The past few days have been a hectic series of meetings that would not be believed in a western business setting. The project manager leading one meeting with several senior executives in attendence, showed up having sent out the important "pre-reading" material one hour before the meeting. Provided no additional copies of the documents, and he was unable to get the beamer working to show the documents to anyone. We all crowded around the one available hard copy (his). To add to the confusion it was a video conference with a poor sound connection to a group in Sri Lanka and the signal kept dropping out every 15 minutes.
I spent most of my time however locked in a room with 20 Indians. I lead the meeting for a marathon 1.5 days. Often I would put my head in my hands and give a silent sob. The meetings are complete chaos. They jump from topic to topic as any random thought enters their heads. There are so many hidden agendas and personal grudges against one another it is actually amazing the company functions at all. Between meetings senior people pull me aside to tell me what is "really" going on because they don't want to say it in the meeting. I listen sympathetically and nod my head while counting the hours until I leave.
At least it is definitely not boring.
The past few days have been a hectic series of meetings that would not be believed in a western business setting. The project manager leading one meeting with several senior executives in attendence, showed up having sent out the important "pre-reading" material one hour before the meeting. Provided no additional copies of the documents, and he was unable to get the beamer working to show the documents to anyone. We all crowded around the one available hard copy (his). To add to the confusion it was a video conference with a poor sound connection to a group in Sri Lanka and the signal kept dropping out every 15 minutes.
I spent most of my time however locked in a room with 20 Indians. I lead the meeting for a marathon 1.5 days. Often I would put my head in my hands and give a silent sob. The meetings are complete chaos. They jump from topic to topic as any random thought enters their heads. There are so many hidden agendas and personal grudges against one another it is actually amazing the company functions at all. Between meetings senior people pull me aside to tell me what is "really" going on because they don't want to say it in the meeting. I listen sympathetically and nod my head while counting the hours until I leave.
At least it is definitely not boring.
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