Ridiculous-ness

  Mysore, Karnataka, India
Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Well, I've had two days of class and I'm starting to realize some of the ridiculous things that happen here.  First of all, there are 16 girls and 70 some guys, yet when it came to room assignments they gave the big nice rooms to the guys.  My room isn't bad at all, but compared to the mini-fridge and huge balcony that the guest house rooms have, it isn't!  But actually, as it turns out, the women get taxed less in India, and therefore we are making more money for doing the same job.  While its a pretty minuscule amount, it ends up being about $100 by the end of 8 months.  It pays for my gym membership each month!

I've noticed that if there is a hard way to do things, that is how the people here do it.  There are 93 of us and the bank needed a lot of information about us.  Things like mother's maiden name, passport number, visa number, etc etc.  Rather than give us the sheet to fill in our information, they had us line up and one person wrote down what each trainee said.  We were waiting there for at least 10 minutes, and I'm pretty sure they only got through one or two people until someone finally realized how long that set up was going to take.  Then we got the sheet and filled it out ourselves, which took under 5 minutes.

Speaking of which, there is also an obscene amount of paperwork that the Indian government needs.  They ask for 6 copies of every non-blank page of your passport, and have tons of different sheets you have to put the same information on over and over.  All I can say is, I hope they recycle.

I'm also pretty upset about the communication gap between here and America.  When I was packing my clothes this was what I based my clothes off of:

Hey yall,
This is from Corbin Dunlap who was with the first batch.
Patrick,

I hope this helps.

Western formal wear includes sweater sets, button down shirts (short,
long, or 3/4 length sleeves), nice gap-like crew necks on top.  For
bottoms, it can include slacks, skirts (at the knee, just above the
knee or below the knee), or capri slacks.  SUITS ARE NOT NECESSARY!!
I did not wear a suit one day that I was there.  It was a waste of
space in my suitcase!

As far as shoes go, girls can get away with just about any type of
nice sandal or pump or flats.  No flip flops (like Rainbows or plastic
Gap ones).  That is the only thing they are strict about for women's
shoes.

For general suggestions, pack warm weather clothes.  Western formal in
India is no where near as dressy as western formal here.  Just make
sure that all of your shirts are not spaghetti strap.  Sleeveless is
ok though!

If you have anymore questions, let me know!!

Thanks,
Corbin

Casual Clothes

However, once I got here it was a different story!  I was wearing the outfit in the picture and was told both the top and skirt are considered casual here.  The only thing they want us wearing are collared shirts and pants or skirts made out of "trouser" material.  I don't mind this, except that they never told me that when I was at home with all of my interview clothes!!

Then of course there is the organized chaos of the driving here.  For being such a populated country there really aren't street lights or stop signs, or really any rules at all.  I had to stop watching the road on our way to dinner because I thought we were going to die multiple times.

There are also lots of jobs that we don't have in the states.  Every meal we pay one person and get a ticket for the meal, then we walk two feet to another person, give them the ticket and get a plate.  Somehow I think that those jobs can be combined into one.  We also have people cutting the grass with scissors, and there are something like 750 security guards walking around the campus at any given time.  So I guess I am safe here, with really pretty lawns.

So overall things just seem very unorganized here.  I think if I was ever going to learn patience it will be during the next 6 months.... I've got more random things that are weird here, but I think I'll quickly get humorous stories to go along with them...