htech inc. Blog

Thank god it is Friday, the weekend is here. This week was very tough to get trough. Had a lot of long days. Working more than 10 hours a day was no exception this week.

There were however some highlights on Wednesday. A delegation of the ADP US Office was in Pune to take a look at the different projects that are now going on and how they are progressing. I had an opportunity to meet Craig Spendiff. He is responsible for the off shoring projects of ADP. A very nice man to talk to.

Then I also had a very inspiring presentation of Regina Lee, currently president of the ADP National Account Services US. She has worked for ADP since 1982, that is 27 years now. She has made a very promising career within ADP inc. and told everybody that the ADP family is not something you leave easily. When you do a good job, everybody can make a good career in ADP.

I’m now going to bed and sleep for some 12 hours. Tomorrow I’m going to see some sights of Pune and I need my energy.

Special shrine at the reception for the visit of Regina Lee

The SP Infocity is the compound on which the ADP building resides. It is a big compound and still growing. There is a large open garden and when I want to smoke I need to walk of the compound, a 5 minute walk through the gardens. It is quite refreshing.

Entrance and sign of the compound

First garden after entrance

Central park

Other parts of the garden.

Security is a big issue in India. When I want to enter the compound the care is (was) examined. After I took a picture of the entire security force they like me a lot and we can just drive by without any inspection. I believe I made some friends there.

Security of the compound.

Upon entering the ADP Building my backpack is carefully examined by the G4S personnel that work for ADP. They first ex-ray it and then they check the contents manually. Especially my photo camera is something they don’t like. It is forbidden to take any pictures inside. For that same reason mobile phones are not allowed inside. You get a locker appointed to put it all in. Unfortunately I didn’t get approval to make a picture of the G4S guards.

The ADP Building

My second week in India wasn’t easy. There was a lot of work to do and my health wasn’t at peak efficiency. The last had its climax last Wednesdays when I really broke done. The diarria and tons of work I did weren’t a good combination and then I kind of fell apart. Went to a doctor (Drs. Bavhe) and was impressed be his skills. He was very calm and reassuring that he could get my health in order. Had to take medicine for 5 days.

This is the doctor’s office

Getting the medicine was a new and unique experience. You can get medicine here at a lot of stores. About 15 within a couple of minutes driving from my apartment. The sellers aren’t schooled like in the Netherland. When you need 10 pills of a certain type (as in my case) and the strip contains 12, they just cut the excess of and you only pay for the ten. Problem with this system is that you have no information about any of the medicine. Thanks to Internet I found out that one of the medicine isn’t approved in the EU and the US, so I didn’t take those. The others were specially made for people with diarria in India. These are helping quite good and health has improved a lot.

Working with the India crew went a lot better than my health. The crew is quite capable and more inventive then I anticipated. Wijnand (a colleague of mine that is working with the India time for some time now) has learned them a lot of important things that they actually put to practice and they saw the holes in the original design I made as I hoped they would.

Unfortunately the new Senior Developer hasn’t shown himself yet. I hope he does next Monday. We will see. The other new crew member that has been trained in house is performing like expected of a junior developer. The crew is very supportive to each other, but needs to discuss more than I have now seen. I hope the code review session of next Tuesday will help to stimulate this.

When I arrived in Pune almost 1 and a half week ago I had my first night in the Corinthins Club Hotel. In the previous post you already saw same pictures of it. On Wensday the 4th of February I moved to my apartment. Here I will stay until the 15th of may.

The apartment is quite nice and so are the facilities, the only thing that I don’t like is the smell in the apartment and it took some time to get rid of it. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to post the smell.

On Thursday Nicole and I were invited to go to a special “town” where a part the traditional Indian culture is shown. We had a lot of fun and tried a lot of new things like a Bull Ride and some foods.

Images of the entrance of the cultural village and the fisrst dancer.

Nicole is getting a Hand painting and hitting the gong.

A female making traditional Rotti and the restaurant where we ate.

There was a female dancer with a pot of fire on her head that she kept level all the time. Also a dancer that picked up a needle with her eye. That looked very grouse and I’m glad I didn’t take a picture of that.

On the Friday after that I got sick. I got a bad case of diarria that ruined Saturday. I also had a little fever with it so I stayed in bed all night. On Sunday I was initially feeling better so Wouter (a Ducth colleague of ADP) and I went for shopping. After that we went to see a movie (Outlander). I got real sick just before it started, but continued to watch the movie, during which it went a little better. Movie was nice, not really special.

Today is already the second day in Hydrabad, full of presentations of the ADP India team. Besides the presentations we also had a little time on the work floor of ADP Hydrabad talking about their monitoring systems and seeing it in action. It all look very professional, even more than I see in our own department.

Picture of the ADP Building in Hydrabad.

The most interesting part of the day for me was the presentation of the Microsoft Interest Group, which I immediately joined, off course. They were the people responsible for reviewing the code that was created in Pune. I now understand where they get their expertise.

It is unfortunate that we didn’t have time for a closer look at Hydrabad. It seems a interesting city. The differences in lifestyles between rich and poor is clearly visible and I’m told it’s even worse in Pune.

After the meetings we went to the airport. Do to time shortage we had to take a quick bite to eat at the airport. We embarked on a propeller driven airplane, a first for me. The flight was very comfortable.

Nicole leaving the hotel.

Arriving in Pune at nighttime didn’t give any proper opportunity to make any pictures of the airport. It is not as nice as the airport in Hydrabad, but better then we have seen in Delhi.

Whilst driving to the hotel we were confronted by a parade that was going on. A lot of drums were played and the road was very crowded. At home the street would be close, but here the traffic got through some way, as did we. I took some pictures, but because of the darkness there isn’t much to see.

The hotel was quite different from any I visited before, it was more some kind of resort. We had a cabby take us to the hotel reception for check-in. The rooms are very large and nice, even larger than the previous.

As you may have noticed I’m a little behind with the blog. I have been so busy with settling in the apartment an work that there was no time. I will try to make it up in the next comming days. Dates will be in sync with text, but not with posting time.

After leaving Schiphol yesterday Nicole and I had a long flight. After a stop at Delhi we finally arrived at the Hydrabad airport. The total flight time was about 9 hours.

The airport in Hydrabad is open for only 8 months and was very nice to see.

At the airport a taxi was standing by to bring us to our luxury hotel.

As you can see the traffic to the airport was quite hectic. I now fully understand why ADP doesn’t let employees drive. It’s a total disaster area. I understood from Sudaram that the traffic in Pune is worse than it is here. I can’t imagine. The hotel is, as I stated, very luxurious. You can see on the pictures below.

We had several meetings today with project leaders of the office in Hydrabad. Those were very informative and give me a positive impulse. We can certainly make a success of our office in Pune. Unfortunately I have not been able to take pictures of our office in Hydrabad yet, but I will try tomorrow. Today everything is to overwhelming, especially with all the security. In out hotel and in all the airports there either police or military with machine guns guarding the perimeter.

Today was the last day I was working at my normal workspace. A day in witch a lot still had to be done, and its all done?
My esteemed colleague Wai-kin Tsang took over the last projects and now all focus is set on the new working experience in India.

On Sunday I will depart at 11.15 hours local Dutch time to New Delhi. From there we will travel to Hyderabad to meet the colleagues working for ADP inc.

Here a picture of the ADP office in the Netherlands as I was leaving late in the evening.