Chronicles of Boston Boy - Part 3 : The Office

He always claimed to be a workaholic. He loved his work mainly because he was working on a feature that involved a lot of learning. His work involved interacting with people who were continents away from his workplace. Now it was an opportunity for him to meet all those people.

He met everyone with whom he had interacted through mails. People looked a lot different than he imagined them to be. He had some good brain storming sessions with other teams that made him realize he has a lot more to learn. He spent so much time working in office that for the first time he got bored working. (Yeah.. He usually loves his work )

Getting into the office was a lot simpler then in India. No guards at the gate to stop and check the car and no one to check the bags as he entered the buildings. Unlike the office in Bangalore where they have 8 floors in a building, here they have 8 buildings with 1floor each. A spacious office with less people. He could just walk outside the building and take a walk in the lawn. Tables and chairs were kept near the lawn where he could take his laptop and work outdoors.

His colleague had taken some sweets for her team in US. She sent a "Sweets at my desk" mail and only one person came in to have it. It looked like people worked very seriously in this office. He did not see anyone open FB or Twitter in office. Everyone was just glued to their monitors. And they also get their coffee and lunch to their desk. Sitting 8hrs at a stretch was something he never did in his life. He wanted to change that among his peers in US. But 1 month is a very less time to teach people that the way they are working is wrong. (Yes, referring to their working style not his )

Below are somethings that he found really strange:

• People walked on the wrong side of the path. (Pretty obvious :P)
• Every person who walks by greet each other with "How are you doing today?". And people also greeted him even though he was new to this place
• Everyone thanks and apologizes for the silliest of things
• They stood in queue to take coffee from the coffee machines
• Managers sit in normal cubicles with team and Director sits in office that is the size of the managers room in India.
• The coffee cups are 3 times bigger then the paper cups used in India
• The books and stationary are kept in open. Anyone can walk in and take whatever they want. 
• The rest rooms have an automatic paper towel dispenser but not automatic hand wash.
• The chairs are less comfortable but the cubicle is really cool :)
• People have their lunch between 1130am to 1pm.

 All things apart, this was a great learning experience for him. He felt he has achieved his goal of travel. Now there is only one final question that remains: "Will he continue the work practices that he followed in US?" (I guess everyone knows the answer to that question)

Link to Part 1

Link to Part 2 
Link to Part 4