The bamboos had arrived. All we had to do was get them to the 5th floor, drive in a few nails, tie a few knots and the beach shack would be done; or so we thought. Our first miscalculation was that the 12 and 15 feet pieces didn't fit in the elevators. We tried the stairs, but they we closed on account of construction (apparently we were not the only ones building something at the complex). The solution around the problem was to solicit the help of 3 other people so that there was one person standing on the balcony of each floor. I picked up bamboo on the ground floor and passed it to Shailen on the first floor, who in turn passed it to someone on the second floor, till it eventually ended in a pile on the 5th floor. The chain got so good at some point that we had 3 pieces going up simultaneously, which was kinda scary for the guy at the bottom.
The rest of the stuff was easy enough to carry up in the elevators. The receptionist propped the door open for us with a smile that suggested that she was thinking something like "Boy, you must be two kinds of crazy". It took us several trips to get everything up, and on every trip, everyone who saw us was both curious as well helpful in getting the stuff to the top.
As soon as we started building we realized our 2nd mistake - the cross cut saw. It all looks easy when the carpenter does it but none of us had the skills required to make the saw go in both directions. Maybe the facilities folks in the building had a hacksaw. So off we went to find the building carpenter. He didn't have a hacksaw, but what he did have was an electrical drill. Score! The facilities manager suggested that the carpenter could nail everything in for us, but we wanted to do it on our own, a concept he found extremely confounding. Home Depot would be a complete failure in India.
Off we went with the drill, thinking that if we drilled a hole through the bamboo, we could pass a rope through it and that would make for a better joint. On the very first attempt, the drill made a beautiful round hole, but the hole was too small. 0 for 3. An attempt to widen the hole by moving the drill around led to disaster - the bit (needle) broke. 0 for 4. It was time to make a trip to the hardware store to get a replacement drill bit and the a hacksaw. Yes, the very same hacksaw that was earlier shunned as being too small for this grand project.
Little did we know that the breaking of the drill bit would be such a fortuotus event. As we searched for the saw and drill bit, we found screws. Nuts and bolt to be exact. With the right size hole and the proper nut and bolt to go with it, why do we even need to use rope. We could bolt everything together. We had finally caught a break. The tide had tuned. It was all going to work out fine.
And it did. The hacksaw took some effort but at least it worked. The drill and the bolts worked like a charm. In just a couple of hours we had a basic frame in place. Any place that the sticks overlapped was drilled into place. Even at the T junctions, we split a bamboo piece into two and bolted the connector to both bamboo pieces.
For three days, every afternoon around 4, the office was converted to a construction site, with the noise and the sawdust from the drilling bringing work at the office to a grinding halt. Work continued till 10:30 - 11 each night with only a small break for dinner. We had enough burns and scratches on our arms that had it not been for the shack, people would have thought that we were mainlining it.
Three days later though we had a beautiful shack. Tonya took some pictures on one of the days - I'll ask her to upload them somewhere that everyone can see them. The shack looks awesome, if I may say so myself. If you were ever on a deserted island, your best shot at surviving the elements would be to have us there; assuming of course that you had an electrical drill, electricity and a hardware store.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Google Goa - Part 2: The bamboo store
Having figured out where our bamboo and the other raw material will come from, it was time to find tools. We headed towards Krishna Nagar as suggested by the bamboo shop carpenter, a thin old man whose skin had tuned black and rubbery from years under the sun. There we made our first purchase - a hammer, a cross cut saw, a tape measure, and 250 grams of nails. There was a hack saw there too but it just seemed a little too small and unprofessional for our grand plans.
Back at the office, after an hour of making measurements and then putting Pythagoras theorem to good use, we finally had the lengths for the bamboo pieces that we needed. All lengths were rounded up to the nearest foot, mainly to reduce the vast diversity of lengths that was needed. The quantity of each was also given a 20% padding for the *rare* occasion when we messed up.
The list in hand, I returned to the bamboo store the following morning. This time I was able to negotiate the price of the poles down from 75 to 50 Rupees, which I am sure was still a lot higher than the what the regulars and locals are charged. I may have tried to negotiate lower but I had run out of shops that I could walk out; plus the fear of doing the arithmetic 45 times 17 got the better or me. Over the next hour or so the bamboo poles were chopped into various quantities of 4, 7, 12 and 15 feet pieces. Ten thatching sheets of 4x6 and rope were added to the mix. The goods were ready to be shipped to the office.
An auto rickshaw had been converted to a truck by adding an open trunk to it. The auto driver wanted 300 Rupees for transporting things 6 kilometers away for a load that was lighter than light. I offered 200 and he started showing me a chalaan (traffic ticket) for 200 Rupees. I told him I'll give him 200 and I'll take care of any traffic tickets if a cop stopped him. After living through years of Alert Level Orange and other Republican fear tactics, I can pretty easily tell when someone is using fear to pull a fast one on me.
It was time to settle my bills with the old man who had for the past hour and a half toiled in the sun, rummaged through the pile of bamboos to find the straightest, greenest bamboo poles and then cut them to pieces of just the right lengths. As I gave him 300 Rupees instead of the 100 I had promised him, a look of disbelief and then a thankful smile appeared from under the layers of dust. Made me feel really sad though. Here I was spending 2000 Rupees a person for decorating a cube, the bamboo shop owner just sat around and made a small fortune, the auto rickshaw guy would make a decent profit for less than a 20 minute drive, and all this old man got for his hard work in the sun was a paltry sum.
The departure of the auto rickshaw from the bamboo store came just in time to save me from my growing guilt. We followed behind the auto in the car, partly because the auto driver was not sure where our office was. Addresses don't mean much here in Hyderabad; everything works by landmarks, and the auto driver was not sure of the landmarks we had told him. Fifteen minutes later, we were at the Google office. He dumped all the bamboo on the ground floor and left. There was of course no traffic tickets on the way.
Back at the office, after an hour of making measurements and then putting Pythagoras theorem to good use, we finally had the lengths for the bamboo pieces that we needed. All lengths were rounded up to the nearest foot, mainly to reduce the vast diversity of lengths that was needed. The quantity of each was also given a 20% padding for the *rare* occasion when we messed up.
The list in hand, I returned to the bamboo store the following morning. This time I was able to negotiate the price of the poles down from 75 to 50 Rupees, which I am sure was still a lot higher than the what the regulars and locals are charged. I may have tried to negotiate lower but I had run out of shops that I could walk out; plus the fear of doing the arithmetic 45 times 17 got the better or me. Over the next hour or so the bamboo poles were chopped into various quantities of 4, 7, 12 and 15 feet pieces. Ten thatching sheets of 4x6 and rope were added to the mix. The goods were ready to be shipped to the office.
An auto rickshaw had been converted to a truck by adding an open trunk to it. The auto driver wanted 300 Rupees for transporting things 6 kilometers away for a load that was lighter than light. I offered 200 and he started showing me a chalaan (traffic ticket) for 200 Rupees. I told him I'll give him 200 and I'll take care of any traffic tickets if a cop stopped him. After living through years of Alert Level Orange and other Republican fear tactics, I can pretty easily tell when someone is using fear to pull a fast one on me.
It was time to settle my bills with the old man who had for the past hour and a half toiled in the sun, rummaged through the pile of bamboos to find the straightest, greenest bamboo poles and then cut them to pieces of just the right lengths. As I gave him 300 Rupees instead of the 100 I had promised him, a look of disbelief and then a thankful smile appeared from under the layers of dust. Made me feel really sad though. Here I was spending 2000 Rupees a person for decorating a cube, the bamboo shop owner just sat around and made a small fortune, the auto rickshaw guy would make a decent profit for less than a 20 minute drive, and all this old man got for his hard work in the sun was a paltry sum.
The departure of the auto rickshaw from the bamboo store came just in time to save me from my growing guilt. We followed behind the auto in the car, partly because the auto driver was not sure where our office was. Addresses don't mean much here in Hyderabad; everything works by landmarks, and the auto driver was not sure of the landmarks we had told him. Fifteen minutes later, we were at the Google office. He dumped all the bamboo on the ground floor and left. There was of course no traffic tickets on the way.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Google Goa - Part 1: Gathering data
Looks like another eon has passed since I last blogged. I haven't posted any pictures either coz someone stole my camera. Don't worry, a replacement is on it's way but it arrives March 17th so bear with me a little longer. Substitute pictures will be taken for whatever I can but I am afraid some moments have been lost forever :(
A lot has happened in the last few weeks, but I'll update you guys on the most significant development. I arrived at our Hyderabad office only to find an "Office Space" nightmare - a matrix of cubicles that were indistinguishable from the next, despite the splattering of Google green, red, and yellow sideboards. Every time I went for a drink I could never find my way back. I would end up at the cube either to my right or my left, but never ever to my own cube. As a result of this sameness, there was no energy in the office, there was no hallway chatter, and the whole office was as dry and boring as this blog so far.
An Office Decoration Contest seemed like just the right way to improve the vibe of the office. We each had a budget of 50 dollars (Getting the budget increased from 500 Rupees to 50 dollars is now officially the first major accomplishment of the new Eng Ambassadors). Apparently this was not enough motivation because not a finger was lifted in decorating the cubes for the first 3 days. There was still no trash talking, no jabs about each other's efforts - the energy we had hoped for was still missing.
Fearing that our first event might turn out to be a failure, last Tuesday, we decided to take matters into out own hands. A decision was made to build a beach shack - a prototype for our proposed new offices in Goa. A phone call made to Ismail, a man who can procure anything and everything. "Hey Ismail, where can we find bamboo?". "Take a right from the Jubilee checkpost sir; I'll explain it to the driver." Most conversations with Ismail seem to fit this pattern. He always knows where to find whatever crazy thing we are looking for, and we always seem to get in the way of Ismail communicating the correct directions to the driver.
Rizwaan, our driver, took Douwe, Shailen, and I to the bamboo store. Our 4th office mate was out sick, but it our intention that the beach shack will fully occupy his cube. Hence his share of the budget will also be fully utilized in the construction, and so it seemed fair to at least mention him, even if it is not by name.
Bamboo heaven was exactly where Ismail has promised it would be. The dusty old corner stores, which acted as the source for building material for all construction work in the area, had never seen 3 grown men running around their premises. After the initial climbing of bamboo ladders and other horsing arounds, we started talking to each other about what all we could build. Since we had no plan to speak of, it was decided that it is best to regroup back at the office and come up with a plan there.
However, before we leave, it was time to find out how much each of the materials cost so that we had some idea of how much our grand plan was going to cost us. Given my turban, my knowledge of Hindi, and my perceived experience in these matters, the job of haggling was given to me. The key to haggling, I had learned, is putting on a look of disgust at the price you were just quoted, telling the guy that you were not born yesterday, and then walking out. The closer you are to the exit sign, the better the price gets.
I greeted each quote with my best imitation of Hyderabadi Hindi "Aare bhai, tum logan toa ajeeb baat karta hain" (You guys are just talking silly). After ten minutes of this back and forth, which was aimed more at price gathering than price haggling, I promptly walked over to the shop next door. The prices were communicated between the shops through some back door channels because we were quoted exactly the same prices that I had negotiated down at the previous shop. However, we did like his bamboo a lot more. The bamboo was greener, which while not great for a construction site, had the makings of a more aesthetically pleasing beach hut.
A decision was made to return to this shop and get the green bamboo.
A lot has happened in the last few weeks, but I'll update you guys on the most significant development. I arrived at our Hyderabad office only to find an "Office Space" nightmare - a matrix of cubicles that were indistinguishable from the next, despite the splattering of Google green, red, and yellow sideboards. Every time I went for a drink I could never find my way back. I would end up at the cube either to my right or my left, but never ever to my own cube. As a result of this sameness, there was no energy in the office, there was no hallway chatter, and the whole office was as dry and boring as this blog so far.
An Office Decoration Contest seemed like just the right way to improve the vibe of the office. We each had a budget of 50 dollars (Getting the budget increased from 500 Rupees to 50 dollars is now officially the first major accomplishment of the new Eng Ambassadors). Apparently this was not enough motivation because not a finger was lifted in decorating the cubes for the first 3 days. There was still no trash talking, no jabs about each other's efforts - the energy we had hoped for was still missing.
Fearing that our first event might turn out to be a failure, last Tuesday, we decided to take matters into out own hands. A decision was made to build a beach shack - a prototype for our proposed new offices in Goa. A phone call made to Ismail, a man who can procure anything and everything. "Hey Ismail, where can we find bamboo?". "Take a right from the Jubilee checkpost sir; I'll explain it to the driver." Most conversations with Ismail seem to fit this pattern. He always knows where to find whatever crazy thing we are looking for, and we always seem to get in the way of Ismail communicating the correct directions to the driver.
Rizwaan, our driver, took Douwe, Shailen, and I to the bamboo store. Our 4th office mate was out sick, but it our intention that the beach shack will fully occupy his cube. Hence his share of the budget will also be fully utilized in the construction, and so it seemed fair to at least mention him, even if it is not by name.
Bamboo heaven was exactly where Ismail has promised it would be. The dusty old corner stores, which acted as the source for building material for all construction work in the area, had never seen 3 grown men running around their premises. After the initial climbing of bamboo ladders and other horsing arounds, we started talking to each other about what all we could build. Since we had no plan to speak of, it was decided that it is best to regroup back at the office and come up with a plan there.
However, before we leave, it was time to find out how much each of the materials cost so that we had some idea of how much our grand plan was going to cost us. Given my turban, my knowledge of Hindi, and my perceived experience in these matters, the job of haggling was given to me. The key to haggling, I had learned, is putting on a look of disgust at the price you were just quoted, telling the guy that you were not born yesterday, and then walking out. The closer you are to the exit sign, the better the price gets.
I greeted each quote with my best imitation of Hyderabadi Hindi "Aare bhai, tum logan toa ajeeb baat karta hain" (You guys are just talking silly). After ten minutes of this back and forth, which was aimed more at price gathering than price haggling, I promptly walked over to the shop next door. The prices were communicated between the shops through some back door channels because we were quoted exactly the same prices that I had negotiated down at the previous shop. However, we did like his bamboo a lot more. The bamboo was greener, which while not great for a construction site, had the makings of a more aesthetically pleasing beach hut.
A decision was made to return to this shop and get the green bamboo.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Celebrate good times
Went to a hookah bar on Friday night in Jubilee Hills, Celebrations. Akhi, a high school and college buddy, was visiting from Delhi and "getting drunk with a bunch of blokes" so figured I'd go join him.
Despite a slightly younger crowd that made me feel like I was seventy three, the place was really nice. An ocean of city lights glimmering in the distance makes for an amazing view from this rooftop restaurant, and finally some proof that Jubilee Hills was in fact, a hill. I had had a full meal with mom and dad at Peshawari a few hours earlier, so didn't get a chance to taste the food here but I will be back for a full restaurant review.
Personalized service was what this place was about. There was one guy dedicated to our table and his sole job was to make sure that hookah kept going with one interesting flavor after another. My favorite was Pan Pasand, a flavor that brought back memories of the candy from way back when.
If the personalized service wasn't enough, the place had a Rajasthani folk singer who came to your table with his sarangi and sang any song you requested. Since we couldn't think of anything, he sang his favorites. The guy had an amazing voice which more than made up for his Rajasthani affliction of converting "sh" to "s"; a voice like that and you are allowed to pronounce mushkill as muskill or anything else you want it to be.
I had seen a funny ad on TV recently about Rudaalis, which reminded me of the movie, so a song from Rudaali the movie was requested. He didn't know the lyrics so he asked me to sing the song while he played the sarangi. After singing just one verse I realized this was bad idea - these guys were drunk, not deaf. The singing from this point on would be left to the professionals.
The rest of the evening was spent talking about old times and sharing jokes. The reminiscing was left to the old folk, Akhi and I; college was all too recent for the rest. The jokes were a little to racy and sexist for a blog, but I will be sure to use some of them in less than polite company. And it was a very interesting bunch - two of them had never had any formal English education but you would never be able to tell by talking to them. They went to Telegu medium schools and picked up English just by interacting with others - very impressive. The whole group was very down to earth and the conversation very refreshing.
There was still coal in the hookah and still jokes left in the tank, but it was getting late for the old folks in the group. By the the time we were done, it was well past my bed time.
Despite a slightly younger crowd that made me feel like I was seventy three, the place was really nice. An ocean of city lights glimmering in the distance makes for an amazing view from this rooftop restaurant, and finally some proof that Jubilee Hills was in fact, a hill. I had had a full meal with mom and dad at Peshawari a few hours earlier, so didn't get a chance to taste the food here but I will be back for a full restaurant review.
Personalized service was what this place was about. There was one guy dedicated to our table and his sole job was to make sure that hookah kept going with one interesting flavor after another. My favorite was Pan Pasand, a flavor that brought back memories of the candy from way back when.
If the personalized service wasn't enough, the place had a Rajasthani folk singer who came to your table with his sarangi and sang any song you requested. Since we couldn't think of anything, he sang his favorites. The guy had an amazing voice which more than made up for his Rajasthani affliction of converting "sh" to "s"; a voice like that and you are allowed to pronounce mushkill as muskill or anything else you want it to be.
I had seen a funny ad on TV recently about Rudaalis, which reminded me of the movie, so a song from Rudaali the movie was requested. He didn't know the lyrics so he asked me to sing the song while he played the sarangi. After singing just one verse I realized this was bad idea - these guys were drunk, not deaf. The singing from this point on would be left to the professionals.
The rest of the evening was spent talking about old times and sharing jokes. The reminiscing was left to the old folk, Akhi and I; college was all too recent for the rest. The jokes were a little to racy and sexist for a blog, but I will be sure to use some of them in less than polite company. And it was a very interesting bunch - two of them had never had any formal English education but you would never be able to tell by talking to them. They went to Telegu medium schools and picked up English just by interacting with others - very impressive. The whole group was very down to earth and the conversation very refreshing.
There was still coal in the hookah and still jokes left in the tank, but it was getting late for the old folks in the group. By the the time we were done, it was well past my bed time.
A taste of Little Italy
Just realized I have like a bazillion posts in draft mode, so I'll try and post as many of them as possible this morning. So brace for the flood.
Last Thursday night, went to this nice Italian place called Little Italy. The place is all vegetarian but had the largest selection of vegetarian Italian dishes that I have ever seen. And the food was excellent.
We arrived there a little after 8, prime dinner time in India, and were seated immediately. The place was busy though, so I am making reservations next time. The decor was modern yet warm, with dark brown (wenge, yes wenge :)) wooden panels and tables. Candles on each table along with soft hidden lighting made for a great setting. Not a great place for a date though, it was loud. There were five of us and I couldn't hear a thing being said on the other end.
The one thing that I have found interesting about restaurants in Hyderabad is that everything is multi-cuisine. Little Italy was no exception. Two pages of Antipasti, then pasta, then pizzas, desert - and bang, Mexican. Eh, Italian, Mexican; what's the difference - same latitude. The same latitude theory did suffer a setback from the lack of Indian dishes on the menu.
If only the multi-cuisine episode would end there. Apparently, the place has two restaurants and you can order from either menu. The other restaurant, Bean Me Up, which I initially assumed to be a Start Trek themed restaurant, offers a delectable array of soy bean salads and dishes. The wait staff must have had instructions to push this soy stuff pretty hard coz we got 3 Bean Me Up menus and only 1 for Little Italy. We politely sent the soy menu back and asked for some more menus with the Italian offerings.
Satya, my friend from high school, and Douwe, the other Engineering ambassador for Hyderabad, ordered beer, which in itself was an adventure (everything is at this point :)). The restaurant didn't have Kingfisher, a beer that Douwe has a bit of history with. It was the first beer he had when he crossed over from Pakistan into India on his trip from Europe to India, by bus. Back to the beer. The choices were Fugherers or Rowyul Shalenge. What? Fukkers or Ruey'all Shalange. I'm Sorry, what was that again. Ooooh, I get it , Foster's or Royal Challenge. Two RCs please. I gave the ladies company with water.
The food started showing up shortly, in somewhat of a random order. First came an appetizer with bruschetta style bread and a mushroom sauce - so good. Then the Nawabi Pizza, a thin crust pizza an amazing tomato sauce and corn. The Caprese was to die for; the mozzarella was fantastic, and plum tomatoes were farm fresh and sweet, the likes of which you can only find in India. We had everything family style, which gave it a feel of being in small plates restaurant; and I am glad we did it that way since everything we ordered was fantastic, and it was good to be able to try out everything.
Will need to come back here to try a few more dishes. And next time I will remember to save room for desert. We had had way too much food to even think about desert. Overall, a great place for my first real meal out in Hyderabad.
Note to self: Need to start taking pictures
PetPuja Rating
------------------
Ambience: 8/10
Food: 10/10
Service: 6/10
Value for money: Good 500-700 per person with the beer.
Good for Groups: Yes
Date Scene: Above Average
Verdict: Will definitely be back for more.
Last Thursday night, went to this nice Italian place called Little Italy. The place is all vegetarian but had the largest selection of vegetarian Italian dishes that I have ever seen. And the food was excellent.
We arrived there a little after 8, prime dinner time in India, and were seated immediately. The place was busy though, so I am making reservations next time. The decor was modern yet warm, with dark brown (wenge, yes wenge :)) wooden panels and tables. Candles on each table along with soft hidden lighting made for a great setting. Not a great place for a date though, it was loud. There were five of us and I couldn't hear a thing being said on the other end.
The one thing that I have found interesting about restaurants in Hyderabad is that everything is multi-cuisine. Little Italy was no exception. Two pages of Antipasti, then pasta, then pizzas, desert - and bang, Mexican. Eh, Italian, Mexican; what's the difference - same latitude. The same latitude theory did suffer a setback from the lack of Indian dishes on the menu.
If only the multi-cuisine episode would end there. Apparently, the place has two restaurants and you can order from either menu. The other restaurant, Bean Me Up, which I initially assumed to be a Start Trek themed restaurant, offers a delectable array of soy bean salads and dishes. The wait staff must have had instructions to push this soy stuff pretty hard coz we got 3 Bean Me Up menus and only 1 for Little Italy. We politely sent the soy menu back and asked for some more menus with the Italian offerings.
Satya, my friend from high school, and Douwe, the other Engineering ambassador for Hyderabad, ordered beer, which in itself was an adventure (everything is at this point :)). The restaurant didn't have Kingfisher, a beer that Douwe has a bit of history with. It was the first beer he had when he crossed over from Pakistan into India on his trip from Europe to India, by bus. Back to the beer. The choices were Fugherers or Rowyul Shalenge. What? Fukkers or Ruey'all Shalange. I'm Sorry, what was that again. Ooooh, I get it , Foster's or Royal Challenge. Two RCs please. I gave the ladies company with water.
The food started showing up shortly, in somewhat of a random order. First came an appetizer with bruschetta style bread and a mushroom sauce - so good. Then the Nawabi Pizza, a thin crust pizza an amazing tomato sauce and corn. The Caprese was to die for; the mozzarella was fantastic, and plum tomatoes were farm fresh and sweet, the likes of which you can only find in India. We had everything family style, which gave it a feel of being in small plates restaurant; and I am glad we did it that way since everything we ordered was fantastic, and it was good to be able to try out everything.
Will need to come back here to try a few more dishes. And next time I will remember to save room for desert. We had had way too much food to even think about desert. Overall, a great place for my first real meal out in Hyderabad.
Note to self: Need to start taking pictures
PetPuja Rating
------------------
Ambience: 8/10
Food: 10/10
Service: 6/10
Value for money: Good 500-700 per person with the beer.
Good for Groups: Yes
Date Scene: Above Average
Verdict: Will definitely be back for more.
Friday, February 1, 2008
More stick, less carrot
It's day 4 and I finally have a working desktop and a phone at my desk. I had heard horror stories of people having to wait weeks before getting a desktop, so I had started bothering people from day 1. What do you know, the nagging helped and I had a desktop and two monitors on my desk by the end of the first day. The nice IT guy told me that the appropriate DNS entries and MAC address mappings will take a few hours so things should be active by the morning. I stopped by the tech stop and thanked them for getting this done so quickly. Positive reinforcement and all; after all I would still need a lot of other things from these folks. Sometimes people just India a bad name. That was so easy. I'll be up and running faster than when I joined in Mountain View.
Not so fast, young Skywalker. Getting a desktop doesn't always mean it is a working desktop. First my hostname was not registered, then I couldn't log on, then ... To make a long story short (not really), it took me three days of constant nagging to get a working computer.
The phone is another story - they ran out of licenses. Honest mistake. We just didn't anticipate that we'll be hiring any more people with Q4 numbers not meeting expectations and all.
I shouldn't complain. It's all coming together, slowly. The fact that I am productive in less than a week's time far exceeds even the most optimistic of my expectations. Now about that apartment and cell phone.
Not so fast, young Skywalker. Getting a desktop doesn't always mean it is a working desktop. First my hostname was not registered, then I couldn't log on, then ... To make a long story short (not really), it took me three days of constant nagging to get a working computer.
The phone is another story - they ran out of licenses. Honest mistake. We just didn't anticipate that we'll be hiring any more people with Q4 numbers not meeting expectations and all.
I shouldn't complain. It's all coming together, slowly. The fact that I am productive in less than a week's time far exceeds even the most optimistic of my expectations. Now about that apartment and cell phone.
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