Week 1 at Bangalore and Work

I landed at Bangalore airport last week flying on an indiGo for the first time; found the experience better than JetKonnect from my first flight.

Next day (Sunday) started early with a walk to Oracle Tech Park and back to get myself familiarized with the area before first day at work. A much-needed haircut followed.

Having caught cold with the change in weather, I had to miss the Goodreads meetup planned at Brigade Road during the day, which I was eagerly awaiting to attend with a friend. The day was instead spent hunting around for a pair of Oxfords in Jayanagar/JP Nagar markets. Apparently, it’s not easy to find those classic-shaped shoes anymore, with most shoes available in a strangely long front-part which I absolutely dislike. After spending over 40 minutes at the second store I tried, I settled for a passable pair. My friends had already warned me that there is no dress code at work place and I will discard them within few days. Shopping for myself without my mom has never been an easy experience.

The first two days were spent on induction. First day could be summarized as the practice-your-signature-a-hundred-times day; I detest manually signing anything and prefer digital security for most applications. Dunno how long it will take to transition to a world when (hard copy) paperwork will be a thing of past. Second day was much less tiring with some interesting presentations about culture and how things work at Oracle. I was impressed, better than my expectations indeed. :)

Next three days were devoted on a Campus to Corporate program for college grads (it, interestingly, also had an experienced person among us for some unknown reason). I liked the program overall for it made many things crystal clear for us to move to corporate world and more so because it involved close interaction among the new hires and I got to meet many interesting people.

I also managed to watch Bhaag Milkha Bhaag on Wednesday at an INOX for a relatively cheap ticket price (I am totally surprised over the difference in prices over here compared to other cities like Chennai), thanks to new friends Naman and Ratan who knew about a weekly offer and pre-booked the tickets before they got over. Movie had its own class and I never felt bored or found it dragging given it’s being criticized for being too lengthy (naysayers always manage to find something or other to criticize even things of perfection).

This weekend was spent on catching up on more sleep and looking for a home to stay at a few places. Had to give up on a great deal today for just one reason - tiny size of bathroom, which could definitely induce claustrophobia in, for an otherwise perfectly sane, me. (For those living in Bangalore, I am still looking for a 1BHK OR 2/3 BHK (and flatmates) within max 4 Kms radius of my work location - IBC Knowledge Park near Dairy Circle, Bannerghatta Road, any help is definitely appreciated. Please contact me at kartiksinghal [AT] gmail and I will try to get back asap.)

One thing that bothers me after a week of work is how less time I could spend on things I wanted to do in the beginning of the week. Although the first week involved no real work, sitting at office itself and traveling to and fro could be tiring. It led me to miss homework deadlines of multiple courses on Coursera and hence deciding to drop most of them (except two). I believe it’s more of the initial hassles of settling down in a new environment than my inability to keep up. Also, I had to really think what courses were really important for me to keep doing with a shift in priorities and amount of free time available. Think, I will learn to manage time more effectively as I get used to the new life.

Tomorrow might be a great day as we, new hires, apparently get to interact with a top executive of the company. Excitement level is high, indeed.

**NOTE: **I am aware now being an employee of a company, I might not be fully open in sharing my experiences. I will keep sharing things which do not affect my employer in any way. Of course, it’s to be noted, any opinions shared from now onwards represent my personal views and do not pertain to my employer at any level (Time to update the About section of my blog as well).