Lu's Days ...

My sickness is FINALLY improving. No more sniffing throughout the day. That 270 ruppees was well worth the money.

This weekend we are gonna stay in Hyderabad cuz of poor trip planning. For Ahmed and 40's (the 2 coops in Chennai), they are staying in Chennai also. Doh. (To them both:) Sorry guys, but we'll for sure do something next weekend.

So, lets move on to yet another "The Wonders of India ..." story !!



Today, I'm gonna teach you guys a new word that you Canadian folks might not be so familiar of. Stipend.

From wwww.m-w.com, we have:

One entry found for stipend.
Main Entry: sti·pend
Pronunciation: 'stI-"pend, -p&nd
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, alteration of stipendy, from Latin stipendium, from stip-, stips gift + pendere to weigh, pay
: a fixed sum of money paid periodically for services or to defray expenses


In other word, it means salary. So what's the interesting story behind the word stipend besides the fact that we only get 10K ruppees = $228 CDN for our stipend per month ? The interesting story is, we didn't even get our 10K ruppees stipend. Actually, I should put it more clearly. We didn't get our 10K ruppees on time. Rather, it was delayed for 2 weeks until something happened.

The general working culture here is like that. As long as it is not an employee's critical line of work, meaning their boss won't care, they tend to do what university students do the best, procrastinate.

We asked the HR department to pay us at the end of last month. It toke them a few days to reply. Their reply was basically, "Please take this issue to the accounting department." Ok, so we toke it to the accounting department. We emailed them. Waited a few days. No reply. We emailed again. They replied. Some guy came to our desk and toke down our info, saying he'll "follow up on it", with not a really friendly attitude. We waited another few days. At this point, it has been a week or 2 already, and our cash stash is running low. Arrrgghhh .....

Luckily, our savior appeared. The guesthouse where we are staying have a constant stream of high-up employees coming in-and-out, living for a few days or weeks. So we always need to socialize with these ppl during breakfast, or dinner. That night, it just so happens that the global head of HR is staying at our guesthouse.

On a side note, for those who don't know, TCS (the company i'm working for) is huge. It has development centres all over India. It even has development centres in Europe , US, and Canada too. That is how me and the other coop got hired. Their clients/partners are companies like Microsoft, GE, P&G, and many many others. One time we even had breakfast with the head for the electronic warefare group. (think MI2 or Enemy of the State) For those who are interested, this is their website: www.tcs.com



Our company's building at Hyderabad


Anyways, back to the story. That guy asked us how did we find the company. Because he is the VP for the company's general effectiveness (i.e. HR), so he wanted the view of us since we work at the lower level and we can contrast TCS with other US/Canadian companies that we've worked for in the past.

We, being the humble and young Canadian students who don't wanna piss him off and get our ass fired, told him that generally there is not difference, in an elablorated kinda way of coure. He seemed happy. And the atmosphere is nothing but joyful.

So he asked, "What do you find that you guys are not happy about ?"

Rohit tried to maintain the happy atmosphere by saying jokingly, "Well, we'll like to get paid."

"Hahahahahaha ...." He laughed. He thought that was a good one. 10 seconds later, we didn't say anything more. He realized that we were serious.

"So you guys didn't get paid yet?"

"We don't really mind because the money that our parents gave us can still last for a while. And generally the accounting department has been helpful. Afterall, we don't have a bank account in India, so it'll take them longer to pay us in cash."

That's Rohit's desparate attempt to say something that's politically correct and understanding. But man, that guy was ennrrraagggged !!

"NO NO. That is not how the any companies should be. Have you talked with **Accounting department's head name** yet ?"

Why the fuck would we contact him/her when we are just lowly coop who get a stipend of 10K ruppees = $228 CDN.

"Nope. But we did contact some employees in the accounting department."

"How about **Hyderabad's HR head name** ?"

"Nope. But we also contact some other employees in the HR department a while ago."

Wow. He is pissed. Afterwards, he tried, with his desperate attempt, to explain to us why the accounting department might be so slow on these things. But we know that it is all BS so that us 2 Canadian coops don't have a bad image of the company. After the dinner, he gave us his buiness card, telling us to contact him if we still haven't get paid in a few days.

The next day, the same guy from the accounting department who came to toke our info came to us and brought us the money. I dunno whether the Global HR head did something or not, but I surely do enjoyed seeing the nice and friendly smile on that accounting department dude's face. :)