Today was a very slow day. Even though there is an overabundance of people working at the paper mill, they aren’t able to fix things very quickly. I sat around most of the day waiting for a few fixes to the system I’m working on. There is definitely too many layers of management here since it takes forever for decisions to be made and then for someone to actually do something about it.
I am used to waiting around during start-ups but at least at the other start-ups I’ve been on, the operators will talk with me while we’re waiting for things to be completed. Here, I just sit and wait and don’t talk to anyone, except Raju once in a while (he’s not all that talkative). Anyway, it makes for a pretty boring day. As I was sitting and waiting, I was watching everyone that was “working” in the control room. There were a couple of guys that were really working and then at one point, there was at least 8 guys just sitting around talking, doing absolutely nothing. Labor is definitely cheap here if they can have all these men sitting around doing nothing all day.
Every time I am walking around the mill, I get long stares from everyone. I think other paper mills in India have female engineers working at them, but not this one. The only females I’ve seen so far are the ones cleaning things up around the place. They sweep the roads with brooms made with branches. I’m not sure why they bother sweeping the road because they are mostly dirt. Some of the men just stare for so long, it kind of makes me uncomfortable. So, I’ve started staring back at some of them and that normally makes them stop. It probably is worse because there are so many people working here, so I have to walk by lots of different people who keep staring. Ugh.
As I was leaving for the day, one of the security guards asked me where I was from and talked to me for a bit. He was really nice, has two sons, one’s an engineer and the other a doctor. He is retired from the Indian army. He told me his name, but it was over 5 syllables, so I have no idea what it was, even though I tried really had to say it back to him. It was nice that someone finally talked to me. And then when I went to dinner, the Japanese guy here talked to me for a bit. He’s really friendly and pretty dorky, but nice. He asked me if I’ve been to a bunch of spots in the US that he’s seen…Niagra Falls, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon. We talked about Ichiro and Jojima. I guess Ichiro is from a town that is near where he lives. And then there is one other guy here on a start-up that is Indian that has spoken to me a couple of times. He’s really friendly, too and tonight he told me I’m looking very beautiful. What a nice guy after the long day I’ve had.
Here are a couple of photos of the house I’m staying in (nothing fancy, if they painted, it would look so much better). We have a guy there all day that is there to wait on us. He gets me bottled water (I have 3 huge bottles in my fridge) and I think he just looks over the house while we're in the mill. He's nice, he brought me some mango juice today.
I am used to waiting around during start-ups but at least at the other start-ups I’ve been on, the operators will talk with me while we’re waiting for things to be completed. Here, I just sit and wait and don’t talk to anyone, except Raju once in a while (he’s not all that talkative). Anyway, it makes for a pretty boring day. As I was sitting and waiting, I was watching everyone that was “working” in the control room. There were a couple of guys that were really working and then at one point, there was at least 8 guys just sitting around talking, doing absolutely nothing. Labor is definitely cheap here if they can have all these men sitting around doing nothing all day.
Every time I am walking around the mill, I get long stares from everyone. I think other paper mills in India have female engineers working at them, but not this one. The only females I’ve seen so far are the ones cleaning things up around the place. They sweep the roads with brooms made with branches. I’m not sure why they bother sweeping the road because they are mostly dirt. Some of the men just stare for so long, it kind of makes me uncomfortable. So, I’ve started staring back at some of them and that normally makes them stop. It probably is worse because there are so many people working here, so I have to walk by lots of different people who keep staring. Ugh.
As I was leaving for the day, one of the security guards asked me where I was from and talked to me for a bit. He was really nice, has two sons, one’s an engineer and the other a doctor. He is retired from the Indian army. He told me his name, but it was over 5 syllables, so I have no idea what it was, even though I tried really had to say it back to him. It was nice that someone finally talked to me. And then when I went to dinner, the Japanese guy here talked to me for a bit. He’s really friendly and pretty dorky, but nice. He asked me if I’ve been to a bunch of spots in the US that he’s seen…Niagra Falls, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon. We talked about Ichiro and Jojima. I guess Ichiro is from a town that is near where he lives. And then there is one other guy here on a start-up that is Indian that has spoken to me a couple of times. He’s really friendly, too and tonight he told me I’m looking very beautiful. What a nice guy after the long day I’ve had.
Here are a couple of photos of the house I’m staying in (nothing fancy, if they painted, it would look so much better). We have a guy there all day that is there to wait on us. He gets me bottled water (I have 3 huge bottles in my fridge) and I think he just looks over the house while we're in the mill. He's nice, he brought me some mango juice today.
And this is the Hindu temple that isn’t too far from the house I’m staying in. I can hear their prayers being broadcast every night for about an hour. I have a recording I’ll try to put on here another day.
And a pretty bush with these neat red flowers. I saw this group of about 20 teenage girls walking on the street towards me and I wanted to take a picture of them because they looked so beautiful in their brightly colored saris. I feel weird just taking pictures of people, unless I can be sneaky about it and have them not notice. I was unsucceful. I'll try to get some people shots, though.
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