Archana and pictures

In America people like pictures but many people don't like having pictures taken of themselves - or at least not while they're at work.  However, in India they love pictures and take pictures all the time (or so I'm told by Archana).  This has been interesting in our office because most people don't want to have their stressful busy season experiences captured on camera, but Archana doesn't go anywhere in the office without her camera.  It's been rather hilarious to watch people's expressions when she pulls out a camera.  Also, in India, whenever people show up to work wearing the same color, she takes a picture.  As you can imagine, this happens a lot!  So I've had my picture taken several times for showing up matching.  One time we were on a video conference call with the Indian office and I was wearing the same color as 2 of the girls in India...that made for an interesting picture!

Additionally, Archana was married less than a year ago and so she loves doing silly things with pictures of her and her husband.  For example, she will photoshop her and her husband's faces into a picture of an American couple on their wedding day to see what they'd look like in an American wedding dress and tuxedo!  It's so funny!

Archana at her engagement party last April

Me in front of video conference screen with Surthy and Florance in matching colors.

Archana's husband, Raventh, photoshopped as Santa Claus!

Archana

Busy season is officially over!!!  So I actually have time to blog again!  I don't feel too bad about not blogging for the past 3 months seeing as all I've done is work and who wants to read about tax provisions or depreciation on a blog?  I'll answer that...no one.

The one noteworthy experience from busy season is the arrival of Archana in the Seattle office.  Deloitte has offices in India, as does every other business, for the sole reason of cheap labor.  Every so often we have one of the employees from India do a rotation in the US to help them learn and develop professionally.  This year the Seattle office was pleased to welcome Archana - and I've been assigned as her "buddy" while she is here.

At first I was a little hesitant about the whole thing.  I wondered if all of my spare time would be consumed with taking her grocery shopping or sight seeing.  I worried about this because this is what happened to the "buddies" of the other India rotators in the past.  However, Archana has been incredibly competent and independent.  In fact, we've become quite good friends!  She is very kind and thoughtful.  She's funny and works hard.  And she's eager to learn.  She's not so eager to eat American food so she is starving to death, but we're working on that.

A few funny things...the left hand is considered unclean in India so whenever I eat with my left hand or reach for something with my left hand Archana scolds me or slaps my hand.  I have to remind her frequently that not only am I left-handed, but she's in America where we use both hands all the time.  In India, they don't have traffic rules so when you want to cross the street, you just start walking and hope the cars don't hit you.  I've had to remind Archana on a few occasions to wait for the crosswalk signal to show a white man before attempting to cross the street.  She has almost been killed a couple of times by thinking the cars will just stop when they see her!

Overall, it's been a great experience for me to learn about their culture and lifestyle.  I feel really ashamed that I was so clueless before; I really had made no effort to learn about the workers we have over there.  Archana will be here through July 4th and I'm excited for the things we can both teach each other.