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.