Drama, Drama, Drama [Thursday, June 17 2010]

My driver this morning was younger and stared at me like he'd never seen someone of a different race before. He led me down to his crappy car and thus began on of the most terrifying rides of the last two weeks. His car kept stalling, but that didn't stop him from slamming on the brakes, driving insanely fast, and talking his cell phone at the same time. All the while, taking surreptitious glances in the rear-view mirror at me.

He also didn't know any of the shortcuts. I've been in India for 2.5 weeks and even I know all the shortcuts to get to work. When he didn't take the shortcut access road to get to the office, I started to panic. I was convinced that he was going to kidnap me and take me to Suresh, where I would be inflicted with a beating so bad, I'd never be returning to America.

Melodramatic? No, not me.

Of course, after about five minutes, he turned and I realized we were heading towards the front entrance of the office building rather than the garage where I normally get dropped off. Whew. Crisis averted.

I spent a good portion of the morning getting ready for our department all-hands. I revamped my slide for a presentation I was doing, made some notes, and created a "who's who" of the US designers to show to the India team. I knew they weren't going to be able to see everyone very well, so I thought this would be a fun way for them to get to know everyone, so to speak. I went through all my pictures on facebook and discovered that I had a photo of just about every single person. Granted, most of these pictures included me, but still, there were lots to choose from. My obsessiveness with taking photos at team events had clearly paid off.

It was so fun to attend the first-ever global all-hands meeting from the India side. Everyone was really excited, which they demonstrated by being as quiet as mice. After the meeting I told them that if they didn't start talking, I would be forced to start choosing people to present at the next meeting. And I would start with the quietest person!

Tonight Sim and Rahul took me for dinner at Monk, a Chinese restaurant in the Galaxy Hotel. Delicious food, great atmosphere, and wonderful company. It was so nice to hang out with them, as they had been on vacation the entire week before.

Rahul and I were twins.

After a stop-off to get some pastries, I'm home and completely wiped. I'm very thankful that the key still works and that I lived to tell about it after my kidnapping scare this morning. ;)