Earlier this year, John Deere opened a new facility in Pune, India called the John Deere Technology Center - India. Most of our IT work is going to be done over there in the future and a lot of engineering support work as well.
On Monday, my boss asked me to take a trip over there in September to train a new team that will be assisting with my current project. Sooo...twist my arm...I said yes. How could I turn down a free trip to India???
I'm pretty excited about it - that's one place I've always wanted to visit. I've been working with Indians here in the states for about 6 years and have heard lots about the place. There's definitly some scary things about going - disturbing poverty, lots of petty crime, lots of people (Dehli has more than 10,000 people per square kilometer), crazy wild traffic, lots of strange food, terrorist threats, bird flu, and so on. Not to mention the 20 hours of plane riding each way. I'm not really too worried about it though - I'll be traveling with 4 others including one native Indian.
The flight will be horrible - I leave Chicago and land in Dehli 25 hours later (14 hours flying plus 11 hour time zone changes). We will get to spend the first weekend sightseeing in Dehli and Agra before flying to Pune for work the next week. We'll be able to see the Taj Mahal while in Agra. That's the stop I'm most excited to see.
It can't all be fun though. After settling in, I'll spend the next two weeks working with the team in Pune. They work different hours than we do - normally later morning (10 or 11 am) until late evening (8 or 9 pm) so there won't be much time for sightseeing during the week. I think they do that some because of culture and some because they need a little overlap time to work with extended teams in the U.S. I will hopefully have some more free time on the next weekend to see some more of the area.
All-in-all, I'm very excited to be able to go. I'll take lots of pictures and try to post about my experience frequently while I'm there.
4 comments:
Wow, that certainly sounds like it is going to be a great adventure. That's a place I have always been interested in seeing as well. We have quite a few Indians that live in our resident housing (a lot of the internal medicine residents here are from India). I'll look forward to hearing about your experiences and seeing cool pictures!
Tammy, I'll also be praying for you because I know how hard it is to be husband-less for a couple weeks at a time!
I'll echo Deanna's WOW! When do you leave? I'll look forward to your posts while you are there and when you get back. Please be careful!! (Sorry, can't help being a mother.) ;-)
How exciting. I will pray for Tammy, too. We had a mother come do a presentation on India because she goes there often for her job (and we had just read a book about an Indian woman). It was facinating and the pictures were fun. It sounds much safer being with a native.
Wow that's pretty cool! I think my dad has been to India for business... but, maybe he just does a lot of business with Indians. Anyway, I can't wait to hear about it! And I will be praying for Tammy as well.
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