The India Chronicles (Day 71)

Well, I went a week without writing and shouldn't have. Now I need to
try to remember everything that happened. I am post dating this one as
one from June 28th and June 29th will come separately.

Ok, the last time I reported about a pending "bunt" which was supposed
to shut the city down. Well, just as I was getting comfortable on the
couch for an early morning nap, the damn doorbell rang. Manu made it
into work, so that meant I needed to go too. Oh well. The nice thing
about these things is that when they're mild, there is NO traffic. No
buses, minimal cars, and hardly any people. Needless to say it was just
me and one other employee from my group (they all planned that day off
the day before - many went back "home"). Pretty gosh darn uneventful,
which I guess is alright.

I will post two pictures of Jupiter I took through the telescope this
week. They are not great, but you can see the great red spot on both
and on one, despite it's massive red-color imbalance, you can see
Jupiter's moon Io as a disk. Neat stuff. If you don't find this at
least somewhat neat, than the heck with ya! I do and it's my
Chronicle!!! :-) Here they are in e-mail form. Enjoy!

We had an interesting discussion regarding car insurance (I have no idea
how it started). There are two types, 3rd party (mandatory) and
personal (optional). The 3rd party is to pay others should you be in an
accident. Why it's not called "2nd party" is beyond me, no one could
explain that one. Anyway, if you're in an accident the only way a
payout occurs is due to judgment at court. You see, the police will
file charges against someone (no such thing as no-fault) and eventually
it goes to trial. Guilty or not guilty. Most of the times there is a
fine (Rs1000 or so) but depending on how serious there could be jail
time. While this is going on, then you can sue the other and if
successful, the award comes out of the 3rd party insurance. This
amounts to like a few thousand rupees per year. Not too expensive.

The optional insurance covers things that we would classify as collision
and comprehensive. This covers things like trees falling on your car
during the monsoon, theft, collision damage etc. But it is only based
on the depreciated value of the vehicle so once vehicles are more than a
few years old they start dropping this as insurance because they won't
get back enough to repair or replace the vehicle. I guess this is
analogous to how we drop collision at some point because if the car is
totaled, oh well! The cost of the collision coverage was more than the
value of the car. There must be serious depreciation here, but
considering the dirt, mud, grime, wind, rain, and salty air, I guess I
can understand it.

The company I am "loaned" to has an annual ritual called the "Annual
Increment". Seems everyone gets a "raise" which is somewhat based on
performance for the previous year, but you could be a loser and still
get something. The losers this year got 8%. Think about that!! How
much did you get at your last annual review?? The range was 8-18%.
Average about 12%.



Seems titles are more important here than anything else. Let me take a
detour to explain.....

You look at the structure of the company here in Cochin and it looks
something like this [the numbers are approximate for scope purposes] (US
management types - put your shock filters on)
Direct Labor - 200
Lower Management - 200
Top Management - 100

HOLY COW!!!!

Ok, the directs are direct. No problem there as we can all agree on what
a Direct Labor person is (give me a few minutes and I may be able to
convince you they are NOT direct after all!! :-) )

Then there is lower management. Production supervisors, Shift
Supervisors, Senior Shift Supervisors, Etc. Ok, I can live with this
one....kinda.

Here is upper management (more or less):
Engineer
Senior Engineer
Asst Manager
Deputy Manager
Manager
Senior Manager
Assistant General Manager
General Manager

Ok - I can deal with that (other than engineers being top management,
but ok).

Here's the weird thing. I can be an engineer doing the same job for the
last 10 years and be an Asst Manager, and not be managing anything or
anyone. You get promotions and your title changes even though your job
doesn't. THAT is weird. The only thing that changes is pay grade
(MAYBE) and perks.

Ok, now that I mentioned perks I need to cover them. An employee may
have a 1 lakh salary, but he has many other "benefits" that are
effectively money to him and not to the company. This is nothing like
the health care benefits we have in the US.

They get:
Salary
Transportation Allowance (money to get to and from work - might not
cover all expenses, but it covers a good chunk)
Housing Allowance (money to go towards housing - might not cover all
expenses, but it covers a portion)
Government Pension - Government Sponsored - Think Social Security
Employee Pension - Company Sponsored - Think 401K
Food Allowance - Money towards lunches, etc.
Others -I can't think of them right now.

So the titles don't necessarily tell you what they do or what they're
responsible for, but they give an indication of Seniority (that explains
why I can never tell who does what!!). As you become more senior, you
may get a company paid for cell phone, more money on certain allowances,
a bigger salary, etc.) The other thing is that when in an interview
employers want to know your "total cost to the company - not your salary".

Similar to the US, you cannot call a current or past employer and ask if
the individual works there or how long they worked there but you cannot
ask what their titles are(were) or their salary. But during the
interview you are perfectly justified in asking (my Mom's gonna flip):
Religion, Marital Status and Age. In fact, they usually prevent you
from needing to ask and simply put that information right on the resume.



Ugh!

Friday I wake up and my right eye is killing me. It's happened before,
but when I described it to my US Ophthalmologist she simply said that I
had scratched my cornea before and it created flat spot on my eye that
would dry out and cause some occasional irritation. Nothing serious. In
a few hours the discomfort is usually gone, so no problem. That night
while walking Riley and looking up at the moon to decide if I am setting
the telescope up the strangest thing happened; the moon multiplied.
There are now two moons!

Figuring that NASA would have notified us of such a thing if it were
true, that worried me. I could trace it to my right eye.

Saturday goes by and the eye is fine and back to normal. Sunday the same.

We'll pick this up then (Day 73)