My joining Wipro in Chennai – 14th Jan 2008

Finally after 2 month long marathon talks and follow up finally got into Wipro, not a great journey though I had tough time handling Joining HR while salary negotiation and then after the offer had even more tough time running after the joining HR team for my accommodation and other things.

So strange things happened, firstly I was recruited for Hyderabad location but my base location was said to be Chennai and for the first 3 months I was to be posted in Calcutta, now I am really in confused state on where exactly would I land up in, Calcutta or Hyderabad or Pune

Now first day in Chennai, 13th Jan and city was gearing up for PONGAL, and I was staying in the most crowded and happening place in Chennai, T Nagar which the house of all jeweler dwellers. Streets were crowded like a mela. Guest house room was a sharing one…. So that was major disappointment for me.

Day of joining, 14th Jan – BOGI PONGAL day (first of the 4 day festival in Chennai), was suppose to reach at 8:30 am but to add up to the mess, I took a wrong bus and had to walk off some 3 km to office, 9:10 am and presentation had already begun, fortunately I didn’t miss much action. Though first of the 2 day induction was boring and dragging, made some friends from Pune and Hyderabad, good to see people from your city. First day was kind of too much of information but useful to certain extent. Second say was a holiday and god what do I do, landed up in one of my relative’s house only to make my day more dragging and dull. Somehow managed to escape from there after having LUNCH (though food was homely).

The last day of induction was a bit team building exercise sort of…. Which they call it “Spirit of Wipro”, had some fun in that session, but after lunch (typical madrassi lunch with loads of rice and sambhar and rasam) I was even more confused as my project manager was on leave for the whole week, so who to contact ? Had to shell out 200 bucks and reach Guindy office (suppose to be my base location) where I spoke to my alternate supervisor about my travel plans and what am I suppose to do in Calcutta. Had a mess of a time that evening and left everything and went straight to guest house. Next day I came in with fresh mind studied Wipro’s intranet closely, learnt how to raise travel request, how to follow up with people, finally in the evening I got tickets to go back to Pune and on Monday to Calcutta…. Was relieved finally back to home pune after dragging week in Chennai.