Living in Boise

Today is my seventeenth day in Boise and I can confidently say that this period has been one of the worst in all the 25 years and 6 months of my existence on this planet. I say so for a varied lot of reasons like the work I am here for, the food, the place around the hotel etc. Actually it’s not just about these factors but I have come to believe that staying alone at any place is not easy. But the good thing is that staying all alone in a far country has also taught me a few things.

I am here to manage my first project. And I know how important this project is to my company and to my own personal career. So there is pressure. Pressure to make sure that the project goes good and the customer is happy. What I find difficult to cope with is the fact that I am here managing my first project that has a team full of people I just do not know. I had never met or spoken to these people before. I do not know how each person behaves or reacts to situations. And I am responsible for this team. Also, the team is distributed meaning, some of the team sits in Boise, some in San Diego, and another in Corvallis. This makes it even more difficult. I am not used to the work culture here. Here people come in and leave office whenever they want to. In India, if I am to manage a project, I at least know the team, I know the way people in the team will react to situations, and I know the team members schedule. I know the team comes in at 9:30am and so I can plan accordingly. Here it is difficult to manage this. Moreover, some of the team members are part-time. So they work only for a fixed time per week. I have never managed anything like this before. Apart from all these problems, the usual official politics exist along with a few difficult people.

Moreover, I am not sure of how the project is going. As in, I haven’t really had proper feedback from the customers. From the feedback I am getting on individual documents, I have mixed feelings. Some documents receive great feedback while some receive a hell a lot of changes. So I don’t really know. Hopefully I know soon.

I do not think I am having great food here. The hotel provides complimentary breakfast that I enjoy but after that, it’s a problem. I have been living on packets on maggi and Knoor soup. The Knoor soup sucks. There are a few restaurants around the hotel. There is a pizza place, a deli corner, a steakhouse, and a Chinese place. But I am not too interested in any of this. I end up eating fruits for lunch and some maggi for dinner. Yeah, I do order some Chinese food at times for dinner, but the Chinese food here is nothing like the Chinese food in India.

I do not have a car here which makes it difficult to move around. I wanted to go downtown to see the place since I heard it is much more happening than the place where I stay. But have never been able to get there. Hiring a cab is too expensive since it would take about 60$ from my 45$ per day allowance. Taking the bus is the only option I got. However, the last bus, to and from downtown, departs at 6:35pm and I am out of office only at about 5. This leaves me with no time to actually catch a bus, go downtown, see the place, and then catch the 6:35pm bus from there. So I have been confined to the area around the hotel. The area around the hotel is not bad to spend about 2 days after that there is nothing much that you can do.

After all these hardships, I have come to realize this: I am a person who is too emotional and am very attached my folks. I have been missing them a lot over these past 17 days. I am very happy that I can talk to my folks back home daily. I have been chatting with them daily in the morning. Thanks to technology. :)
Guess I’ll stop cribbing for the day. :) I’ll have more to say as I live through my days in Boise.