7:39pm
After a long week with a packed schedule, I've got finally got some extra time on my hands. The first week of the internship went really well. The first two days consisted of some pretty standard corporate orientation things like company overview presentations and executive guest speakers. On Wednesday, we were unexpectedly thrown into the real world. All five of us interns were introduced to our mentors and immediately given work to do. Over the past couple of months, people have been asking me questions like, "So what are you actually going to be doing during this internship?" The honest answer was that I had no idea. It wasn't until very recently that I learned I would be working in Capgemini's business information management (BIM) service line and even then, I couldn't tell you exactly what I would be doing on a daily basis. After a week on the job, I can finally say I have a good idea of what my job entails. I am a part of what Capgemini calls the BIM WinCenter team. This is a pre-sales division for the BIM service line that focuses on winning projects from clients around the world. Because the company is so huge and I'm so new, I still don't know all of the in's and out's of the service line structure. It's going to take a while to figure all of that out, but I've got enough knowledge to get me by for now.
The work I'm doing now is actually more sales-related than anything. I'm helping design a new presentation that shows potential clients how Capgemini's BIM service line functions and why we do it better than our competitors. I really like the people on the team so far. Everyone is nice and, more importantly, willing to answer my dumb questions without hesitation. I've also learned a lot about the Indian corporate culture and its differences from the way we do things in the states. First off, they don't stop working. The offices are open 24/7/365 so they can stay in contact with the offices in Europe and North America. When I asked a couple of senior managers how many hours they usually work per week, they just looked at each other and started laughing. They didn't give me a solid answer, but I know they are in the office far before me when I arrive at 9am and they show no signs of leaving when I head out around 6:30pm. Also, the Indian concept of personal space (or lack thereof) definitely applies in the office setting. Walking around the office you will see groups of employees almost sitting on top of each other during meetings even when there is plenty of open space and standing inches from each other during one-on-one conversations.
Overall, the internship is going great so far and it looks like I'm going to be learning a ton of valuable information and skills over the next seven weeks. We didn't really do any touristy things this week because we were working a lot so today was our designated day for exploring Mumbai. We left the apartments early this morning and headed towards the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. This is a world renowned hotel that has been around for over a hundred years and has hosted people like John Lennon, Oprah Winfrey, and Barack Obama. Unfortunately, the hotel became even more well known in 2008 when a group of terrorists from Pakistan went on a shooting rampage in the lobby as part of their attacks in various places around Mumbai. The attack killed 31 hotel guests and employees and left millions of dollars in damage. Of course, the hotel has been fully restored since then and looks incredible, but it was still a pretty eerie feeling to be standing where so many innocent people were killed. After looking around the first floor for a while and overstaying our welcome at a hotel that we're not paying to stay in, we walked across the street to the "gateway of India". As you'll see in the pictures, it's a massive archway by the ocean. It is also about 100 years old and serves is another huge tourist attraction in Mumbai. If you're dying to know more about it, Wikipedia has more information than I care to type right now.
From the gateway, we took a ferry to Elephanta Island. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed when we got to the Island and realized there weren't tons of elephants roaming around. The island was named for another reason and instead of elephants, it is home to tons of monkeys and caves from the 7th century. After taking a short train ride and walking up over 100 large, oddly-shaped stairs, we arrived at the caves. The caves were originally built to commemorate the Hindu god, Shiva. I'm still confused as to how someone was able to dig into the side of a mountain and carve incredible sculptures with perfect detail hundreds of years ago with no power tools. We found an English-speaking tour guide and she gave us the full story behind the caves and the meanings of the different sculptures. The caves were pretty incredible, but I think I had more fun watching monkeys sneak up on people and steal their sandwiches and bottles of Pepsi. While we walked around to the different caves, Evan managed to sprain his ankle on some of the disproportional stairs. The security guards immediately ran over to help him and started massaging his foot to check for broken bones. Since he couldn't put much weight on the ankle, he had to pay 600 rupees for a four-man team to carry him back down the stairs using one of the chairs that you see kings using in the movies.
After another long ferry ride back to the city, we got in the taxi and headed to lunch. We drove around a couple of different areas in the city then headed back to the apartments.
After a long week with a packed schedule, I've got finally got some extra time on my hands. The first week of the internship went really well. The first two days consisted of some pretty standard corporate orientation things like company overview presentations and executive guest speakers. On Wednesday, we were unexpectedly thrown into the real world. All five of us interns were introduced to our mentors and immediately given work to do. Over the past couple of months, people have been asking me questions like, "So what are you actually going to be doing during this internship?" The honest answer was that I had no idea. It wasn't until very recently that I learned I would be working in Capgemini's business information management (BIM) service line and even then, I couldn't tell you exactly what I would be doing on a daily basis. After a week on the job, I can finally say I have a good idea of what my job entails. I am a part of what Capgemini calls the BIM WinCenter team. This is a pre-sales division for the BIM service line that focuses on winning projects from clients around the world. Because the company is so huge and I'm so new, I still don't know all of the in's and out's of the service line structure. It's going to take a while to figure all of that out, but I've got enough knowledge to get me by for now.
The work I'm doing now is actually more sales-related than anything. I'm helping design a new presentation that shows potential clients how Capgemini's BIM service line functions and why we do it better than our competitors. I really like the people on the team so far. Everyone is nice and, more importantly, willing to answer my dumb questions without hesitation. I've also learned a lot about the Indian corporate culture and its differences from the way we do things in the states. First off, they don't stop working. The offices are open 24/7/365 so they can stay in contact with the offices in Europe and North America. When I asked a couple of senior managers how many hours they usually work per week, they just looked at each other and started laughing. They didn't give me a solid answer, but I know they are in the office far before me when I arrive at 9am and they show no signs of leaving when I head out around 6:30pm. Also, the Indian concept of personal space (or lack thereof) definitely applies in the office setting. Walking around the office you will see groups of employees almost sitting on top of each other during meetings even when there is plenty of open space and standing inches from each other during one-on-one conversations.
Overall, the internship is going great so far and it looks like I'm going to be learning a ton of valuable information and skills over the next seven weeks. We didn't really do any touristy things this week because we were working a lot so today was our designated day for exploring Mumbai. We left the apartments early this morning and headed towards the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. This is a world renowned hotel that has been around for over a hundred years and has hosted people like John Lennon, Oprah Winfrey, and Barack Obama. Unfortunately, the hotel became even more well known in 2008 when a group of terrorists from Pakistan went on a shooting rampage in the lobby as part of their attacks in various places around Mumbai. The attack killed 31 hotel guests and employees and left millions of dollars in damage. Of course, the hotel has been fully restored since then and looks incredible, but it was still a pretty eerie feeling to be standing where so many innocent people were killed. After looking around the first floor for a while and overstaying our welcome at a hotel that we're not paying to stay in, we walked across the street to the "gateway of India". As you'll see in the pictures, it's a massive archway by the ocean. It is also about 100 years old and serves is another huge tourist attraction in Mumbai. If you're dying to know more about it, Wikipedia has more information than I care to type right now.
From the gateway, we took a ferry to Elephanta Island. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed when we got to the Island and realized there weren't tons of elephants roaming around. The island was named for another reason and instead of elephants, it is home to tons of monkeys and caves from the 7th century. After taking a short train ride and walking up over 100 large, oddly-shaped stairs, we arrived at the caves. The caves were originally built to commemorate the Hindu god, Shiva. I'm still confused as to how someone was able to dig into the side of a mountain and carve incredible sculptures with perfect detail hundreds of years ago with no power tools. We found an English-speaking tour guide and she gave us the full story behind the caves and the meanings of the different sculptures. The caves were pretty incredible, but I think I had more fun watching monkeys sneak up on people and steal their sandwiches and bottles of Pepsi. While we walked around to the different caves, Evan managed to sprain his ankle on some of the disproportional stairs. The security guards immediately ran over to help him and started massaging his foot to check for broken bones. Since he couldn't put much weight on the ankle, he had to pay 600 rupees for a four-man team to carry him back down the stairs using one of the chairs that you see kings using in the movies.
After another long ferry ride back to the city, we got in the taxi and headed to lunch. We drove around a couple of different areas in the city then headed back to the apartments.
The older portion of the Taj hotel
Barack Obama's signature from his visit to the hotel
John Lennon at the Taj
The newer tower
The Gateway of India
On the ferry leaving from the gateway
Old Indian naval base
Part of the staircase. Vendors line every inch of the way selling souvenirs
Afternoon snack time for a couple of monkeys
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