Not going the Green Way

My green card process has been one winding one from the start. Initially when the lawyers asked me to submit papers, I did a lot of dilly-dallying before I finally started the process a year after they first started asking me. I didn't want to apply for one, till someone told me it might adversely affect my growth in the company if I didn't.

Then the papers. My gosh! The whole process requires you to dig out your history which even you might not be aware of. Letters from college professors all the way to infant vaccine records (alternatively you can get yourself shot for those vaccines all over again). It was one big painful process every new step of the way.

Finally we cleared some all important stages. I don't remember the exact order or names (I was always very bad with it although I used to make everyone explain it to me over and over again). I think the first one was the Labor stage, then some I-765 and I-485 and some other myriad such I- stages. We had to go through biometrics (in which they asked me to remove my bindi for the picture and I was mighty put-off) and got our EADs and Advance Paroles.

Then we moved to India. I asked my lawyers if I should close the Adjustment of Status process since I was traveling long term to India and they said we were in a stage where for my priority date to go current it would take at least four years and I was ok till then. They suggested that I leave it as is so that is exactly what I did and came back. They kept coming back with requests for more documentation time and again which i very patiently supplied although I was never sure why we were carrying on with it. Finally they wanted one more biometrics appointment, which the lawyers kept postponing and finally couldn't postpone any further I think. Then I told them it was impossible for me to travel and eventually the lawyers said, that since there was no definite date and time at which I know I would be back in the US with the same employer, it was best to withdraw the application.

Now, I wish the lawyers told me this bit of info two years back when I asked them. I never told them that I knew when I would be back in the US, yet they kept the app active. Which is Ok, didn't do me any harm, except that they kept asking for documents, which, if you have dealt with USCIS, you know how quickly how painful it can get.

Well, so this morning, I shot off the email. Please withdraw my Adjustment of Status application. Apparently when I get back to the US, I can re-start the process provided I am still with Cisco and my priority date has not become history by then.

We will see :)

Those old pals...

Had my weekly 1-on-1 meeting with my manager last night. He usually does this once every two weeks. Normally that is strictly limited to the Outlook Calendar. At the time of the meeting he is usually not around so its not abnormal for us to have this once every month typically. He is a busy guy what to do. But he made this exception for me because he diagnosed me as suffering from "San Jose sickness". So we are doing one-on-one meetings weekly till I get over my sickness. I sent him an email a couple of weeks ago. Even as I was composing it, I could feel the vagueness and emptiness pouring forth and the sad undertone in it. Very confused. And very out of place in a new work environment.

So he took time to actually chat with me and said lets talk weekly. A very nice guy. I don't think I have ever admired another person professionally as much as I have admired my manager. Very brilliant guy. He has always been around telling me what to do, what not to do, what he did wrong, (actually its probably more appropriate to say, what didn't work for him, I don't think he is capable of doing anything wrong :D ) and how I should avoid all that so I can grow fast. Faster than it took him to be where he is today. And I owe whatever little popularity I enjoy in my entire team today to him and only him.

So anyway, after this 1-on-1 we usually have a learning channel meeting. My most accommodating team mates didn't mind moving a meeting from Wednesday evening to early morning on Thursday so I could continue attending it. And it makes me both very happy and very sad when Thursday night comes around. I get to talk to part of my team if not all of it, which is what I am usually excited about. At the same time, it does make me wish I was back in that room with them thrashing those fundamentals out, white-boarding, drawing topology diagrams, discussing entries and flags, technicalities, technicalities and more technicalities, and generally having a blast of a time.

I have slowly started getting into the run of things here in Bangalore. I have met new people, I now go out with the girls gang for lunch everyday, miss it when not everyone is around some days for lunch, I started giving presentations (aka gyan) to people here in what is now called my "expertise", and in general I am enjoying being wowed at and awed at ;) (You know that is a joke, don't you? ) I even have a scheduled slot for interviewing a person to recruit into the team already! I couldn't have dreamt of a faster or better absorption into the team here. But still, I miss my team back in San Jose. I miss joking around with people. I miss the corridor gossip, the pranks we played on our manager, giving a tough time to the 3 unmarried colleagues in the team etc. Whenever I think of it, it makes me terribly nostalgic. Every morning at least one person from that team is up late and we end up chatting for a while before they say good day and I say good night!

There was some possibility that I needed to go back to San Jose for a few days to wrap some formalities up. I was telling my manager I don't want to travel back to the US just yet as we are still settling in etc. He was saying the team would be really excited if I would make it. I was thinking, I would be extremely excited too! He said anytime I was ready to make a trip he would be most happy to arrange for it one way or the other. So maybe I will go back after all in 3-4 months, I will find a time when Subhash is really busy ;) And I am already thinking of how it would be to go back and meet those familiar faces. I am sure I would surprise them (see, it has to be done that way!), won't let them know ahead of time that I am coming (of course my manager would know, what can be done to help it, he is all pervasive ;) ) etc. We of course will have to have lunch at least once at Cheesecake Factory in Valley Fair (we went there as a team at least 100 times!). And naturally, I will insist on using my old cube while I am there, etc etc etc. The thoughts are endless :)

Till then I have to live in the here and now and somehow manage to alleviate my "San Jose Sickness".

R2I diaries - Cisco San Jose vs Bangalore - Day Two

Wednesday

I thought the comaprison between my two work places deserved another post altogether so here goes.

I definitely think the Bangalore office, only the new campus I mean, is definitely much better than the San Jose buildings :) I haven't seen the other Cisco buildings here in Bangalore yet but the campus definitely stands out. I think except for my team I don't miss anything here. That said, there are some cons. And many pros. Let me try to re-cap them.

Pros:
1) Much brighter buildings
2) Much better landscapes
3) Myriad office rooms, glass on both the front and back ends of the office rooms, they look quite funky ;)
4) More modern constructions, you can simply make the difference out.
5) Biscuits in the breakfast room. Especially ones I like. Good Day, Krackjack, Orange Cream ones and Marie!! Yay!! I am eating one Good Day a day, decided to stick to that routine till I started working out again;)
6) Stylish whiteboard in the cube.
7) Writeable glass-panelled cube wall strips. The top strip you can actually write on. Quite funky.
8) Amazing furnishings. Everywhere. In break-rooms, in the lobby. The shapes of chairs and the variety of furniture is mind-blowing.

Cons:

1) Its way away from the city. A lot of people I met here actually don't prefer coming here and go to our DC or SA offices at least twice a week.
2) I have to enter a memo/log in a book in the mail room every time I take supplies, this didn't make me happy at all.
3) The cube structure itself is BAD. As in, the only place you can put your laptop on the desk is in such a way that everyone walking by can look at exactly what you are doing. Not that I am doing much other than work anyway, but it does make writing this blog for example a little challenging. Plus I am in a corner cube where people are always walking by and peeking. I saw a STAPLES store on Outer Ring Road the other day. And that 3M Privacy Screen has been inserted at the top in my to-shop list just above the Refrigerator ;)

One thing I definitely noticed in a large way is the number of service people you see here. I can see them moving in and out and around at all times. They are just everywhere. back in San Jose, if you saw the Janitor once in a day you were lucky. Here you just keep seeing these people and multitudes of them, at all times.

That is it for now. I am sure more will follow.

UPDATE - Not that anyone cares but I had mentioned security as a con in my original post because my OHP markers were missing this morning. I was wondering again and again about who would care to just take OHP markers when there is a bunch of other things here. Rightly so, I found them under the table in a corner and I have no idea how they got there. So I promptly edited my post but also thought I should write about it since it was a mistake on my end :)