Far and dear

When your authors are from all over the world, your typesetters are in India, your proofreaders are in the US, your bosses are in Boston and you, the editor, are in Singapore, work can be really fun. First of all there are the teleconferences and videoconferences with the US which, due to the 12-hour time difference, happen either early in the morning or late at night. Sometimes when the meeting is scheduled for my mornings, it's quite late for the US people and they dial into the meetings from home. I remember this particular meeting which sounded something like this:

Me - Work-stuff-blah-blah...
Boston colleague - Work-stuff-blah-blah... yes honey, I'll read you the story, let Mommy work now?
Me - I'm sorry?
Boston colleague - No, I am. My daughter just came into the room.
Me - Oh that's okay... Work-stuff-blah-blah...
In the background - WOOF! WOOF!
Boston colleague - Can you take him out?
Me - Huh?
Boston colleague - No, I'm asking my daughter to take the dog out... sorry...
Me - That's okay... Work-stuff-blah-blah...
Boston colleague - THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Me - Oh no problem...
Boston colleague - Oh I'm thanking my neighbour... I think my dog ran into the street and the neighbour got him back.

Unprofessional as it may sound, but I really appreciated her dialing in from home for the meeting, the rest of which went on pretty smoothly.

I have this adorable proofreader who makes it a point to remind me in each email of hers that day for me is night for her. So her emails always start with "It's my day and your night!" or "I will work while you sleep." or something endearing like that.

Then there are the typesetters. Even in my previous company, one of the divisions used to outsource the typesetting work to India. For obvious reasons. I'd heard my colleagues rolling my eyes about the typesetters, but I had had no direct contact with them. So when I found out that I will be working with quite a few typesetting companies in India, I was excited and yet a bit apprehensive.

I started off with extremely polite emails because I did want to make a good impression and have the workflow going really smoothly between us. But then... Well, I had a messy start with one of the typesetting companies when we had a disagreement over file formats. Tum log typesetters ho toh kya hua, apun bhi ex-engineer hai, I wanted to say. I was so sure I was right I even got the IT guy to endorse it, and in the end the typesetters gave in.

"All right, that's it, they hate me now." I thought. "I'm 'the conceited NRI chick who is just a month old at the job but thinks she knows everything'." Sheesh.

But surprise surprise, the next morning I received a very cheerful email from Alka. Alka of Akshay and Alka, the two people who randomly choose to reply when I send an email to their generic company email address. (Names have been changed to protect identities.) So Alka sends me the files I had asked for, and adds, "The weather is sooo nice today! It's ossum!" I smiled when I read it. Only an Indian would say "Ossum".

So I replied, "I thought it must be hot in India right now!"

"It's raining. I don't feel like working." came the reply. Holy cow. Although we were independent parties in two different countries, we were behaving like colleagues in the same office.

"Ah, you're welcoming the monsoon. And making me homesick." I replied, feeling a bit guilty for talking non-work stuff in a work thread, that too with a third party.

"Don't worry, I'll enjoy on your behalf too." She said cheerfully.

Then there's Balagopalakrishna (also not his real name). He works in another typesetting company and has no idea whatsoever about the time difference between India and Singapore. I often get emails from him at three in the afternoon that start off with a very cheerful "GOOD MORNING, SAYESHA!" before proceeding to tell me that my proofs are ready for downloading. The strangest thing is - everyone addresses him in emails by his full name. It is a long name to type, and I often wonder if I should just call him Bala. But in an environment like this, you're just dealing with names. No faces. And you have no idea whose sensitivities you may hurt. Perhaps he'd think I was taking liberties by calling him Bala. Perhaps he prefers Gopal. Or Krishna. Or perhaps he prefers something that has nothing to do with anything. You never know. So every time I type out his full name (it takes a few seconds to do it) in my emails to him, I wonder when he will get sick of signing off with his full name and give me a damn nick for heaven's sake. Till then, I am seriously considering creating a new signature in my Outlook that starts with "Dear Balagopalakrishna" and ends with my signoff, because considering the number of emails I have to write this guy, I am losing valuable company time with each email.

Though I've heard how inefficient and disorganised some of the India-based companies can get at times, so far I have not encountered any major issue. Touchwood. I've found them pleasant, cheerful, and accommodating. They still sound excited and not jaded in spite of having done the same things for years, and they adhere to most of my deadlines. Perhaps it's too soon, perhaps I will be rolling my eyes soon, being so used to the clockwork efficiency that Singapore is known for, but what the hell - there is a part of me that is very happy to work with India. I have never worked in an office in India, and I'm curious. Sometimes I wonder what these people look like, what their offices look like, what time they report to work, what time they leave, whether they have to work late because of us. Perhaps the next time I go to India, I can pay a visit to all these people, and then we will hang out and laugh about all the serious work stuff. Perhaps, somehow over the computers, cables, servers and networks, a real connection has been made. Yeah, I think I feel connected. Connected to home.

And here comes the cheesy line:

My company may like to work with Indian companies because they are cheap, but I like to work with them because they are so very dear.