Our Indian Colleagues Visit

Last week, our Indian colleagues from Aurangabad came to the Czech Republic.It was their first trip outside India and I believe it was really impressive.They have never been to any clean place, because India is everything but clean. But not just to say something against India, I would say this practice is common for all southern nations. Last time, my friend came back from Mexico, and all his photos were taken from one meter above the ground upwards. I have told him my suspicion about the reason - yes, I was right - from one meter above the ground, all buildings were nice and clean. But no lower, please, no lower :-)

Back to the Indian colleagues visit. As you know, we are going to implement SAP in our subsidiary company in India. The three men was Finance Manager, Financial Accountant Methodist and Financial Accountant SAP specialist. All of them work in SkodaAuto India Private Limited and I know all of them from my previous visits of India. The main reason why they came to India was to adjust some financial methods and processes, and, to take a part of the setting of the system as well. On the last day there were here, it was yesterday (2005-04-18), we sat together with Vikram and tried to solve the CO (controlling) part of the project. We sat there up till 1:30 AM. Then, we decided to leave, because his flight took off at about 7 AM from Prague - Ruzyne Airport, which is about 70 km far away from Mlada Boleslav.

On Saturday, they are used to work, but our chief does not want us to work, too, so we have decided to assign them something like homework. :-) Very smart woman, isn't she? :-) In the afternoon, they visited some of Czech Castles and Chateaus - e.g. Kost, Sychrov, Trosky, etc. On Sunday, we went together to visit Prague. I was looking forward the visit, too, because we ordered an English guide and I was really curious about his knowledge and his way to go along with all of us. We went to Prague by our chief's car, Skoda Superb. I drove it from Prague back to MB, and I have to admit that it went really fast :-)

We visited Prague Castle, St. Vitus Cathedral, St. Nicholas Dome and went down across Charles Bridge to the Old Town Square. I have to say that our guide was really good and educated old man, originally professor of Electrical engineering from Czech Technical University :-) He knew Prague quite well and Czech history, too. He spoke fluent English that was understandable by Indians as well as me. Unfortunately, my co-worker Iveta, who accompanied us, too, is a beginner and did not understand everything.

My observations from this visit:

• Indian people are the same as we are in the matter of different knowledge (some knows a lot about their culture, religion, etc., other does not)
• Indian people are the same as we are in the matter of different interest (some is really interested in other nation's history, culture and habits, other does not)
• Indian people are the same as we are in the matter of different habits (some smokes, drinks alcohol, other does not)
• Indian people do not eat any meat they are not sure what it is ( => they ate only salads in our company's canteen)
• Indian people smile a lot even there is no obvious reason (it was sufficient for me just to come nearby)
• Indian people are much more friendly than we are (it is no problem to talk about anything, they would help you anyway they can)

Enough for today, have a good day!