Through the System

The startup period has been a bit more protracted than I'm used to, due to some particularly difficult logistics.  In the U.S., I'm used walking to and from the office.  Now, to rush home a tummy-troubled editor, it's a huge ordeal to contact a cab, make sure the guy whose car you get into is the one you've called, stew through an hour and a half of weaving through traffic, and then settle with a driver who may or may not speak English.  One result is that drivers tend to show up even when they haven't been called, or take odd routes and end up getting lost.  Last Saturday at 11 am, a driver I hadn't met knocked on my door holding a payment slip with my name on it, and he thought I was ready to go to work.  Whatever gave him that idea?

The other problem is the lack of independent movement that comes from having so much surrounding you. Things are crowded.  People are everywhere.  There isn't much of the personal space we're used to out West.  This means you have to negotiate through a whole city of competing bodies. No wonder the roads are so snarled.  No wonder drivers creep up into every inch of available space.  If they were to politely defer to each of their neighbors, they would never get anywhere.

Your correspondent is both a victim and a complicating factor.  I may find it annoying to have to sit in a car every morning, but I have to notice the effort it takes to get me from one place to another.  A case of "Delhi-belly" is frustrating, as is the missed time at work, but how frustrating is it to be the team who needs my signature for the visa paperwork?  How frustrating is it that they can't even hand off my mobile phone so I can call them when I'm home sick?

Eventually the routine will fall into place, and I'll get used to the atmosphere enough to reach my previous level of production.  In the meantime, it's just working through the system.  The only cure is patience and time.