The Office

While waiting to speak to the HR director, the din of people’s voices bouncing off of the walls was overwhelming. The office is one of many old textile mills that have been turned into office spaces. The office is lavishly and whimsically decorated. The office looks more like that off a venture capitalist team or a pr firm- any place bustling with ideas and energy to create the next trend. I felt like I was on a big budget movie set where the newsroom is glamorized and comes with this bevy of the smart and beautiful. Like that movie “How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days” is sort of Cosmo meets GQ, the office has that sort of glossy feel. Shocking more so because just outside of the gated compound there is Victoria House which is actually a squatter’s slum. Children are running around barefoot, runny nosed due to chronic upper respiratory infection, and taunting each other in play. Based on this particular newsroom one might assume that the newspaper industry is booming here, whereas in the U.S. the industry is a dying breed, except for the “power hitters” (ugh, hate that sort of jargon, too much time around corporate types of late). I am excited about this opportunity. The paper is new and people seem to be buzzing with the idealism of new ventures. I think I have to get used to a lot of blustering and unwarranted respect because I am American. Funny to me, especially just before leaving Bangalore, on the way to the airport I saw some graffiti on a wall that said “Down with the USA”. So I had expected some element of scorn rather than grandiose assumptions about my background that seem to work in my favor in terms of relatively easy access to upper management and possibly against me among peers if I prove a stereotype of brash American to be correct.