Work....

OK, I have been working for 2 months now.  There are a lot of differences between work culture in US vs. India.  I noticed many differences right away, but wanted to settle in before making any hasty conclusions.  I have worked at 5 different pharmaceutical companies in the US, but only 1 in India, so take my generalizations with a grain of salt.  Below are a few of my random thoughts regarding the differences.

• Who works harder?  People work a little harder in India.  Work day is a little longer in India, but there are longer breaks (free breakfast and lunch in canteen, outdoor stroll after lunch, and afternoon tea break).  Most companies have Mon-Sat work week, but at my company we work only Mon-Fri.  My new friends here are jealous.
• Personal tasks.  Facebook or personal email at work?  Forget about it!  I admit, in the US, I took care of a lot of personal business at work.  Here, all those sites are blocked.  However, everyone has a smart phone here, and they are all on facebook during boring meetings.
• Calendars.  Don't try to schedule anything.  No one uses Outlook (or Lotus) calenders.  Meetings are called on the fly.  It is a huge waste of time and energy to try and gather everyone and then find a meeting room.  My biggest pet peeve for sure.
• Technical Skills.  It is a misconception that the workforce is less skilled here, because the labor cost is low.  People here are very well trained and knowledgeable.  Certain skills are better here and others are better there, but I've been very impressed by the formulators and analysts and their understanding of the science.
• Turnover.  Indians with less than 10 years of experience generally only stay in one company for 2 years.  This is very frustrating, as an analyst with less than 6 months experience is not very usefull.
• Fun.  The relationships between coworkers here are more friendly.  I have a lot of fun talking to my coworkers.  I'm sure it has to do with the curious nature of Indians, they will ask you anything that is on their mind.  I like this a lot, and I am laughing all the time.
• Perks.  The good:  free breakfast/lunch, free transportation to work, more vacation days (10 holiday, 24 vacation, 5 personal/sick).  The bad:  I wanted tissues and tape for my desk - had to buy myself at the store and bring to work, health insurance is a huge mystery - I've received no paperwork and don't know what is even covered, reimbursement of personal expenses in not very official and takes months.
• Details.  Indians love to talk.  This translates to their documentation.  SOPs and methods that could be 2 pages long are 20 pages long.  They will kill themselves with the details.  Americans worry about efficiency, Indians care about "worst case scenario" preparation.
• Inefficiencies.  Official documents are paper based, and take forever to get officialized.  Other examples exist, in procurement and administration.
• Men vs. Women.  My site has 60 employees, only 5 are women.  I think this is still a society that thinks women should stay at home when they have a family.  More on Indian women in a future post.  The expectations of women in society here are not fitting with my own expectations for myself.  I am acting very conservative, and I am a quiet person in general, but this may pose a problem for me here.  :)

I'm sure for you non-pharma readers, this was very boring.  But it was probably interesting for my Merck friends sending there projects to India!  Next post will be interesting for all, I promise.