Indore...continued

So wow. At the time of writing the post about my experiences of Indore, I had only been here for a half a day. We are now up to day 3 and I feel like I have been here forever. In a good way. This blog post will be split between 3 posts as there has been a lot experienced already, I'll attempt to this share with you in a way that will make sense. Thanks so much for reading and commenting, does make me feel the connection from all the way back home :)

I have now met my entire team and we had our first team meeting yesterday with Kabi and Riya (our in-country contacts). We did a fantastic session in the afternoon, sitting in a circle, sharing our story and the forks that appeared in our lives where we chose, ultimately leading us to be sitting in that room yesterday (Grant- eerily similar to your suggestion about how we should all get to know one another :), worked really really well!). With 12 of us present and 3 in-country contacts, we spent many hours through-out the afternoon listening to the stories of one another.

This was particularly interesting as we had already spent a day or so together so you feel like you already have a sense of each person. When you then listen to them share the path in life they have been on, you can't help but be amazed. These people are so kind and generous, many of them choosing to take the 'helping' path in life, giving up their free time to help others, sometimes at a cost to themselves. They have achieved great things already in their career that have impacted thousands. And yet you wouldn't have necessarily known it from talking to them? They are not showy, pretentious or demanding. They are genuine and present. Everyone is here in the moment. A great study for mindfulness. So thank you team, for sharing. I feel honoured and privileged to be hear what you have shared so far.

The remainder of this post is going to be a little bit from column a and a little bit from column b. So don't try and follow this one in chronological order :) Do check out my other posts where I share some videos of our first adventure of walking in Indore during the day and taking a rickshaw back to the hotel (to be posted in the next day).

Ordering within the Hotel
The package includes a buffet breakfast daily in the restaurant downstairs. And today I decided to have room service as I had wanted to write these blog posts before the next chapter of India begins (today we met our client) (NB: I have only managed this one this morning as between network speed and my constant monologues, it takes me about 1 hour per post). Anyway, this change in breakfast pattern was of most concern to the person I spoke to on the phone when ordering and the person who delivered my food. They were perplexed that I wasn't taking my free breakfast downstairs and instead, were choosing to pay for it upstairs. Small things where you find yourself having conversations to explain or justify your decisions are sometimes surprising in subtle ways.

Ordering coffee for a group of people: Wow. This was a perfect case of process defying logic. We have a 'break-out' room (a team space to relax) where we don't charge anything to that room, instead only charging our orders to our individual rooms. Earlier, we ate lunch in the restaurant and at the end of lunch, I ordered a bottle of water and a coffee to be sent up to room 314 (our breakout room). I signed (and thus paid) for this order. 2 hours later it still had not arrived.

I decided to follow up and took down everyone else' coffee order at the same time. Kabi suggested taking down the room numbers of each order too so to help them process our request. I went downstairs, explained how I didn't receive my original order. Waited whilst they found the receipt and pointed to it, telling me it had been processed. Some commuinication challenges when I tried to find the right words to say it had not arrived. They are obviously very diligent in their service offerings so I was trying to find away to explain that a mistake had been made. This seemed hard to comprehend on their side.

Once we had a breakthrough of understanding, I then stated that I'd like to order some more coffees for the group. Insert conversation here about how to deliver to room 314 but charge to individual rooms. This took some time and it was when the waiter had taken down my list that showed the breakdown between tea, black coffee and coffee with milk- did I leave satisified that I had made the order clear.

Some time later, the coffees arrived. 1 black coffee short. I knew this was my original order missing again. I spoke to this time, a different waiter who had brought up the beverages and tried to explain this. Trying to do so quietly outside not to disturb the team who were in the middle of sharing their stories. He nodded that he understood that a coffee was missing. I had well and truly given up on my bottle of water by this stage. He returned, with 3 black coffees and 12 individual receipts for us to sign.

I asked him to leave the receipts with us as we would sign them and return them later. As you can imagine, this interaction was detracting from the group's attentive listening. We negotiated that he would return in an hour or so with the receipts. His process was to obviously remain in control of the paperwork. When he did return a few hours later (after first calling the room), he was reluctant to let us hand around the list, find our room numbers and sign and then pass it on, instead preferring to individually hold each signed receipt.

We managed to get the paper signed around the room and given back to him. Except for the remaining receipt for those 3 black coffees that were not ordered, instead constituting the 1 missing coffee from lunch time. After the meeting, I had Kabi come with me when I tried to explain the situation to the service staff, by this time, had all changed shifts. Kabi was able to translate and explain, nicely, without getting anyone in trouble (as that was not my intention) and we were able to agree on a new process where a group order can be taken, charged to no room and we figure it out amongst ourselves to pay a total price. So there was a positive outcome to going back and explaining what had occurred.

So the next time you order coffees in a team meeting, appreciate the simplicity of this task when you know the underlying order process and all speak the same language :)

Story telling time through pictures:

I don't think this needs a caption...

Looking for a husband or wife? Forget the heartache of dating, calls or messages not being returned. Here you can put an add in the paper. How much more straight forward can you get?! Love it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way to Indore, when I was in the Dubai airport scoping out the chocolate deals, I came across this on the shelf. I couldn't help but say out loud 'gosh, that is cheap' and it was at exactly the same time that another couple said 'that is expensive'. We all laughed and they said they are from the states where that would have been $1 or $2. I estimated Australia's cost to be around $7 or $8. I restrained and only bought one pack. .. Don't believe me? Ok, so there may have been  a pack of m&m's in my purchase too. Gosh.