So I try not to post too much about work because I think it is not necessarily the wisest decision but every once in a while something happens that is just too priceless to pass up.

A little background, I work for a major software consulting firm with a client that is one of the world’s largest investment banks. Needless to say “working for” two giant firms like this (especially international ones) leads to some interesting communication across countries.

This morning I walked into the office and I typically get ~200 emails overnight that I try to at least glance at when I first come in. I noticed one from my consulting firm’s HR or someone along those lines. Now I typically try to get through the more pressing emails of things that I actually have to do before I look at what HR sends me. I mean sure HR is important but really, I think doing my actual job is more useful. At any rate, I am going through my email list at this point thinking to myself why do I get so much junk mail (all those corporate DLs, you know). I am happily half way through my list of emails, surely will reply sometime this morning after I get through my little list of things I wanted to get done this morning. At least this is what I am telling myself when suddenly I get this phone call on my cell phone from some extremely long phone number. Since I forgot to put my phone on silent I, obviously, answer this call and to my surprise it is the guy from HR in Pune, India calling about the email he just sent me. Now it is 8:11am CST, I have been at work for 11 minutes, needless to say I am a little disoriented and stunned. But I move past that and let him know the information that he is requesting about US Holidays and the like. It was an extremely short phone call and I believe it saves me the trouble of having to reply to email.

Actually come to think of it, my last project was even more interesting because occasionally I’d get calls at 10pm EST from APAC and at like 5am from EMEA. Though I wasn’t in grad school a the time so I didn’t find the calls quite as jarring. I have to say I do appreciate that the current calls are actually during the work day, no matter how surprising they are.