Today marks 1 month that I have been working with Wizcraft. I started on the 3rd of May and today is the 2nd of June, so it's almost a month. Today also marks my 4th say in Sri Lanka. I have to say that so far Sri Lanka has been a tease. I landed on 30th May in the afternoon. I had a nice 6 hour long in flight and in transit experience. After the tiring flight, I was adviced to rest, which I happily took as I had barely had any sleep in the last few days. As it is my trip to Sri Lanka was a last minute call, so I had to rush back home to Bhopal to pick up my passport and rush back to catch my flight to Colombo. As I mentioned, last week I had lots of late nights and I barely clocked sleepy time. I easily spent 2 full days (48 hours) out of a possible 4 days (from May 23 to May 26) in the office. It gets that stressful when things have to get done! I am not complaining, but I am just saying that this change of work culture has taken a toll on me. I was told by my manager that I look thinner than what I was on the first day I came to see her. Not saying that I did not want to shed some weight, but this was not the workout that I had planned for.
The work hours are completly different as compared to Canada. Back when I was working in RBC, I used to come in the office by 8.30 in the morning and I used to find the office almost full. Here in India, I come in by 10 and I am the first soul in the office. So I have adjusted accodingly to come in by 11 or 11.30. I guess it has something to do with the traffic flow. Everyone at my office seems to skip that heavy traffic hour and prefer to come in late. That is such a contrast from Canada where everyone comes in early and prefers to leave early and their personal time in the evening. It doesnt seem to work this was in India. Or maybe it is because of the indutrsy I am in, maybe this is how the entertainment industry works. Again, I am not complaining, I am just making observations.
Moving on to my experience in Sri Lanka. As I mentioned in my previous post that I was moved to the Corporate Hospitality division to manage selling tickets and packages for the IIFA weekend. I thought I would be drowing with people asking for tickets and yes I have been busy at times, but mostly people have been so nice asking about the prices and packages and yes I am learning how to bargain as well. But mostly, people have not been rude. Some do get upset about the delay in replying to their emails and calls, but one has to understand this is THE biggest event in regards to Bollywood Awards, so there will be some delay. I am taking care of this alone, so I think I can cut myself some slack ;) I have been trying my best to answer back as soon as possible and keep the clients happy. I am trying to do the best PR I possibly can.
Describing what is around me in Sri Lanka, I cant do that much. For the past 4 days I have been sitting in one room, havent been able to go out at all. The most I got to do was head out on the street outside the hotel for a 10 minute walk. We saw the Indian Ocean nearby and started walking through an alleyway towards the oceans and we were stopped by a hotel worker. He adviced us that this alleyway will not lead to the shore and we had to take a longer route. We insisted that we just want to see the ocean and not go to the shore. Then he told us that the alleyway is used for security and they have armed guards there who can shoot on order. That was a lucky call for us, saved by one of the hotel workers.
Other than this, my classmates have been asking about the celebrities that I have been seeing. Well, one thing is for sure that none can ask me to get any autographs from any of these celebrities. We have to be professional and not ask for autographs and click pictures here. I might be able to ask for picture if they are just lounging around, but not when they are heading anywhere, having lunch/dinner or whatever. Its just unprofessional for me. But I can mention the people who I have seen so far.
This morning I saw Jacqueline Fernandes (applogies for the incorrect spelling, if I made that mistake) at the breakfast buffet. I was pleasently surprised to see her at a buffet with all the people staying at the hotel. Now I am not here for celebrity talk or anything, but I will say it felt good to see her with the public and not acting all snooby (if that's a word). Now for my fashion forward friends, I saw Vikram Phadnis at the buffet last night as well. Not making any judgements on him, seemed like a nice guy. Next I saw Vivek Oberoi walking around the hotel, pretty broad guy. I just got a glimpse of him, can't say if it was fat or well built :P
Two people I must really thank for not blasting the hell out of me are Dia Mirza and Sharman Joshi. We were supposed to deliver invites to celebrities late at night because the next day's event was early morning, so all invites had to go out. Now the first person I went to was Dia Mirza, I was so wishing she is not there because I was all ready to get a rant from her. But when she opened the door, she was so polite to accept the invitation without any tantrum and politely asked me do these deliveries earlier in the evening for the next year. I was so delighted to hear that from her when I was expecting the worst. Very sweet of her ofcourse.
Then I accidently knocked on the door of Sharman Joshi, I was told that it was Prem Chopra in that room (Sharman Joshi's father in law). When Sharman opened the door, I didnt know what to say. I didnt have his invitations, I didnt know he was related to Prem Chopra (I got to know that later), so I appologized and asked him where Mr. Chopra is. He told me the room number but asked me not to go there as its pretty late. Then I dared to ask him if I can bring his invites, it was my job to get them delivered before the beginnig of the event next morning at 10 am. I saw his fascial expression changing and I added or would you prefer it in the morning, he gave me a chuckle and said I would perfer it in the morning. I appologized to him again and he said, its no problem, not your fault and no need to appologize.
I think I met the two nicest people in the industry! My colleague however had a bad time delivering the invites to Bipasha Basu, whent he security showed up after he knocked on Bipasha's room door. He is lucky to be alive :P
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete