Ok, I know I’m not going to be able to get packed, get enough sleep, and be ready to leave at noon tomorrow. With that said, I’m heading downstairs to the Duty Managers desk to arrange for a late checkout.

— Break for visit to Hotel Duty Manager desk —

It’s all arranged. I have a late checkout set for 1:30 pm Friday. Hopefully, that will allow me to get enough sleep before I have to tackle the journey home.

Anand and I decided to visit the Family Mart on JP Nagar road before heading in to work. Family Mart is Bangalores’ first multi-purpose departmental store. It has a music, books, clothes, toys, makeup, perfume, restaurants and a grocery store. It’s the closest thing to Walmart that we’ve seen since we arrived and since it opened yesterday, we definitely had to check it out before I left town. While the store was interesting, the best thing about it was that for the first time since I arrived, no one followed me around the store trying to sell me something. I mentioned to Anand that if Family Mart had been open weeks ago, I wouldn’t be so desperate to be ignored by a North American sales clerk 😉

The main purpose of my visit to Family Mart was to pick up snacks for the plane at the grocery store. Sure, we wanted to check it out…but there was a method to the madness. Unlike Nilgiris American food celebration – with it’s tiny display of American brands and flavours – the Family Mart grocery store appears to be targeted to those with a flavour for North American and British brands. As you walk in the door, you see Coke, Pepsi, Lays (ok, you can get those anywhere in Bangalore), Fruit Loops, Old Spice, etc. It was definitely the largest grocery store we’d been in since I arrived in Bangalore and was bright, spacious and clean.

Tic Tac supplies refilled, we headed off to work.

— Break for work —

I think Anand is slipping. While in the elevator today, he was making comments about holding the elevator to let the pretty girls get on. Then, later in the day he was asking people for instructions on how to send text messages using the projects’ cell phone! In India, it’s common to carry on flirtations and relationships via SMS messaging on cell phones. Perhaps all our teasing is beginning to have an unforeseen effect…

I had a few minutes to chat with Bill today and learned that his rugs have arrived safe and sound. He also asked when the pictures on the web site will be updated… *thuppt*

I’ve taken over 300 pictures and not all of them have been downloaded to my laptop as of yet. I promise to expand the gallery once I’m home. *honest* All of my photo editing software is on my Mac and manipulating pictures (re- sizing, etc.) is very annoying on this Winblows based system.

— Break for Training —

Today is my last day at work. It seems unreal, knowing that I’ve walked out of this building for the last time. Everyone is wondering when I’ll be back to visit India and the centre. Manish pointed out where the agents will be sitting by the time I return to the centre…as much as I wanted to go home, I don’t want to leave.

Throughout the evening, I said many personal goodbyes. While I have only spent a week with the second batch of agents, and am not terribly close to them, the first group has become a surrogate family while I have been living in Bangalore. When I joked that they have become like my children, Sagar (the oldest of the bunch) took exception and was subsequently elevated to status of baby brother.

Mamatha and Divya are threatening to send Anand home to Canada with a suitcase filled with Ganesha’s destined for my home and office. Ganesha is a favoured deity in Bangalore and, as the ‘remover of obstacles’, has definitely made an impression on me. Divya suggested sending me a list of all the coming presents so that I can ambush Anand at the airport and demand the goodies.

Granted, to carry out those plans, I’d need to drive the 14 hours from Edmonton to Winnipeg (or take the 3 hour flight). It appears I’ve had no success impressing upon the agents the size of the vast land mass that is Canada…

The agents presented me with a little card that they had all signed. It is so ‘little’ I’m not sure I’ll be able to find it when I put it in my suitcase. The card is at least a foot long, and 6 inches wide! They have all signed it and I plan to put it in my cubicle at work as soon as I return. I am sure that every time I look at it I will laugh and remember our final ‘wrap up’ session at work. True to Linda and Bills’ example, I made sure to point out that Anand is still single. Sagar has accepted the responsibility for ensuring that Anand is reminded of his need to find a wife – and has even offered to help him post a ‘mate wanted’ add in the local singles paper. After dismissing ideas to host an wife screening hotline at the center (we’d need at least 6 agents to man the phones and screen calls from interested women) and the idea of holding one on one interviews in the HR office, we all joked about setting up interviews at the Leela between 4am and 7am each morning, where prospective wives can be screened. Krishna has offered to handle all prescreening. However, with Krishna in the mix, he’s likely to tell Anand there are no suitable women in Bangalore and keep all of the beautiful women to himself!

Messages were passed on from family members – Divya’s mother sent goodbye wishes and Divya presented me with a Ganesha. Faisal presented me with a lovely yellow vase, and the class followed suit with an amazing brown scarf. It is longer than I am tall and I will have to post a picture of it on the site when I return home. I have swapped addresses with Bindu and Sahana and will be adding them to my Christmas card list. Hopefully, everyone else will soon follow suit and email their addresses so that I can continue to keep in touch.

Following David L’s famous line – “it’s acceptable to hug people on your last day of work”, I made sure to get a hug from each and every member of the team before leaving. Manish joked that Anand was paying close attention to the fact that most of the girls kissed me on the cheek during the hug – and that he is now greatly anticipating his goodbyes. Divya and Bindu promptly advised they would be taking a vacation day on Anands’ last day at work *grin*.

In his farewell speech, Manish mentioned my journal and some of the contents. I have mentioned it briefly in the past, but I think the agents did not realize that it was online.

When Sahana learned that I would be arriving in Mumbai (Bombay) at 4:30 pm and that my flight to Amsterdam would not be leaving until 1:30 am, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She contacted a close friend in Mumbai and arranged for him to meet me at the airport and show me around the city. Sahana provided me with his phone number, so I could contact him when I reached Mumbai and gave him a brief description of what I would be wearing. As Bill and Linda can attest the Mumbai airport is not a place you want to spent 20 minutes let alone 9 hours – I was more than happy to have a tour guide and an opportunity to leave the airport.

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