Incredible India - Improving Your Koenig Solutions Experience - Part II

Incubating Part II

Two weeks ago, I wrote a blog titled Incredible India: Improving the Koenig Solutions Brand – Part I, since then, I have thought about what to include in what would become Part II and I have decided it should be about improving your Koenig Solutions experience.

After all that I have written about my experiences in India, I believe given the opportunity again, I would avail myself of Koenig Solutions services if their repertoire of courses extends to include Enterprise Architecture though that would also require getting trainers out of industry rather than just having people with book knowledge of seriously impacting concepts.

Besides, there are other courses that might be of interest too as one tries to keep in line with market developments and establish a niche area of expertise.

Very useful advice

There are however a few key things that will make your experience worthwhile one that I share here comes from someone who is quite conversant with the system and the way things get done in India.

This is what he had to say, “This is India. However much we strive to root out this sort of stuff, ubiquitous chaos, poor English and even carelessness on behalf of some of the lower staff has always been and will always be intrinsically part of the India experience of most of our students.

It takes a while to get used to and find the right mental disposition to tackle. As a rule of thumb, do not take sloppiness from anyone but under all circumstances remain calm and firm about stuff that is not to your liking. Call in the center manager if necessary.

Do not depend on no one. Most staff will never take any initiative whatsoever and will expect you to do so. If people don't understand you, they won't admit to it, thus adding to confusion. When in doubt or unhappy about the answer given or services provided - especially about issues pertaining to hygiene and health, ask to talk to someone else or take it to the reception desk or center manager directly.

Adjust your notion of time. Whereas most of us are punctual on time related issues, the majority of Indian folks are on IFT (Indian Flexible Time) which tends to drive us totally mad on our first India visit.  Never wait till the last minute to make arrangements for something. Anything asked for less than 24 hours before deadline will most probably fail as most people are unfamiliar with concepts like timely resolution or urgency.

These days, I've gotten used to all things you describe and by finding ways to work around them by adjusting my mindset to how things work in India.”

I think this should be on the front page of every tour guide or brochure you get concerning India, it will go a long way to helping you adjust to the severe culture shock you might experience on your visit to India.

Your preparations

In terms of preparations to go to India, these are the things you probably need to note. Whilst most people using Koenig Solutions get a Tourist Visa, be prepared to consider getting a Business Visa and if your stay will be more than 30 days you might have to get an Entry Visa.

If based in Europe obtain information about Koenig Solutions’ bank account in Belgium rather than travelling with thousands of Euros, Pounds or Dollars of Traveller’s cheques.

On arrival in India, if you are unsatisfied with anything, let the management know. Do not be fobbed off with excuses or apologies if you are not satisfied with the proposed resolution. At times, you might be offered compensation which in Indian terms might be huge but in general terms, is paltry if not insulting, be ready to stand your ground and escalate – you paid for a service, get the service you paid for.

Insist on these, all the time

Regarding course material, your books should be shrink-wrapped, if not, they are second-hand books, do not sign the receipts until you have been provided with new books.

For the curriculum delivered from PowerPoint slides, I have found it is quite difficult to take useful and relevant notes – insist on having those PowerPoint slides printed out at no extra cost for you to annotate throughout your training. You cannot annotate electronic copies and to be honest any decent PowerPoint-based training material provides hard copies.

For each test-based curriculum that you take, allow for at least 2 days after the course for study and preparation for the tests. Whilst some might be able to walk into tests and pass immediately after the training, others trying that might find that they will be repeating tests before scoring a pass.

If you have non-lecture days and need to study, the provided accommodations can be quite Spartan; I have however not found out if public libraries are better equipped for this.

Other useful tips

For the cost, I will advise that you hire the mobile Internet dongle because Internet connectivity at both the training centre and the accommodations can be patchy at times.

If you obtain an Indian SIM Card ask that mobile data be enabled as part of the package if you need to use your smartphone to surf the Internet.

Get a TravelCard if you use the New Delhi metro, it means you do not have to join interminably long queues for tokens to travel.

New Delhi of all the Koenig Solutions Training Centres is nearest to Agra some 200 kilometres south this is where the Taj Mahal is located but the road to Agra has Mathura – the birthplace of Krishna with the great statue of goddess Durga, Sikandra where the Tomb of Akbar the Great is – the grandfather of Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal, a good deal of the Agra Fort and the Red Fort back in New Delhi.

It is better to get Koenig Solutions to book a train to Agra or arrange with other colleagues to book a more comfortable bus than the Koenig city transit buses which will also allow you to stop at these other places than just the journey to the Taj Mahal where you are also put in the hands of unscrupulous restaurants or persons ready to fleece you. If you have amongst you someone who speaks Hindi you can get much done and if you have to be really assertive, have one amongst you who is articulate, forceful and insistent on getting the results without backing down.

Be streetwise

When it comes to food, be careful, circumspect and wise. Cooked and cooked well is important, keep off cold vegetarian dishes if you have no resistance to the local bugs. Most visitors pick up Traveller’s Diarrhoea, so pack your Imodium take lots of yoghurt/curd and eat lots of bananas. Lassi is a yoghurt drink that can settle your tummy quite well but don’t even venture Bhang Lassi – it contains cannabis, but you might get more than a high, you could end up in hospital paying bills as part of a medical scam.

For lunch you usually have the choice of McDonald's, Subway, Dominoes or Hakka, then you have to decide between vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes – I stuck with rice in most cases. Haldirams which is a purely vegetarian chain has many choices but be careful what you choose and be sure you have the stomach for that choice.

When shopping, only use reputable shops, it is better to see the price tags up front than attempt to haggle and then realise you have just become a victim of daylight robbery. If you don’t know cashmere you might end up with a fine hybrid of polyester and nylon, the real factory markings are not on the edges of the cloth, if the bales were taken off the shelf, that chalk-like factory marking with the true composition of cloth would have been cut off.

Always negotiate up front for services that do not have a clear price tag – in the end, India can be fun, but you have to be aware, smart and really streetwise with a presence, so you do not get taken for granted and end up the worse for it. Be aggressive if you must and walk away if you can. Click on the Koenig Solutions label below this post to see my other related posts.

Incredible India: No task like a job

How many men do it take …?

I think I have to conclude, it is an Indian thing, passing through customs was a breeze of handlers. In fact, my passport was first touched at the entrance to the terminal and that was two checkers just 3 metres apart to ascertain the first had not been derelict in his duty of observance.

Then I am approached at ask was flight I would be on, that was by a lady, she gave me a form to fill in – yes, we have to fill in a departure form that includes the address of where we stayed in India amongst other unnecessary bureaucratic information.

Then I checked in my baggage with the privilege accorded a frequent flyer to add one more, airline loyalty and airmiles accumulation does pay. I paid for my return trip to India with my airmiles and got to travel in style too. Two men at check-in, though in this case, one did help with my baggage.

Form filling is form

After filling in the form and cabin luggage tags, one was issued for my cane but there was no way of attaching it to my cane, I did not bother; I gave my passport, boarding pass and departure form to the immigration officer who squinted and bent my passport every which way, took advice off his colleague then passed it through the electronic verification system before stamping it and handing it back.

Then I was at security where everything was put in trays and I was handed identifiers for the trays going through the X-ray system, at the point my boarding pass was checked and stamped, and that was a lady at work. When my goods eventually emerged from the X-ray system, eventually, because they chose to change positions after I stepped through the metal detector, the identifiers were matched and once again my boarding pass was stamped – another lady at work.

I had to smile as I watched the lady try to attach a hand baggage tag to my cane, a really stupid exercise that someone by law had to do – Shaking my head, vigorously.

All busy very slowly

I am surprised at my somewhat apt observation from when I arrived in India that there was indeed a man per task rather than a person doing a job that consists of tasks – this supposed division of labour keeps everyone busy and props up a bureaucratic system that is unwieldy at best.

Just when I thought I have seen the last of checks before the boarding gate was another man checking if my hand luggage had the correct tagging as well as ensuring I had a boarding pass – as if everyone else was sleeping on duty.

I suppose everyone is busy doing something in India, to what end escapes me apart from it keeping unemployment figures low, not helping people assume responsibility or take initiative and worst of all, it means very few will know how to multitask because it takes that to do a job and do it well.

Incredible India - Homeward Bound

Daring and going

The hour has come and the quest to rescue my professional clout is in full swing as I look into 2012 and see the opportunity to leave the long tail of cancer behind and assume the exciting journey of being the best I can be in endeavour I undertake.

It was a bold and daring decision to launch out from the comfort of Europe to the uncharted by own standards land of India. I choice I so resolutely made and executed within a month of its conception and it has resulted in a month of intensive course, new knowledge and unforgettable life experiences.

I observe and write

Indeed, I took the opportunity to compare and contrast the differences between what I already knew and what I was observing be it on the streets of New Delhi, on my travels to Agra and even at the Koenig Solutions the outfit that provided my training.

Maybe I was difficult, maybe I was pernickety, even facetious and quite pedantic but being frank and honest is a worthy standard to aspire to.

And so after a month in India, I leave with memories, new friendships, ideas and goals. A desire to return, a wanting to explore and yearning to appreciate the larger expanse of Asia at a later date.

Gratitude and thanks

We are close to the completion of the intended goals and ready to meet the new challenges stoically and boldly with the assurance that nothing is beyond the realm of dreams and what can be dreamt is conceptually within grasp.

It has been Incredible India for me and a chapter is written already about my sometimes ordinary and sometimes incredible life, I am thankful despite other misgivings to the staff at Koenig Inn (Mahendra and Rakesh get special mention) and my trainers Karteek Parsad and Sonam Gupta (Sorry, that is just the way things are, I write and whatever concerns me gets written about.)

I hope they all do well and prosper as they have in their little and large ways help me in my quest.

Bye for now, Incredible India.

Incredible India: India Gate

Halting and hobbling

After visiting the Bahá’í Lotus Temple, I had planned to visit India Gate, an imposing structure very much like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and this meant getting off at the northern terminus of the Violet Line that intersects with the Yellow Line at Central Secretariat metro station.

Unlike on my way to the Lotus Temple no one offered their seat to me, I was suffering quite a bit after my walks and much as I had not needed my cane for the last few months in the Netherlands, I did have it with me in India and found that I needed it more than I realised I would.

This month has been sedentary at best, in the Netherlands I would have been on my bicycle, the riding helped a lot as physiotherapy, not much so here even with the just usable gym downstairs.

Wide and ceremonial

From the signposting within the metro I came out at Gate 3 and then realised India Gate was not going to be a brisk walk for I got on a tuk-tuk having negotiated tourist prices with the driver.

Left and then left turn, I could see India Gate looking deceptively close but probably a good 2 kilometres away. The lawns on both sides of this really wide road had been cordoned off with seats being installed in readiness for some parade which I suspect is the Indian Republic Day on the 26^th of January.

I suppose they had to start this early for all sorts of reasons that I will refrain from generalisation and supposition.

No snaps, no thank you

Just before the major road in front of the gate, I got off and for the first time I saw a pedestrian crossing with traffic lights and push-button call signal. Though I also noticed I was the only one who thought it sensible to cross there – Indians basically jay-walk with a sense of bravado that borders on the suicidal.

As I got to the gate, I ran the gauntlet of photographers, in all maybe 20 approached me and I was not their typical tourists, those that were not in my face, I ignored completely and those who dared to be bolder got a sharp and stern rebuke that they almost scurried away like frightened squirrels.

What I found most fascinating was the Taj Mahal pose which had been brought to India Gate as a novelty. The one where photographically you appeared to be touching the tip of the Taj Mahal just did not look as exciting if it was the flat-topped India Gate – I was having none of it and I was not being a killjoy, just unimpressed.

To the fallen

India Gate built in 1931 during the colonial times to honour and memorialise the war dead is now the national monument and the Indian Army’s tomb to the Unknown Soldier.

The walls of the gate are engraved with names of the fallen and a flame burns under the canopy. The expansive grounds around the gate are public areas where people gather for picnics, games and other activities.

Everything on sale there was going for prices I was not willing to pay to the many that were there to exploit for opportunity and occasion. After circumnavigating the gate, I decided to have a late lunch at Connaught Place – I got on the metro in the wrong direction then changed, had a meal and returned to crash out until I was woken up at midnight by the fireworks and celebrations ushering in the New Year.

Incredible India: Bahá'í, the faith and the Lotus Temple

Intrepid and foolish

My first day after the torture of lecture I thought I’ll be the intrepid tourist seeking out the tourist attractions of New Delhi rather than hiring a cab to take me around for the day.

Sometimes I forget that I get disorientated quite easily that my sense of bearing might be lost when I think I am charting a course somewhere.

On agenda was the Bahá’í Lotus Temple and the India Gate, they were as far apart as you could have them in the large expanse of New Delhi but I was confident I will make it.

After 2 changes of the metro I was just about 8 stops from where to get off on the Violet Line; I wondered about that choice of colour but having used Red, Yellow, Blue, Blue, Green maybe Brown would have been an option and Black was out of the question. I had been advised to get off at Nehru Place but the Lonely Planet guide suggested Kalkaji Mandir – I stayed on the metro to Kalkaji Mandir and caught my first glimpse of the temple before I got there, it looked close enough.

Going everywhere but there

However, getting out of the station was a maze that by the time I was out, I had made it into the compound of a Hindu temple before I realised I was off course. I risked the ire of a religious mob too because I could not count the number of leather items I had on my person – belt, phone case, camera pouch, wallet, shoes, bag – everything short of a leather thong.

Turning around, I made for the main road and saw my first pedestrian bridge in New Delhi, built in such a way as to discourage usage; the riser was looking from the side a zig-zag of close to 500m probably to aid wheelchair users and there was a staircase opposite the riser but getting there meant jostling with busy traffic.

On crossing, I came upon serious a National Geographic type enclave or slum as I risk political incorrectness, but I had already realised that the road to great monuments was not paved with finesse at least that much I saw in Agra.

Another Hindu temple but no Bahá’í temple, I was at the point of giving up having walked up and down the road to no avail and really decided on returning to the station.

No gate in sight

As I approached the station, I caught a glimpse of the temple and a smile crossed my face, wiping away the despair that had clouded my countenance as I chided myself for being too adventurous for my own good.

The temple was imposing but there were no directions to the entrance, not from the station where they had put up an advertisement and synopsis of the Lotus Temple or from the roads around the temple.

From the fence, it appeared you could gain entry from a field behind the temple, that ended up in a perimeter walk of the fence around the temple grounds through places the wiser would have done well to retreat from, I did not retreat until I got round to where the gate was.

Learning and viewing

I have gotten used to the security rigmarole; we all have to walk through metal detectors, be frisked and have our bags X-rayed and checked, even at the temple of universal peace.

Not knowing much about the Bahá’í faith, I made for the information centre, walked through the exhibition and sat to watch the 21-minute introduction to Bahá’í which was quite enlightening.

I could not help but think that the premise of Bahá’í was ambitious in that it from my own thinking had found the superfluity of sophistry to suggest that it is the culmination of every revelatory religion allowing for difference by assimilation.

The teachings appear humanist though the monotheistic theme directs the sense of devotion, I could relate to the core elements of the recognition of humankind and the service of religion to humanity which many of the established religions are losing in the quest to fulfil creed and tenet at the expense of the people.

Not my opiate

However, I could not connect with the supposed spirituality of the message, in all, within the supposed difference most religions still to the same narrative – leaders rising out of obscurity with a message for the day, gathering a following, upsetting the political order, earning persecution and either being martyred or dying.

Each person is persuaded of their convictions and as Karl Marx once said, in German, “Religion is the opium of the people.” Opium is a drug – a painkiller, a sedative, a narcotic, a stiller, a dream-inducer that can separate people from reality into fantasy, it offers the succour of numbness in the presence of pain and suffering – Religion does in many cases opiate, on my way to the Lotus Temple, there was a queue almost a kilometre long of people mostly unshod and certainly well-dressed trying at access a Hindu temple – Go figure!

Not another burning bush

After the exhibition, I walked towards the Lotus Temple and there realised we had to bag our shoes to walk the hallowed confines of this amazing architectural edifice that they say draws more visitors than the Taj Mahal.

I thought the Taj Mahal was awesome even though it is a mausoleum, but I was not ready for another “burning-bush” experience of walking unshod when my own religion does not make that a requirement of others. There might be a conservation concept behind this but it has not been suggested.

The deification of humongous premises as the incumbency of the holiest interactions in my view belongs to centuries past, the matter of devotion is purposefully of the heart, if it still beats to some rhythm; that we are gathered together for the purpose of worship does not change the building into the throne of deity but that is just an opinion – I passed on the opportunity and clicked away with my camera from afar.

Not!

Now that the Bahá’í have ensconced themselves in sprawling landscapes in Israel and have erected amazing architectural beauties on all continents, they probably have a claim to some legitimacy but they did not come close to when King Agrippa said to Apostle Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me ...” I am neither convinced nor persuaded but impressed, yes, impressed, indeed.

Then I was off to the India Gate.

Incredible India: Tasks, Buttons and Fashion Suicides

Many to the few

Going into town yesterday, I once again saw a reaffirmation of my earlier observation of the Indian workforce where there seems to be men for tasks rather than jobs.

I walked into a gentlemen’s outfitters and asked if they had day cravats, an assistant was immediately available and before I knew it, there were 30 cravats laid out before me from the garish to the demure – I tend towards the latter.

Then I wanted matching pocket squares and it became evident that a man’s distinction and discrimination of colour hues is not as developed as that of the female species. We settled for nearness rather than exactness, that was fine by me.

Hand to hand to hand

After I had agreed on what I wanted, we walked up to the cashier; well, I thought it was one cashier but there were two men sat behind the desk.

The first scanned the items and totted up the figures announcing it to his counterpart; I then counted out the money, handed it to the assistant who handed it to the first cashier and this was passed on to the second cashier.

The second cashier first checked the money under the ultra-violet light then counted the money, wrote out a receipt and then counted out the change.

The first cashier having seen that the transaction was completed, gave the assistant a bag in which to carry the goods and there ended my shopping experience in that store.

The division of labour that allows for jobs to be broken into tasks does not make for efficiency whilst it might compensate for the conspiracy of honesty in an impoverished environment.

The snobbery of buttons

I decided to stroll around Connaught Place which is a circular shopping area with the Central Park in the middle. There was a shop that did mostly shirts but when I noticed that the mannequin bedecked in a suit had all the buttons on the jacket done up my tendency to the facetious was too heightened to contemplate stepping in if the pretensions to high fashion left out the minor detail proper fashion sense.

I cannot seem to forget the saying reputedly of the late dressmaker to the Queen, Sir Hardy Amies; “Never trust a man with all his buttons done up.” There are times I have purposefully asked the fully buttoned up to undo the last button but it is an unhealthy snobbish inclination to judge a man by his clothes and to feel less of him by reason of doing up all his buttons; as for those who allow their trousers to sag; if I have much else to say to them, it would be, “Pull up your trousers, young man.”

Fashion victims can be rescued, fashion suicides are beyond salvation – the former can undo their buttons, the latter showing their cack-ridden underwear with their dawdle walk, you can only wonder.

Incredible India: Improving the Koenig Solutions brand - Part I

Between expansion and improvement

As my training classes draw to an end today, it has literally been 23 days of intensive coaching with just Sundays off. There were days I just could not take in anymore either by reason of fatigue or incapacitation brought on by the different environment I was in.

Koenig Solutions in their training services have become a brand and one can understand that every organisation has to balance the demands of growth and improvement. As I have noticed here and in many places, one always seems to take away from the other; the organisation has to be so utterly unique to manage both expansion and improvement in tandem without falling a victim of its own previously acclaimed success.

The trainers are really good

The core resource pool of Koenig Solutions is their trainers, young, highly educated, probably driven and maybe ambitious. It would appear the minimum academic requirement for acceptance into the training pool is a Masters degree, though I cannot say much for the other areas of their personal and personality development.

From what I have observed of some of them, they need some adventure and this cannot be acquired by just meeting with trainees who come here from all the corners of the globe.

Language proficiency

English with all its complexities, exceptions and nuance is probably one of the most forgiving of international languages, even where the command of the language is nigh on appalling, if the trainer is quite conversant with the material, they can deliver the curriculum well enough to the understanding of a majority of trainees who in some cases have English as a foreign language too.

In my view, I think Koenig Solutions should invest in more English language training for better expression and usage, not necessarily in the format of formal classes but in bonding encounters around debates, discussions, games and team-building. That way, people do not feel too exposed for their poor command of English even though they are brain boxes on the curriculum.

Koenig Solutions recently announced that certain courses will be conducted in French and considering the visitors from other Hispanic, Germanic and Lusophone countries one would expect Spanish, German and Portuguese to follow; it is doubtful that Italian will become one of those languages though Chinese will be an interesting addition.

Employees include others

Koenig Solutions appears to be a good employer when it comes to its trainers but those not the only people in the employ of this organisation; I leave India mortified at the living conditions of the staff of Koenig Inn and those of the people running the various apartments as reported by other trainees.

Beyond the main distinguishing factor of good trainers, the only other basic advantage of training in India is cost and that is hardly a great differentiator anymore. Training organisations in Europe are trimming their costs and offering incentives to attract the locals that will normally trot out to India.

Besides, Malaysia and Thailand which I dare say are somewhat more exotic locations are offering greater competition and it is only a matter of time before experienced Koenig India staff are lured away to train for these fledgling organisations that will be have newer and better equipment whilst offering even better support than Koenig Solutions has dared to attempt.

There are many areas where Koenig Solutions is in need of considerable improvement and it is a task that requires purposeful and immediate attention.

Location

The reason why I decided to take my training in New Delhi rather than at the other 3 centres in India was because I felt there was no way I could visit India without seeing the Taj Mahal. However, New Delhi is under a constant haze of fog and pollution it is really unhealthy at the best of times. The winter months are probably the best months to come here but Dehradun and Goa will be in my list of options the next time.

It is surprising that there are no training centres in Bangalore, Bombay or Chennai (Madras), I do not know if Koenig Solutions plans to open centres there.

Management

Sometimes things happen within this organisation as if lessons are not being learnt. I can chart a trail of management disarray and disorganisation from information I received for getting my visa, through my being picked up at the airport, a poor introduction process, tardy problem resolution from information dissemination, testing facilitation to internet connectivity and many other things that appear inconsequential but are major operational problems that show an organisation that is not being run like a tight ship.

From observation, it is almost impossible to say that Koenig Solutions has been in this activity for over a decade, for all the growth they seemed to have remained a tyro organisation repeating the same mistakes, offering the same excuses and hardly showing characteristics of a learning organisation.

Facilities

To suggest many of the systems are old is to proffer an understatement. I have taken pictures of systems that charities will probably reject. Much of the equipment is out-dated and they are not keeping up with technical advancements in the industry.

For instance, they offer a 3-month after course support but what is required beyond the classes is good access to the labs, even lesser organisations put a lot of stuff on the cloud. As I have noted before, it is amazing that an organisation that trains in current networking trends and systems cannot offer remote labs when we are present in India and for a limited period of time after we have left India.

Koenig Solutions might not be allowed to upload core curriculum material but having been in this business for over a decade, they should still be able to provide generic accessible systems in the cloud for trainees and ex-trainees to use to help reinforce the training they received in India.

Having been in the MN-1 & MN-2 buildings, I cannot vouch for the other buildings but it did cross my mind that fire safety rules did not matter, I could see the one access into the office areas and quite restricted exits if anything happened. In Europe, none of these locations will pass a fire safety test or be granted a fire safety certificate.

Impressions

All that said, I hope that one fundamental piece of information has not been lost by Koenig Solutions, the idea that trainees that attend courses in December are probably quite senior type personnel in a month that is not as busy.

They will form impressions about the whole gamut of services apart from training provided by Koenig Solutions and that could well inform their recommendations in terms of advising others of attending courses here.

To think there is much incentive in the paltry sums offered for recommending others is a fallacy at best, a service will be recommended if it exceeds expectations regardless of commission.

In general and my honest opinion is this – Koenig Solutions offers excellent training in terms of the personnel, uses average equipment in the delivery of the curriculum, can be quite mediocre in addressing issues raised by trainees either at the training centre or at the residences and really does not pass the muster of exceeding expectations.

I might return to India, I am not fully persuaded of a second helping of Koenig Solutions but then, I have only been in New Delhi; things can be different in Dehradun where they have their largest training centre, in Goa or in Shimla – there is much to be desired but the experience has been eye-opening and wonderful.

Incredible India: Up Against the Koenig Imperative

Boot camp revamp

I had a major falling out with my trainer this morning on a number of issues regarding the delivery of the curriculum leading to a certification I am in interested.

When it comes to boot camp training, it can be difficult to balance the issues of time, complete coverage, teaching, explanation and preparation for tests.

Much as I will like to attain my certifications as soon as possible, my learning methodology has never been by rote, accepted views or concepts have to have undergirding logic and I need to know that I am extending my body of knowledge.

The burden of history

For someone who has been in the ICT profession for 23 years, one can safely say a good deal of the concepts we take for granted today have their foundations in fundamentally primitive things we did decades.

People new to the field may have no need for the history of how, why and what things are today, maybe that is an advantage or disadvantage but it is impossible to expect those who have experience to just become sponges of new thinking without referencing knowledge they already have or activities that have practical affinity with the topic under discussion.

Intensive versus effective

Again, the curriculum is delivered in 6 8-hour days and sometimes Sundays, the danger of saturation looms, the trainer wanting to cover the requisite material, the trainee wanting to pace the absorption so that the quality becomes of greater significance than the quality.

In other words, there might be a case for 5 hours of effective training over 8 hours of intensive training, each trainee knows what they can handle before they begin to wilt and that is only just human.

Delivery prowess

Then, there are amazing differences between the two trainers I have had, the Microsoft Official Curriculum is tied to Powerpoint slides that were followed quite closely and made the taking of notes less easy especially in a one-on-one teaching setup.

The better delivery method with regards to the Powerpoint slides should have been having the slides offered as notes to trainees to annotate thereby helping link discussion with concept and reference.

In the case of my CCNA trainer, she is no less than prodigious, in the 4 days of my training already, she has not one referenced a note, she fills the board with point after point with literal total recall, in the probably 500 sentences she has written on the board, she has only once asked if one point had been written and that point was probably the least significant of the lot.

Rhyme without reason

Things began to reach a head yesterday when first certain definitions appeared to challenge the conventional use of language, English being the medium but meanings appearing to indicate the opposite.

I could not absorb the idea that Least Feasible Distance could go on to mean Best Option, regardless of tone, context, syntax or semantics, this was an exceptional anomaly and I felt quite uncomfortable with this.

I dare say English is not really the same between what is spoken and written in America and what the English speak especially when there is a purist determination in one’s mode of expression – that is just a fact.

English usage and meaning

I have worried that I might get caught out with American usage and Americanisms and a typical example I give is our pants are never exposed whilst Americans wear theirs openly. Alright, pants are underwear in England but trousers in America if viewed from an English perspective just as a negative is always a negative on our side of the pond no matter how many you string together whereas in America the mathematical double negative take precedent to yield a positive or the affirmative.

Another usage of Active and Passive which had the implication of opposites in the class seemed to be given a much more acceptable reading when explained in another context from other material I reviewed.

Just as we have English and US English dictionaries, I am beginning to think whilst allowances can be made for similarity and difference, there might be a case for clearly differentiating the material and not assuming English is really the same around the globe.

However, it was when a formula was written on the board that combined two unrelated units that I had had enough. I was not in class to jettison my engineering background and there had to be a reason why that formula was the accepted code.

Oranges and apples

At this point, I was impervious to the illogical and scientifically incorrect; I could not imagine that all the engineering in Cisco had produced a dimensional and mathematical inexactitude without reason.

That reason was not forthcoming, I was to absorb this by law and learn it by rote – for a person who was first precocious, then inquisitive, interrogative, curious, questioning, researching and challenging assumptions no matter how widely held, this was one of those moments where without reason there could be no progress.

Yesterday, I got up, closed my book, slammed the lid of my netbook and was ready to walk out of the course, she was able to placate me but I was far from satisfied.

Now, I know

On returning to my hotel, that was the first topic I researched and then I saw the extensive formula that got condensed to what was written on the board, the engineering and mathematical proof was evident – that for me is what you call the impartation of knowledge and the fulfilment of understanding – the why and how was there to see.

So, in the morning I took my discovery to my trainer and she acknowledged she knew this but it was beyond the scope of the course I was on. Whilst that was appreciated, I felt a conflict brewing because I was not just going to take everything as gospel but will require clear detail where assumptions are made that seem to challenge the concepts of language or science as predicated from my “wealth” of experience.

Fracture!

By the time we had exchanged a few good views about the material it was time for my trainer to say she could no more continue the training and I felt we had reached an irreconcilable impasse.

I then had a meeting with the officials and technical manager where generally what they seemed to be concerned with was the method (The Koenig Imperative – course material delivered within constrained time-frames leading to certification).

In some ways, I acquiesced and we agreed to continue the course because the curriculum is really an abridged version of the more serious engineering concepts that I will find more interesting and aligned to my engineering background.

Patching up

I can understand my trainer’s frustrations though I cannot say she fully appreciates that I cannot extend my knowledge of these concepts just by faith without seeking the fundamental reasons for why and how such conclusions were arrived at – it is just the bane of my kind of background, that I have become a somewhat difficult and impossible trainee after her having delivered this curriculum to well over 500 trainees is unfortunate.

I am not a robot, God help my intellect and we both need a healthy dose of patience with each other.

We appeared to patch things up and continue with the training, an interestingly eventful day. 

Incredible India: The Majesty of the Taj Mahal

A story told again and again

It has taken me a week to really be able to write about my visit to the Taj Mahal, the other blogs I have written were about arrangements, the journey and other experiences.

I was always of the impression that the Taj Mahal deserved a separate blog though I recognise that I might fail to give the experience the narration worthy of the place, it is one of those places that will never convey fully without a personal physical presence to breathe the air and savour the atmosphere of that amazing wonder of the world.

Having our own cab meant we had more control over our journey to Agra with opportunities to stop at the great temples of Mathura, the birthplace of Lord Krishna to take pictures of the great statue of goddess Durga, see manure farms, visit the site of Akbar’s tomb, do the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort.

Tourist benefits

On my first visit, in a tour group of 10 with a tour guide that had literally annoyed everyone with his antics, we got a few pointers as to the layout and some minor detail, then we were left to our own devices.

The benefit of being a high value ticket holder was soon evident; locals just paid INR 20 to see this amazing wonder of the world in their backyard but with that came interminable queues and some jostling. We however could jump all the queues from security checks through access to all the different places.

The toilet facilities are free whilst Indians are levied and if you do visit other Agra Development Authority sites as Fatehpur Sikri, Agra Fort or Sikandra, no taxes will be levied on production of your Taj Mahal ticket for a same day visit.

The majesty

Coming through the main gate, the majesty of the Taj Mahal was evident and amazing, nothing I have seen before could describe that view regardless of all the other pictures and depictions I have seen before, it was an imposing indescribable beauty, attractively enduring, preserved for centuries; a historic monument, a tomb, a mausoleum and an edifice to the loss of love to death.

Yes, the Taj Mahal is a tomb, built upon the grave of Mumtaz Mahal, the 3^rd wife of Shah Jahan; a union of marriage borne of love rather than political allegiances, but she died giving birth to her 14^th child.

One can only behold the magnificence of Islamic architecture, the undeniable symmetry, the excellent workmanship, the exquisiteness, the fact that no cost seemed to be spared in erecting these edifices that have inspired awe and wonder across the globe to be admired by those who have travelled from far and near to gape, gawp and gasp.

In and around

My trainers were too big for the shoe covers that I received along with a bottle of water that I had to leave them in the shoe rack. There are so many prohibited items you cannot take within the grounds of the Taj Mahal that I had on both occasions put my bag into storage, first for having a tiny MP3 player and then for having my netbook.

Considering what we could do with phones and cameras, the logic of barring the other things escapes me, but those are the rules. Shah Jahan was buried beside his beloved wife having first been deposed by his son and banged up in a cell facing in the Agra Fort facing the Taj Mahal.

His grave being the only asymmetrical thing in the whole place. I enjoyed the company of many drawn to me for all sorts of reasons who wanted to have their pictures taken with me. We all had fascinating stories to tell and in all I probably shook over a hundred hands.

Besides the Taj Mahal, there is the mosque, the guest house, the museum and other out buildings, all cannot be done in two visits, maybe not even in five.

Just once, if able

For my second visit, I had my personal tour guide whose knowledge was invaluable and activities were very helpful especially in taking the most important pictures around the Taj Mahal.

Even so, it was all the more amazing; looking at the Taj Mahal from any angle still is awesome. However, within all this there are dangers from either those looking for a quick buck through to the fingers trying hard to prise my mobile phone from my belt holster when I was trying to retrieve my shoes from the shoe rack.

The tight fit saved the day as I whipped the hand away from my mobile phone – but let that not take away from the day that I even had the opportunity to take a seat where Lady Diana once sat. You must if you can, visit the Taj Mahal, if just once in your life.

My Taj Mahal Slideshows

Some Pictures of Delhi and my 1^st Visit

Pictures of our journey to Agra, the manure farms, stopover at the temple in Mathura, the birthplace of Lord Krishna, the great statue of goddess Durga, the site of Akbar’s tomb in Sikandra, the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort.

Incredible India: Streets Flummox GoogleMaps and Rotten Middlemen

Pains for trains

It was probably a wild thing to choose a Christmas morning for adventure by my standards. The opportunity had come to travel to Agra by train and I was so up for it.

Apparently, the tickets had been arranged and booked by a colleague though I became a bit suspicious when it appeared the night before things were more tentative than planned.

The schedule was a pre-dawn pickup from three locations for the train station but things began to go awry from that point. It suddenly became apparent how inscrutable the street and house numbering system was in New Delhi.

Beyond GoogleMaps

Apart from the major roads which had names and buildings with numbers; the residential areas normally known as Nagar; the houses were on plots with a numbering system that seems to have bedevilled GoogleMaps that they have not even bothered to assign names to the roads.

I found it incredible that so-called taxi drivers were clueless about the numbering system; in fact, it seems those who know; know their way by rote rather than by joining up the dots as they go.

At this time of the day, most roads were gated, fenced off and locked with Delhi Police barriers; we felt we were caught in an interminable maze as we tried to negotiate our way round the neighbourhood.

Recessive Geography Gene

What struck me more was how guards, workers and presumed residents could not help when asked for directions, it was as if the intricacies of basic geography that allowed for knowing where you were and charting where to go even in close proximity to your location had been so underdeveloped in their brains it had become a handicap.

Eventually, we packed into the taxi, overcrowded by one and made for the railway station only to get a confirmation from the railway officials that our tickets were literally duds. Thankfully, we had not paid for them yet.

Then a tout came in useful, he took us to “government registered” travel agent who said our tickets were not confirmed reservations but on a tentative waiting list with no guarantee that we might get to travel. Beyond that, we were also at the wrong station to use the tickets; one of the bureaucratic conundrums of India would have meant going another 20 kilometres to the appropriate station.

The middleman dirty man

In the end, we could not get a train, one was fully booked and another had been cancelled but we had the option of a four-wheel drive cab with high backs and head rests – the journey would definitely be a lot more comfortable than the one I had the week before.

It took 10 Indian minutes for the cab to arrive which by my watch was nigh on 40 minutes, at one point the issuing of an ultimatum with the threat to cancel the deal seemed to move things forward a bit and cab arrived. What we learnt off later on when we returned was the travel agent had earned a 33% commission with a 3-minute phone call and was ready to have us dumped at the point of embarkation close to midnight rather than ensure we were safely delivered to our hotels.

With a colleague of mine, I walked into his office and told him in clear terms that I will brook none of that nonsense, I guess he was taken aback at the forcefulness of my rebuke and our revelation of what his agency had creamed off to the driver that he had to ensure the driver took us back to our hotels.

That is just common courtesy, in all places where I have been picked up anywhere for tours, I have always been delivered back to my hotel as part of the deal.

It seems many businesses are able to get away with treating tourists to India shabbily with the impression nothing will come of it. Well, that will end with me, I have obtained the business cards of all these businesses and I will be publishing a list of people and businesses for tourists to avoid when in New Delhi.

We did it

My second journey to Agra had begun, this time with the possibility of doing the Taj Mahal, the Agra Fort and Akbar Tomb in Sikandra.

Whilst all the arrangements did not seem to fall into place, the day might well be quite eventful nonetheless and it was.

Incredible India - We did Christmas and tried to party

Away in a manager

One has to give all kudos to Koenig Solutions for hastily arranging a Christmas party this afternoon considering a good number of us will be in India over the Christmas and New Year holidays.

In a Hindu majority country and possibly Hindu majority city along with the staff of Koenig Solutions, one can appreciate the involvement of everyone to help ease the nostalgia that is accentuated by being away at such a time from family, relations, friends and home.

The roof terrace was carpeted green, with white and pinkish-red curtains as cordons round the entire terrace, no, it was not nightclub ambience.

Good King Wenceslas

The party somewhat started before I got there with my new trainer, the compere who I think is probably one of the senior officials was introducing the main members of his team who were the technical managers and team leaders of the clusters of trainers for the courses the Koenig Solutions runs.

If anything, it was a wonderful showcase of the Indian talent that makes Koenig Solutions a high choice for the many who run the gauntlet of inscrutable visa application processes and endure with little commentary the conditions that yearn for some voices.

As I was opportuned to read on my Twitter time line yesterday; a good man does no good remaining silent when he should be talking – not that I will arrogate to myself any status than to make observations and offer suggestions.

O come all ye faithful

One cannot say the trainers were examples of public speaking nor were their comments representative of the expertise or underlying genius of their ability. If not shy, reticent and somewhat too stiff to join in the fun of the compere who seemed to have a rather good sense of fun and humour that made for some entertainment.

The disk jockey was a confused spell of discs with the music starting and stopping abruptly that it made for irritation that could draw the ire of plugging the plug and asking everyone to do nursery rhymes instead.

Drinks were served and the Santa Claus whose costume could do with a few well directed claws cut the cake with a knife I thought was a camp knife picked up as an afterthought.

God rest ye, merry gentlemen

Then we were invited to play games, at which point, farce was beckoning the farcical – the trainees were in an inner circle walking in a clockwise direction and the trainers on the outer circle walking in an anti-clockwise direction and as the music spluttered to a stop, the trainee and trainer were to give the first impressions of each other – I held my head in my hands.

O, for some inspiration; maybe some wisdom, surely, it could get no worse as a second and third round of walking left the partners misaligned. Maybe I should not forget the observation of another colleague for all he could see were 8 men holding hands – it was a game if you were there but a picture might just convey a different impression.

Once in royal David’s city

Then the floor was opened for dancing, everything from hip-hop through Bollywood music was thrown in with the expected segue of a DJ at hand.

Soon we were spared any more torture, the party ended not really having been a party in a general sense but at least it offered a time for us to let down our hair – What am I talking about? I have none.

So, there was our Christmas party and I would generously not rate it apart from say it gets full marks for good intentions and some cake.

Thank you, Koenig Solutions for bringing Bethlehem to New Delhi.

Incredible India: Seeking Koenig Solutions to Atrocious Conditions

Something of the heart

There are other matters that might appear peripheral but are pertinent and demand urgent and effective action on the part of those who have the power to implement change.

The need for a recognition of the fact that the broad experience of the boot camp training regime means we interface with more of the lower cadre of workers in the Koenig Solutions hierarchy and we cannot be oblivious of certain obvious and worrisome things.

Apart from the trainers who we interact with for about 8 hours a day, it is the young men at our accommodations that cater for our other needs in providing meals, facilitating our laundry, doing the housekeeping and sometimes having to tackle issues and problems they are barely equipped to handle like when the wireless Internet connectivity service fails.

Such appalling conditions

One cannot fail to commend these men either at the main Koenig Inn or at the other apartments dotted around New Delhi.

However, you can imagine my shock when I noticed that in a 24-room inn which is barely of 2-star quality I arrived to see that two of the workers at the inn were sleeping on the floor. It is something I have seen a few times since and you just do not get used to it at all.

For whatever working circumstances exist in India that might differ from those in elsewhere and for whatever satisfaction these men might have with their jobs, the moment these conditions are exposed to those from outside India, the situation is untenable.

It becomes an unbearable stain on our consciences where we dare to be humane and have a basic sense of dignity that people who toil tirelessly for our comfort are housed in conditions so appalling.

Shock does not describe it by half

Beyond that, reports from at least one apartment under the management of the Koenig Solutions entire indicate the workers have no toilet facilities that it is almost a moment of ululation when a guest leaves just because it affords them the opportunity to do things in a more healthy way.

I heard this, days ago; the shock of the news is just wearing off, but it is something that needs writing about and sorting out. The management at Koenig Solutions having received prizes for being one of the best places to work for in India makes one wonder what kind of criteria is used to determine such an accolade.

Fundamentally, if Koenig Solutions provides world-class training services, it is only incumbent on them to make provision of a better class of working and living conditions for their staff at these places.

Perish the thought that Koenig Solutions for all the praise it has gotten the ignominy of being a provider of world-class sweat shop conditions becomes the enduring experience after we have left for the comfort of our homes.