23rd
First day story
Today was the first day at my internship at Microsoft Research, Redmond. Lots of interesting things happened today, but I guess everyone has a particular first-day-at-work story. Here’s mine. As usual, it was my fault.
A thoroughly disoriented Chinmay (jetlag + US public transport being the culprits) walked into the long line of interns at Building 92. We were all queued up to get our temporary badges so that, um, we could enter the building to get our permanent badges. As is well-known, time dilates in a queue, and 20 seconds in the line I’m trying to figure out a way to get my badge asap.
Maybe, I could just pickpocket one from a guy who’d got it (it didn’t have a photograph anyway) ;)
Even as I was hatching my evil plans, a volunteer announced they were splitting lines— “A to L this line, the rest form a new line down there”. Ok, got to hurry— I was the second person in the new line!!
Soon, at the head of the queue:
MSR volunteer: Last name please?
Me: Kulkarni
MSR V: How do you spell that?
(Ah, these Americans… unaware of other cultures… blah blah)
Me: K for Kilo, U for umbrella…
MSR V: Um, that’s the other line.
Me: Oh. it is J, K, L.
MSR V: makes a face— Did we really hire this guy??
PS: I still think it’s unfair that A thru’ L have more last names (they do, don’t they?). It’s even worse that I almost made it to the other side!
