Someone call security!

One side note - my stomach feels 100 times better today but it now feels like I have strep throat! I started my zpack last night and have officially had every prescription I came with. I don't know how I am going to survive 5 more weeks of this!

As I mentioned in previous blogs security at the hotel is pretty intense. I finally managed to grab a shot of the security guards and sniffer dog. Still trying to grab of the metal detector without getting into trouble or deported! 

Security at EY is no joke…but at the same time it is kind of a joke. The EY office is in what is called a special economic zone. You may be saying to yourself “Jen what have you gotten yourself into?” No worries my friends what this means is that the government gave companies huge tax cuts to have offices here and they have to export services back to the US or back “onshore”. The government owns and manages the property. Companies like Bank of America and American Express are also in the same buildings. I found out last night that all of Gurgaon is a special economic zone and there is a documentary on it...I will research and get back to you. Building security is fairly intense when the taxi takes us into the gate at the office we have to show identification and before we badge into the office we sign a manual log book and write the serial number of our computer on a piece of paper. I am not sure the exact purpose of this is, I could write just about anything in the log book and I have yet to see a security camera. The pictures below are the office and the sign in desk. I took these from Steven as you can see the back of my head in the one below.

On the first day in the office we had to meet Raja the head security office for our badges. We were suppose to bring two passport size photos for this and I of course did not bring the photos because I thought that I could go to our creative services group and have it taken (creative services in the US does things like print reports, scan pdfs, takes badge photos, and I use them for free passport photos). I didn’t have time to go to the US creative services office before I left. I was told Thursday morning that I needed these photos and I had to deal with my car drama. Side note – the car drama is I need a new catalytic converter for my car in order to pass emissions in Georgia. I did this the week before New Years and it cost me like $650 bucks apparently Toyota needs a special type of catalytic converter with platinum silver. Anyways when I was leaving the car shop the guy told me that I need to drive 200 miles before I would pass my emissions test and it had to be 100 highway and 100 city. I was like great I need to do all this driving in like 3 days. Alli and I took a trip to the outlet mall on Sunday to cover the highway miles and I managed to get most of my city miles during the week but was a little short. So Thursday afternoon I had to finish my city driving, go get my emissions test, and renew my tags. I passed emissions no problem and then I went to renew my tag online and I couldn’t because I never changed my address on my license when I moved…ugh! So, Friday morning I had to go down to the tag office and renew in person. Now you see why I did not have time to go take passport photos. Okay back to the story.

Our taxi takes us to the building the team gets out and we head to the 4^th floor to meet Raja. We showed our passports signed the manual log and then were put in a holding room. Raja and another official looking security office came into the room. I think the room was made to fit about 4 people comfortably and with 5 rotators, random IT guy (I will explain in the "Meet the team" blog), Raja, and official looking security guard it was very cramped. 

We filled out our special paperwork for the government (since it is a special economic zone the government needs to know everything about me while I am here). The greatest part of the whole process is that in order for us to get our pictures on the government paperwork and our badges we used a glue stick. 

I haven’t used a glue stick since the days of arts and crafts in the sorority so this was a great experience.  Take a look at how official my badge looks.

Since I didn’t have my photos I did get to go back and go through this whole process with Raja again. Raja told us that we are not allowed to keep our badges as souvenirs so the photo is all I get to keep.

Also, there is this random security guard that patrols the floor where the team sits. I am not sure what his purpose is.  Is counting computers all day?

The guards are everywhere. I even spotted two on the roof in the building across from us!