26/05/2015

25/05/15; 01:00:

And, a second eventful week in Banglore is about to draw to a close. This week has perhaps been better than the last; if this keeps up, my last week here will be beyond beautiful!

I was last writing on Monday evening; perhaps we can pick up from there.

I went into work on Tuesday morning, working on matching data for 2015, on the same donor reactions. I then drew up a summary of all the missing data; the next task is to try and procure most of this missing data, by getting in touch with the blood banks involved.

I was woken up early on Wednesday morning with a new task at hand- arranging meetings with blood banks at a short notice was rather impossible; a list of probable target companies had been drawn up and I was to visit them and talk to their HR people about the possibility of us conducting a blood donation drive at their organization. A large part of the voluntary blood collected comes from college students and during this time of the year, most colleges are either closed or conducting exams- this of course leads to a deficit in blood supply. Add to this the fact that many surgeries are scheduled at this time of the year and the dengue cases and we have a situation where a shortage of blood is faced- desperate calls for even common blood groups like O+ve and B+ve become an unwanted reality. Our best effort to try and cull this is to try to meet some of this deficit through upping our donation drives in corporate offices (mainly IT companies).

I walked around some part of Banglore, visiting or more accurately attempting to visit the HR people in different organizations. I encountered a variety of responses- from asking me to come back on Friday to telling me how the activity for the quarter (in this case, a visit to an orphanage) had already been undertaken. I tasted delightfully sweet success too- the best response was at the very last company that onI visited- their HR manager took time out to hear me talk about Our organization, asked me questions and shall most probably get in touch with us rather soon! During the course of my visits, I also found that one of the companies had nicely shut shop and moved their office elsewhere; two offices were untraceable (though I had a successful telephonic conversation with one of them!) and I also had a job offer from one of the companies that I visited!

I got back home and updated the results of my curious wandering on the portal. We headed out to a place which had a karaoke night that evening; we later met an old friend before heading back.

I was up early on Thursday morning, to head to Wipro’s campus in Electronic City. There’s an awesome flyover, which I hear is almost 10 k.m. long that we took to get there- the Wipro campus is rather big and has some 12 different entry gates- the BMTC even runs a multitude of bus routes to Wipro Gate 3 and back!
It was to be a large blood donation camp, with two blood banks in tow- ESI & NIMHANS. I got myself masala dosa from their cafeteria- much to my disappointment, it wasn’t very good; a couple of employees I spoke to concurred with me. We collected nearly 250 units of blood that day. I also met a nervous donor who’s now a good friend- it’s simple protocol to be talking to & distracting a nervous/ first-time donor; following protocol was never this good!

On Friday, I was at the Bosch campus in Bommanhalli which isn’t too far from Koramangla- it’s about a third of the way to where I’d been the previous day( i.e. Electronic City). The blood bank this time around was Bowring; I’d been informed that they are very efficient, and, they definitely were! The drive was conducted in a conference room- replete with a large immovable table in the centre! It kind of let the whole process- pre-donation, bleeding and post-donation have a cyclical feel to it. Just like last week, when we were at the Bosch campus at Marathalli, we collected exactly 147 units of blood- this was almost one-and-a-half times what we’d been told to expect (and, this was after we’d had to refuse people and send them away due to paucity of time and blood bags!)- the response was very overwhelming!
At one point, we ran out of the ‘Thank You’ cards that we hand out to the donors, post-donation- these have a couple of precautions and our Blood Helpline Number listed on them. Hence, I was to spell out the precautions orally and get people to save the helpline number on their phones instead. It was at this point that I realised that most people just watch me speak, without listening to what I have to say! I’m not sure why this is the case, but, well, it is. After I’d tell people to save the number, they’d just nod; with some people, repeating myself and asking them to pull out their phones worked; with a few, that failed too! They’d just smile and nod at me!

Friday evening was rather interesting- nice dinner followed by a look-around at Banglore city, by night!

Saturday morning began late; my parents had decided to drop by and say hello while on their tour of South India. Post-lunch, I was at People Tree Hospital, Yeshwantpur- The organization I work with was celebrating their 12th anniversary! The event consisted of a series of talks by a lot of people who have been associated with them over the last 12 years and specifically over the last 2 years. The event was very motivational- the things we’ve been doing, the things that we are doing and the things that we will be doing! All the people associated with them are wonderful and it was a nice setting to be in!

Sunday began with a nice lunch and a lazy afternoon; this was followed by late-evening coffee and an animated dinner! It ended with watching the IPL Final that Mumbai very deservingly won!! Huh, that sounds like an awesome Sunday!

26/05/15; 00:31:

Today was spent mostly in writing out a report about my second week at work! That and I should probably get to sleep!