Bad Day

I had a bad day. The hospital has been without internet access the entire time I have been here. The hospital gets internet access via GPRS enabled cell phone that is tethered to the computer here. Well for about a month and a half now the local cell tower that provides the access has been broken, with no hope of repairs any time in the future. I have spent the past month calling up Airtel customer service and complaining, hoping enough complaints would get it working. Well it hasn’t.

So last week I decided to find alternative service providers. I did my research and found that there were at least 3 different service providers that had cell towers in range of the hospital and offered wireless internet solutions. So today I went to Bhubhaneswar with Govinda to see what we could find out about hiring out these services.

3 strikes and I am out. Each one of the services centers told me that what I wanted wasn’t possible. After I showed them on their own website that it was possible, they told me it wasn’t available in Orissa. After I showed them that their website said it was available in Orissa, they told me it wasn’t available in Bhubhaneswar at this particular address. After I showed them that their website pointed me to their particular address and told me it was available, they told me they didn’t have any in stock.

At the end of the day I had a headache and was extremely frustrated. But its always like that here. Everything you need to do is exponentially complicated by the amount of interaction with other people. If you need to do something by yourself it is completely manageable and possible. Once you need to get 4 or 5 people involved, you have just made your task nearly impossible.

But I am better now. I took some time to sit and think and reflect. I gathered myself, played some Frisbee, did some exercise, and now I am ready to ram my head into the brick wall again tomorrow.