Читать книгу Sumalee - Javier Salazar Calle - Страница 9

At last Monday. First day of work. I got up at six-thirty in the morning, had coffee with cereal and a glass of juice. A full breakfast. In the meantime, my roommates told me that what they used to do, and also a lot of people, was to have breakfast at work in the company cafeteria, where there were free drinks, fruit and pastries, or in the places in the building if they wanted something different. This way they could chat with their co-workers before they started the day. Sometimes there were people having for breakfast, especially the foreigners from Asia, things like noodles, soups, stir fried vegetables... It was very strange to see them eat that for breakfast. I got dressed and waited ten minutes for the others to be ready.

We were a bit disorganized and decided to take a taxi to go to work. For just ten Singapore dollars, paid by Josele, we were at the door of our building in fifteen minutes, an entrance like that of hotels where the cars stop to unload the bags.

The area was a complex of four white octagonal skyscrapers called Raffles City Tower. Apparently, it had a giant shopping mall, offices, convention centre, restaurants and two hotels occupying two of the towers. Each skyscraper had to be forty or forty-five storeys. It was impressive. To the right of the entrance where we were there was a bar called Salt Tapas & Bar, a premonitory name for the Spaniards, like those back home. Fate, in which I did not believe, seemed to tell me that I was where I needed to be.

Our offices were on the 36th floor of the Raffles City Tower office tower. The views must be spectacular. At the entrance, since it was my first day, they had to identify me and give me an access card. Once I had it, we took the elevator to the office. Our floor was diaphanous, with almost no walls except for the meeting rooms. On the way to my supervisor, I ran into Teresa and Diego. We greeted each other quickly and said we will meet later in the cafeteria on our floor. Afterwards, Damaso went to his desk and Josele took me to Amit Dabrai, the Indian who was my new boss.

Amit was a very dry and smug person. He told me broadly what the project was about as if he was doing me a favour and showed me to my desk, where my laptop was already waiting for me. I signed all the laptop and cell phone papers and settled in my spot. Amit shared with me a cloud folder with all the documentation and told me that Jerome, who was my partner in the project, would tell me what was most important to read first. He insisted that I had to catch up very quickly and that he wanted me to start working at full speed that very week. What a serious and stiff boss I had! It reminded me a lot of one that I had in a project in Spain.

Jerome, who was French, turned out to be completely different then Amit. He was like a goat, crazy as a goat. To define him as an extrovert was falling short. In addition, he had a contagious enthusiasm and vitality and seemed to always be in a good mood. He spoke English with a very strong French accent that I had a hard time getting used to listening without laughing. He told me what main documents to read and gave me a presentation of the project for almost an hour, emphasizing its really important aspects: what it was, what was expected of us, where we were at and what were the next steps we had to take. All that after going to the cafeteria and chatting with Tere and Diego.

Later Josele accompanied me to a branch of POSB bank to open an account. He had his with the same bank, which was a state one that worked very well. As I was told, being a tax haven, opening accounts was a very simple process. I was asked for the FIN number, which was the equivalent of the Spanish ID card. The company had provided me with the work permit, but apparently you could open an account without it, and you could show it once you had it. It was all formalities. I was given a debit card right away and my online and phone credentials.

Nearby was an exclusive office for private banking.

“Here, with a nice wad of cash, you don’t even need to identify yourself,” said Josele with a mischievous expression. “Although they won't say it openly, of course. These people are all facilities to receive money.”

“Well, I hope I can become their client,” I said.

Once all was set, we went back to the office.