Working in Sri Lanka

Worklife is probably the only thing that doesn't seem completely different here. Office life at least. I am working in a ground floor office suite with clean cool tiled floors and lemon walls. It's not air conditioned but we have fans. the furniture is modern and simple and the computers are no different to back home really. We don't have broadband but we do have ADSL and I can't really tell the difference. The keys on the keyboard are sometimes in a different place but apart from that it's much the same.

Their way of working, the formality with which they approach things however, reminds me of the voluntary sector in Scotland about 12 years ago. The need to overstate everything in reports, to use very formal language, to dot the 'i's and cross the 't's. I worked for Sense Scotland in the mid 90s and they were very much like that. Perhaps it's still the same, I don't know. It will be a challenge for me in the work that I'm doing because I like to simplify language and keep it as informal / user friendly as possible.

It will be a challenge but that, after all, is what I'm here for. One other thing that's slightly different here - in this office at least, we're asked to leave our shoes at the door. Seeing as you'd die if you wore socks in this heat, we're all barefoot. As someone who waits until December in Scotland to wear socks or tights, I like it - very liberating. The first time a gecko runs across my bare foot however, I'm afraid the shoes will be going back on and not leaving me till I go to bed!