The right conversion factor

The first thing that occupies ones mind in a new country is the darned currency conversion factor. How does one decide that an article or service is expensive or cheap. This is a big problem for people from countries like India where one has to down-convert the US dollar to get an estimate of the price in Indian rupees. One USD is approximately 44 Indian rupees. A newly arrived desi goes to the supermarket. He wants to buy a bar of soap. The problem is I have yet to see a bar of soap in a US supermarket. So the only option left to him is a shower gel. He walks up to the shower gel counter and after browsing through unheard of brands zeroes on to something that sounds familiar. An Old Spice shower gel. He opens the lid, takes a whiff and seems satisfied. But his satifaction is short lived. He looks at the price tag and written in bold letters is $4.02. Using his legendary Indian quantitative faculty he does a rough conversion to rupees and finds that its rupees 170. Are you kidding? How can one spend 170 hard earned rupees on a measure of shower gel that probably will last no more than 1.5 months. Back home one could buy a years supply of Cinthol soap for that money. He curses himself silently about not bringing a years supply of Cinthol with him from home. He feels all flushed and hastily puts the bottle back on the shelf. Wake up call dude! If you gonna think this way you will probably go raving mad in a week's time. So, what should be the correct conversion factor? Well the solution my friend is to normalise your US salary to an Indian one. I went about it like this and I warn you this is a very simplistic method. Lets say my Indian salary was X and my US salary was Y. Convert both of them to the same denomination using the prevalent exchange rate and divide the US salary by the Indian salary to get a factor M. For me this turned out to be 8. Now all you have to do is calculate a stinginess factor. Take the difference of the prevalent conversion rate and the calculated factor. Divide the result by 10 and call it D. Now rate your spending habits on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being very liberal and 10 being very stingy. Call your position on this scale S, the Stinginess Factor. Now, your correct conversion rate C, should be (S-1)xD + M.

R - USD to INR conversion rate
X - Indian Salary
Y - US Salary converted to INR using the prevalent conversion rate R
M - Y/X
D - (R-M)/10
S - Stinginess factor
C - (S-1)xD + M, is the adjusted conversion factor.

This model takes into account the fundamental truths that:
1) Expensiveness is a factor of the value a person attaches to his money
2) The US is NOT India.

This has worked quite well for me so far. And since it is just a number I dont have to think hundred times before spending on a good or on a service. I just use my own conversion factor to determine how much value I attach to the good or service. As always, I am looking for ways to improve this model. So any commenst are welcome.

Bugmenot

Here is a link to an interesting site i came across at Slashdot. It provides valid usernames and passwords for sites that require free registration for viewing content. http://www.bugmenot.com/

Got my SSN today

Finally got my SSN today. I didnt have to wait long though. Just took 8 days to come through. The trick here is to wait for at least two weeks after entry, before putting in your SSN application. I dont know why, but lot of people have told me that applying too early for the SSN actually delays the process. It seems that for the SSN application to pass thru, the immigration details have to be updated by INS. If upon application the SSA finds that your immigration details from the port of entry have not been updated into the system the entire process gets delayed. I have seen guys waiting for their SSN for as long as three months. For the uninitiated the SSN is the single most important piece of information in the US. It is a unique number and is used as an identifier for a person. Your credit history, rental history, driving history, tax history etc etc is all tracked using your SSN. So without an SSN you are as good as a vegetable in here. Nobody will give you rental property, nobody will issue a driving license and most banks wont open a bank account for you.

Hi Fever

I know I havent posted for a long long time and I am extremely sorry for it. Took me a while to open my eyes to the American Dream. Fast cars, plush houses and big tomatoes ;-). Yeah! these are the things that amaze us desis when we set foot here, though not necessarily in that order. Another thing that takes us a while to catch on to is the American way of exchanging pleasanteries. You walk into office, a gas station, a convenience store or a bank and there will be people who will smile at you and say "Hey, how are you doing today?". Thats kind of very difficult to adjust to because back home when people see you somewhere they try and look through you or give you a look that says "Dont even think about smiling at me!". Well thats us, but what can we do about it. Since childhood our parents teach us to not talk with strangers, some even going to such lengths as making up weird stories like "you know Chatterjee aunty's son just smiled at a guy in the bus and the guy kidnapped the little boy and sold him to a Dubai sheikh. Now her son is in Dubai racing camels". Well that kind of gets in your head and you start thinking about all the bad things about racing camels for a sheikh in Dubai, and decide that not smiling at people is definitely easier than racing camels. So, given your aversion to conversation with strangers and possibly to the entire humanity, what do you do when a person walks up to you and says "Hello how are you doing today?". There are just two options to deal with such kind of behaviour. You could try and look busy like a guy who has just lost his shadow and is trying hard to find it. Or you could muster a radiant smile and say "Im doing good and how are you today?".That in all fairness is the better of the two options, the other option being beyond the pale of civilised behaviour. But it comes with a catch. Now that you have started responding to others, wouldnt it be more civilized to start the exchange of pleasanteries yourself. After all its a proactives world. Be a go-getter dude. So you see a guy in office coming towards you, look hopefully at him, put on a 1000 watt smile and start to form words in your mouth when he whizzes past you like Daffy Duck with his arse on fire. You are bewildered. After all, wasnt he supposed to anticipate what was coming. There my friend lies the catch. People exchange pleasanteries but not always. Mornings are the time when people are at their civil best. Enter any American office in the mornings and you are sure to hear pleasanteries richocheting like bullets. But as the day wears on people start losing their perky edge. The next phase starts in the lunch queue. "hey how you doin today. Can I have a crispy chicken burger please?". And no better way to end a 'pleasant' day than a warm sionara in the evenings. Also washrooms are the worst places to exchange greetings. After all one has to answer the call of nature before he can take your call. Well its not too difficult. Once you learn the game, you play by the rules.