The Metropolitan Hotel Nikko

Our work is based at the Metropolitan Hotel Nikko in New Delhi. The hotel is a large building, but our daily life happens mostly in the administrative areas. These offices are tucked away behind the main guest areas. They are filled with the usual office things—filing cabinets, stacks of reports, and rows of computers. The air is always cool because of the central air conditioning, which is a blessing in the Delhi heat. We spend our days coordinating between different departments. It’s a lot of walking back and forth through long corridors with beige walls. The staff canteen is where we all gather for lunch, and it’s always full of people from housekeeping, kitchen, and the front desk. We hear the muffled sounds of the city traffic from the higher floors, but it’s mostly quiet where we sit. Our desks are old and the chairs squeak a bit when you move. We have been here for a long time and the routine is very familiar. Sometimes we go out to the lobby and see the international guests arriving with their luggage. It’s a busy environment but we stay focused on the back-end tasks. We don’t have a view of the outside from our specific office, just the light from the fluorescent tubes overhead. It’s a solid, busy place to work where everyone knows what they need to do to keep things moving.