Zurich - Reflection on Work

Picnic eggs for making my lunch - special edition from Swiss National Day!

When I used to speak to my parents every week on the phone, my Dad would ask me why I never talked about work. I replied that it was never anything new – it was what was expected of me and so there wasn’t really anything to report. Also, I didn’t say this, I didn’t really think they’d have much of a clue about what I was talking about anyway. That’s no offence to them – I wouldn’t really expect anyone to be that interested.

Anyway, I guess it’s the same with this blog and I wondered if maybe I should say something about my working life.

I’m more than halfway through my contract now. Generally, I’ve been pretty happy. The work environment has been good, I’ve made new friends and the work itself has been fairly straightforward. It’s taken a while, as always, to build up trust and relationships with the people I’ve been working with.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about working. Not long ago, I was thinking that 6 months had really been enough, at least for full-time work. Other days I feel that it’s fine as it is. Some days, I long to return to having no work to do and just going back to doing my own writing, having more time to learn Arabic, going swimming every afternoon.

On all counts, I would much prefer to choose when to wake up each day rather than have it dictated by work. It’s not about getting up earlier or later; it’s about having the choice. However, I’m lucky that the work hours are pretty flexible; I could probably do as I wished if I like, but I’m a bit old-school and prefer just to do the set time rather than come in later and stay later. So maybe it all comes back to me not really wanting to work full-time any more.

One interesting aspect of my current position is that I have a lot of dealings with my Japanese colleagues, since my role is basically to hand over what I'm doing so that they can take charge when I leave. It's been a bit of a struggle since we're operating under two different systems and it's hard to get decisions sometimes. The Japanese prefer to discuss behind the scenes and have an iterative decision making process going through each stakeholder one by one.

I attended some Japanese cultural training and, interestingly, their language requires you to know the correct hierarchical order before you can address someone properly (and I thought the Du/Sie and Vous/Tu distinctions in German and French were difficult enough!). So, the Japanese like (need) to know what your position is in the organisation before they can even speak to you and this is thought to be a good thing as you know where you stand. They also like to copy everyone in on emails to ensure equality of information, whereas in our culture the trend is to try to avoid copying in too many people on correspondence. I haven't yet had a trip to Japan with this position, but I'm hoping maybe next year (I apparently have an allowance for only one travel during my employment, so I'm hoping it's for Japan).

I do feel quite sad about handing "my" products over (one is transferring to Japan and one to the USA) as at this stage I feel I've managed to put everything into order, I've grown fond of the people I'm working with and would like to see the plans I've worked on come to fruition. From that point of view, I will be sad to leave it behind!

Paris - Visiting Sheila

Paris - In the Tuileries

There were a few things I’d promised to myself to do while I was in Zurich and one of them was to visit Sheila in Paris. For some reason, I was surfing the internet one weekend and suddenly realized that there was an offer for train tickets to Paris – only 100 CHF return! I hasten to add that this was some time before the recent attacks on Paris, as was my visit.

The train journey to Paris from Zurich is really good – it takes about 4 hours, I think, and is direct. The seats are more spacious on the TGV than on a normal train and you have neither the hassle of having to arrive 90 minutes in advance nor all the baggage checks that you have at the airport.

I’d booked a room in a cheap hotel with use of a shared bathroom. The hotel was located not so far from Sheila’s flat and close to a KFC. You can see from the latter where my priorities lay! My room turned out to be on the top floor and there was no lift; the stairs were windy and narrow. The room itself was OK, though. I had my own toilet and basin but I never managed to find the shared bathroom and internet access was only sporadic. For just two nights, though, it wasn’t a big problem. The café just round the corner did delicious breakfast, which was also a compensation.

There were a few things I wanted to do – I wanted to see the twinkling lights at night on the Eiffel Tower (which I did) and I’d noticed that Musee d’Orsay was the number one visitor attraction in Paris and yet I’d never been. I found that quite puzzling, so I bought a ticket online to save me from having to queue, and decided to fill that gap in my experience of Paris.

I originally thought I’d go to the museum on Sunday, but it turned out that I was visiting on the French equivalent of an open doors day (it has some grand name in French as only the French can manage to do), so Sheila and I ended up trying to plan which places we should try and visit. It was a bit of a trauma trying to work your way round the web sites that explained what was on – there wasn’t much explanation and on top of that, navigation, particularly if you weren’t Parisian, was rather opaque.

Nevertheless, we got a plan together and It all started off not too bad. We got to some kind of pharmacy museum and were the first there, so we went off for a coffee beforehand in a nearby café, and then returned just before it opened. The tour was all in French, so it reminded me of Geraldine visiting me and everything being in Swiss German on the long night of the museums. My French is definitely rusty to say the least! Still, I quite enjoyed trying to follow what they were saying. It filled me with renewed enthusiasm for brushing up on my French again at some point (but I think this at regular intervals and never do anything about it).

We went back to the café and from there it started to go horribly wrong. We ordered the lunch menu and got as far as our starters (which were quite impressive, if rather mayonnaise-laden, prawn cocktails). After that, we just didn’t get served. We waited and waited. We complained at least twice. Still nothing arrived. In the end we put the money on the table to pay for our starters and just left. They didn’t even run after us.

Everything that we tried to visit after that had such long queues that it was pointless to try to get in. I won’t bore you with the details (I have in any case blotted them from my memory). We did end up at a place describing how they purified and distributed water in Paris, but apparently you can go there any time and it’s always free, so actually there wasn’t so much point in going (although it was still interesting enough and they had a film for me to practice listening to French again and to sit down after all that walking).

The next day, I went to the Musee d’Orsay, armed with my online ticket. I took my time and wandered around outside, and then tried to find the entrance. To my dismay it was closed and opening with a new exhibition the next day. But for me that was too late!

I decided to go for a coffee (that’s my solution to all my problems), but first of all I needed to get money out. It took me quite a long time to find a cash machine. I saw a photographic exhibition advertised as I walked about, thought I’d pop in and see that, only to find that it didn’t start until the next day either. My luck just wasn’t in.

I finally got money out (it was quite pleasant wandering about, to be honest, and the weather was good), had my coffee. I then realized that the Tuileries were just opposite the Musee d’Orsay and I’m not actually convinced that I’d ever visited them before, so I ended up enjoying walking round there. I saw the monolith that Egypt had given to Paris, mentioned during our tour of Luxor temple when Sheila came to Egypt. Seeing the monolith like this in the centre of Paris gave me the impression that my recent past and my present were in that moment being united and it somehow suddenly felt that everything was just as it should be.

After treating myself to a KFC, I returned to the hotel to collect my stuff only to find Sheila there waiting for me. Her appointment had been cancelled and she’d actually tried to find me at Musee d’Orsay (only also to find it was closed, of course). We might even have stopped off for a coffee at the same place but we never actually crossed paths.

Anyway, it was great to see her and to have a final chance to chat again before I left (that was, after all, the main reason for my being in Paris, so all the problems weren’t really important). We went to the station and treated ourselves to a coffee in Le Train Bleu – it was a really beautiful and stunning end to the stay.

Zurich - Arabic, Third Semester

View from the Class Window

Well, after putting in some work to catch up on the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) vocabulary as opposed to “dialect” as our teacher insists on calling Egyptian Arabic, I finished the second semester and decided I may as well carry on. By the end of the semester, there were only four of us left from the eight who were there on my first lesson (so, only three of the original attendees). However, we’ve been joined by three others mid-way (one of whom has also dropped out), which I found quite surprising as I thought there wouldn't be many people who already had a smattering of Arabic.

Progress is frustratingly slow – we’re in the third semester and only now are we starting on verbs. On the plus side, I think my reading has improved quite a bit. I’m definitely faster and a lot of the time now I can both read and understand at the same time. They are only simple texts, of course.

It's interesting learning a different way of thinking about things. In German-speaking countries, it’s customary to call a woman “Frau” (“Mrs”) after she reaches a certain age. In Arabic countries, if a woman is single, you should always use “Miss”, because to call her “Mrs” is to take away from her the possibility of finding a husband. Unlike in European or Western countries, it’s a compliment in Arabic-speaking countries to be called “grandmother”; you’d rather call someone “grandmother” than underestimate her seniority. The language, too, continues to surprise. It has three different words for "not" - one for use in the present, one in the past, and one in the future. I've never seen that before!

Anyway, we’re now a class of six and we’re all the keener ones, so I’m hoping that we might be able to learn a bit faster. The class is only ever as fast as the slowest person and I have a horrible feeling that sometimes that’s been me. I was a bit mystified as to how everyone was so good until I realized that they were all putting in quite a bit of work in between lessons (we don’t get homework). I hurriedly spent our half-term vacation trying to catch up. However, the other week was one of those lessons where I noticed that my lack of time to do some rote learning was becoming evident!

It’s also complicated by me working from German to Arabic and not from my mother tongue to Arabic. When we were learning numbers (which I already knew, although they were pronounced differently in MSA), the teacher reeled off his telephone number in Arabic and asked us to put it into our own phones. Arabic numbers are like in German (“three and twenty” instead of “twenty three”), so I was confused in my head as to whether it was easier to try to translate from Arabic into German, But when I did that, I realised I couldn't enter the number on the phone by writing down 3 and then backtracking to enter the 2 (for 23). So, actually, it was quicker to do it just straight into English. But I didn’t have enough time to think all that through and I'd lost the plot in the mean time! Apparently, numbers are pretty much hard-wired into your brain as to how you first learned them, which is why they are often not so fluent as the rest of a foreign language that you learn.

I'm also getting confused in class with the verbs. I’m not sure if it’s partly because it’s all in German again, since by the time I’ve tried to follow what he’s saying in German and what he wants in Arabic and then how I should say it in Arabic, it all gets a bit much. It’s all fine in my head when I’m doing it at home but somehow in class I panic and it all escapes me. 

Maybe it would be easier if he could just ask us to translate a given sentence, but it’s often explained in a contorted manner (eg, “you are talking to me, and I’m in a group, and let’s pretend the group has ten boys and ten girls, so what do you say to me if you’re asking me whether we’re going to the cinema?”. He’s wanting the sentence “are you (men and women, plural) going to the cinema?” but by the end of the sentence I’m thinking he wants me to say “are we going to the cinema?” because I’ve lost the plot). Having said that, somehow, it still takes me a while to work out which part of the verb he wants even when he does just directly ask me to say “are you (men and women) going to the cinema?” I'm actually not that good at retaining things in my head (which is why I like the written word). So if the sentence is at all complicated, I also stumble  (eg, “he knows her and she knows him”). I’m not sure if I would find it easier if he were speaking English, since the sentence is easy enough for me to understand, so maybe it's just me!

Anyway, those are the challenges, but I do feel I am improving! I'm slowly learning new vocabulary, the classes each week push me to keep up and do some preparatory work, my reading is definitely getting better, and I'm fired up that we're now doing verbs.

Switzerland - Autumn

Bisse de Claveau from Sion to St Leonard

I’m not really aware of time passing when I live in Egypt, since each day is so similar to the other. Having said that, in February-March I’m wishing the sea would heat up; in August-September, by contrast, I’m looking forward to getting back to cooler evenings so I don’t wake up every night feeling too hot. But, regardless, each day is blue sky and sunshine (with the rare exception) and it’s a continual holiday. Time doesn’t really matter.

However, in Zurich, or maybe it’s whenever I’m working, I’m much more aware of time and the fact that it’s passing. I always need to have a watch, I always need to know what time it is, I need to know how much time things are taking. 

A few weeks ago, we turned the clocks back. Ignoring the fact that in Egypt changing the clocks is a bit hit and miss (they seem to change their mind every year and then sometimes even within the year), even when they do change the clocks, it doesn’t make much difference to me. I might get less time on the beach, and I have to recalculate when the UK TV programs are on, but that’s about it.

Here, though, it altered my whole perception. Suddenly, I'm walking home from work in the dark and it makes me feel like I must have been in the office for ages. In that darkness, winter lurks in the back of your mind; you remember that it’s the time of year for heating, heavy clothes, and gluehwein. And along with this, of course, is the background realization that summer has now gone, that time is marching on.

It also changes my routine. My regular teleconferences on Tuesdays suddenly shifted on my calendar from noon to 11am because the clocks hadn’t changed in Australia. I’m reluctant to go to the gym if it’s already dark.

Another thing that makes me realise that time is pressing on is the change in the natural environment. Apparently, I’ve continued to luck out this year in Zurich. Not only did we have an unusually good summer, but the autumn colours are spectacular just now. 

I had wondered if I was particularly sensitive to the colours all around me because I haven’t seen autumn for a few years, but people tell me it is extra stunning this year. It’s a joy to look out my window and to see the trees; and along with that, there’s a sense of astonishment as to how it could already be so late in the year. The trees are another kind of clock.

To maximize my enjoyment of autumn, I went for a trek along the vineyards by Sion last weekend. The railway was doing a special 2-for-1 offer on their day tickets, so we were able to go to the Valais on a bargain ticket. I will miss being able to travel about so easily when I return to Egypt.

Anyway, it was November 1st and the weather was so mild that I was able to walk in a t-shirt and we were able to sit outside for lunch! It's hard to believe. 

The sky was blue, the sun was low and imparting an orange glow over the landscape. Mountains were all around us and we walked along the vineyards, which were staggered up the mountainside. The slopes were stepped with stone and slate walls bordering the small patches of ground in between for the vines (the stair treads). Looking down, the countryside was a patchwork of orange and red; on the flatter ground, a green golf course with fountains looked like something out of Camberwick Green (UK children’s cartoon-like programme from the ‘60’s).

Shops are closed on Sunday in Switzerland, so it’s a popular day for hiking. Consequently, we met a fair number of people of all ages and dispositions (babies in prams, serious joggers, pensioners, groups of youths) as we walked along. We were now in the French-speaking section of Switzerland so it was “bonjour” as we passed instead of the Swiss-German “gruezi”. The pace of life felt much more relaxed.

The route was signposted with informational boards, but I wasn’t observant enough actually to see a lizard, absinth, or a pomegranate. At various intervals, the vintners had cosy places where you could sample their wines and / or eat. However, the hiking path was quite narrow and at times the drop quite sheer. Walking along it sober was fine, but I’m not sure I’d like to risk it if I were inebriated .

Looking at all the work it must take to harvest the vines on those steep slopes made me appreciate why wine is so expensive in Switzerland. Ironically, though, when we stopped for a drink before getting the train back, the wine cost only just over 3 CHF. In Zurich, a glass of wine will cost around twice that amount (even more if you go for an expensive wine). It’s strange how very different the Swiss cantons can be (language, economics, attitude); it’s part of the marvel of living in Switzerland.

Additionally, visiting a different canton, particularly one where they speak a different language, makes you feel as if you’ve been away for longer than you actually have. Time is a funny thing.

Basel - White Dinner

Basel - White Dinner, Table by the Rhine

One event I haven’t reported back on yet this year is the White Dinner that was held in Basel. I hadn’t realized at the time I went, but apparently this is organized on the same night in many cities. Basically, a large outdoor venue is set aside – with any luck, somewhere fairly dramatic or picturesque – tables are set up, and literally thousands of people turn up to have their dinner. Everyone has to wear only white from top to toe. You can purchase a white picnic basket with white cutlery and white plates (although red wine is provided!). The tables are covered with white tablecloths, you buy a white fold-up chair to use (and take home).

You pay to attend, but entertainment of dancers, people on stilts, magicians, etc is provided.

It was supposed to happen in Zurich the year I left, but it was cancelled due to the mystery location being a disappointment and leading to lack of interest, if I recall correctly. This year, it happened for the first time in Basel (maybe even the first time in Switzerland) and the whole of the old town and the bridges across the Rhine in Basel were set up as one large, open-air restaurant. Traffic could no longer enter the centre; trams stopped running.

Getting there on the tram before it started, you could easily tell who was going to come along; I’d never seen so many people around all dressed in white. People chatted to each other or those not going along would look on in interest. A friendly atmosphere dominated in the streets and in the trams as everyone prepared to share an experience. I believe 4000 people attended in Basel.

I was part of a table of 8 people and we had a table on the central bridge, adjoined to another group of 8 people. As with everything this year in Zurich, I was incredibly lucky and the weather held. It was September, so by no means a given that the night would be warm and clear. We took along some food and wine in addition to that provided in the picnic baskets.

For me, it was good to meet some new people and it was the first time I’d been in the centre of Basel for a while. There’s usually a competition between Zurich and Basel, with those from each city thinking that their location is the superior one. Anyway, this was the first time I’d really socialized with a group of Basel converts and for the first time I could really see the attraction of Basel – I could agree that it appeared to be a friendlier, more down-to-earth place than Zurich, and it’s lovely to see the river flowing through the centre.

I was a bit annoyed with myself for drinking too much and thus losing much of the next day (which was also the last proper outdoor swimming day of the year!), but it was all good!