Back in India - kinda
Since last week I constantly I asked myself how the job in the embassy would look like. Today I realized that I already knew it well in advance.
When I think of India, than I remember of delicious food, the most hospital people, the admirable patience of the people, the people's unsatisfiable passion for administration, the fact that bookkeeping is taken literally in every shop, hotel or office, so that even where a computer is present everything has parallely to be documented in one of these huge greenish paged books; the office culture, that starts at 9ish slowly and does never seem to accelerate until one of a sudden around 3pm someone important outside the office makes a wish that has to be delivered instantly, so that the entire office team starts to rush until 15 minutes before the end of the office hours, when the conclusion settles, that the task cannot be completed the same day, or is not as important as it looked in the beginning or both; the office hours in general, where presence is more important than working - and last but not least - the long waits.
I had been asked to show up at 9am. I did and was made waiting in the lobby for half an hour. Eventually they asked me in, told me that the person in charge of me was not in yet and that maybe I had to wait for a bit more. A bit later they showed me my desk. I actually I have my own office with all liberties and two ashtrays.
"You can smoke in here if you want!"
I don't think it is a pity that I quit more than 3 years ago.
I was shown the entire building, there is even a library. All people working in the embassy welcomed me with a smile and offered me help where needed. Apart of a secretary and the receptionist I am the only non-Indian among more than 25 staff.
The job role is kind of paradise: I am to lookup the printed media of Switzerland and Liechtenstein (did anyone know that they have a daily newspaper out there?) for relevant reports, summarize the important stuff and translate some articles into English. In a nutshell the first half of the day I am sitting in my office reading newspapers. After a few hours of intensive screening of the media I decided to write my report and a few translations. Nothing very stressful. I left for lunch at 1pm, came back after one hour and kept translating. In between I had little ad hoc tasks like: "Can you please call my doctor/an electrician/the phone company" or "translate "good morning" into Swiss?" Nothing eventful. But than, around 3pm my phone rang. It was my boss who called me downstairs into his office.
"Drop everything else you have done so far!Take this legal document and translate it into English. The ambassador needs it ASAP! "
So I started translating that 13 page piece of legislation, drafted by seemingly illiterate lawyers and ratified by the Bernese parliament, from German into English. I always considered German as my mother tongue but lawyer's German seemed more difficult than Hindi here.
Less than a couple of hours later the boss called again. "How far are you?"
"One third..."
"One third to go? We need it ASAP as I said!"
"No sir, one third I have completed meanwhile."
"Hm ok, otherwise you just complete it tomorrow."
Before leaving I went to the office next door to update a colleague from the accounting team on a call that I had made on his behalf, as his Swissgerman is worse than my Hindi. I caught him silently writing numbers into a huge book with green pages.
The job is great fun. I have to be careful with my health, but otherwise, if I was not sick, I would never have taken on this job. Finally again something positive out of this horror. I hope I can keep up my health for a while to keep the job.
When I think of India, than I remember of delicious food, the most hospital people, the admirable patience of the people, the people's unsatisfiable passion for administration, the fact that bookkeeping is taken literally in every shop, hotel or office, so that even where a computer is present everything has parallely to be documented in one of these huge greenish paged books; the office culture, that starts at 9ish slowly and does never seem to accelerate until one of a sudden around 3pm someone important outside the office makes a wish that has to be delivered instantly, so that the entire office team starts to rush until 15 minutes before the end of the office hours, when the conclusion settles, that the task cannot be completed the same day, or is not as important as it looked in the beginning or both; the office hours in general, where presence is more important than working - and last but not least - the long waits.
I had been asked to show up at 9am. I did and was made waiting in the lobby for half an hour. Eventually they asked me in, told me that the person in charge of me was not in yet and that maybe I had to wait for a bit more. A bit later they showed me my desk. I actually I have my own office with all liberties and two ashtrays.
"You can smoke in here if you want!"
I don't think it is a pity that I quit more than 3 years ago.
I was shown the entire building, there is even a library. All people working in the embassy welcomed me with a smile and offered me help where needed. Apart of a secretary and the receptionist I am the only non-Indian among more than 25 staff.
The job role is kind of paradise: I am to lookup the printed media of Switzerland and Liechtenstein (did anyone know that they have a daily newspaper out there?) for relevant reports, summarize the important stuff and translate some articles into English. In a nutshell the first half of the day I am sitting in my office reading newspapers. After a few hours of intensive screening of the media I decided to write my report and a few translations. Nothing very stressful. I left for lunch at 1pm, came back after one hour and kept translating. In between I had little ad hoc tasks like: "Can you please call my doctor/an electrician/the phone company" or "translate "good morning" into Swiss?" Nothing eventful. But than, around 3pm my phone rang. It was my boss who called me downstairs into his office.
"Drop everything else you have done so far!Take this legal document and translate it into English. The ambassador needs it ASAP! "
So I started translating that 13 page piece of legislation, drafted by seemingly illiterate lawyers and ratified by the Bernese parliament, from German into English. I always considered German as my mother tongue but lawyer's German seemed more difficult than Hindi here.
Less than a couple of hours later the boss called again. "How far are you?"
"One third..."
"One third to go? We need it ASAP as I said!"
"No sir, one third I have completed meanwhile."
"Hm ok, otherwise you just complete it tomorrow."
Before leaving I went to the office next door to update a colleague from the accounting team on a call that I had made on his behalf, as his Swissgerman is worse than my Hindi. I caught him silently writing numbers into a huge book with green pages.
The job is great fun. I have to be careful with my health, but otherwise, if I was not sick, I would never have taken on this job. Finally again something positive out of this horror. I hope I can keep up my health for a while to keep the job.
posted by Sabi at 8:36 PM
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