End of Term Report

I'm listening to 'Paris' by Friendly Fires.

'One day we're going to live in Paris' is the lyric.

And I've done it. For 3 months. And it's been beautiful. A dream realised. So thanks mum and dad!

In 3 months I've gone from stagiaire to a more lovely stagiaire. Through circumstance and other things, I have managed to find myself with my own office, a budget, and my own team! And today I was even given honoury membership of the 'operations team'. They must operate something...!

I've had meetings, coffee, phone conferences with people who are the sorts of people you just read about on websites they're so powerful, more coffee, laughs, jokes, business and much, much more! It's been a blast!

Someone walked into my office today and said: 'Dom you're always so nice. Are you ever angry? Do you ever shout at people?' In my work environment, there has never been a need to!

Yet, somehow, there is a sense of 'A-', 'could have done better.' I probably could have been more efficient some days, probably been more confident and a some more would have been done.

But fear not readers, the 4th of January shall be a momentous, monumental and memorable day for all concerned. All I shall say is that is the day I shall mobilise my troops, my teams and my clever people and the past 3 months of work shall not have been in vain!

and I shall leave you with a picture of my wonderful DSHQ (Dom's Stage Headquarters)

'It doesn't snow in Paris'

As you will have read, my colleague Olivier told me this. I'm at home. As it's snowing. I got half way to work, found there to be no buses, so came back.

I sent emails to people at work just to make sure I was covered for not being in the office and they're all kosher with it! But then I get another email forwarded from work. Basically it reads:

INFO. All the buses from Pont de Sevres are cancelled after 8am due to snow.

It was sent to everyone's office email address.......which I can't access from home.

It wasn't originally sent to me.....even though I am only one of two people who takes the bus to work.

Good job my inner-Frenchman kicked in at 08.30 and decided to come home.

Better still, I have awesome parents! I came back and told my mum that I was going out to take pictures. Some parents would have kept me indoors. My mum just said 'Go for it! Apparently it never snows in Paris!'

So I hopped on the metro and took some piccies:

Bourgeois to Baltic! Part 2

Ice Cream! I thought. How do you make ice cream?!

I checked the cupboard for recipes. Nothing. Then I did the most logical thing and asked an Australian, over msn, 12,000 miles away.

'Sara! You're Australian! You're a girl! How do you make ice cream?!'

'Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I know anything about making ice cream!!'

Bugger I thought, there goes that philosophy out of the window!

'We Aussies are known for our intelligence..'

'..and your likingness of ice cream'

'everyone likes ice cream'

'this is true, but evidently, no one knows how to make it!'

'it's a mystery'

So the patented *ask a friend in a country with a hotter climate than yours how to make an icy snack* was proving trickier than first thought!

After shouting at google and discovering that I needed cream, eggs and a plethora of other ingredients (none of which I had) I settled on using student nous.

I got the two milk bottles and shook them. violently. for ages. Then poured the contents into one of those foil trays you get with chinese food, put in some sugar, and finally some flavourings (bits of kitkat chunky and hobnob and one with orange bits) and bunged them in the freezer.

12hours later. They were ready!

It was a revelation! I shall leave you with some pictures:

Bourgeois to Baltic! Part 1

Having walked down the street in merely a tshirt for most of the month; suddenly last week something strange happened.

I looked at my iPod and the 'snow' graphic had appeared. 'It never snows in Paris' one colleague had told me: so with Olivier's words in my head, I shook my iPod to see what would happen. Like, somehow thinking three snowflakes were going to appear, or three lemons. Or maybe it'd turn into a globe and I'd have a nice ornament. Disappointingly, none of these things happened.

But it got me thinking, no, not about global warming, about what you do in Paris in the cold. My first reaction was to turn the radiators up! My second was to look in the fridge.

I noticed two bottles of milk. Both dated the 13th. and then I remembered why they were in there. Something like this:

'Dad, why do we need 2l of milk? We always buy too much food and have to throw some away. Every week.'

'But this week we won't. And the milk will get drunk.'

So there I was last night, staring into the fridge, 1.5l of milk about to go off and my dad in a different country!

Ice Cream! I thought. How do you make ice cream?!

to be continued........

WOOP WOOP, that's the sound of da pompiers

Or so the song goes. And it was more like 'nee-nor' or thereabouts.

So there I was at 11o'clock this morning wondering why the German industrial might of Siemens hasn't taken over the world, and why when the Italians claim to be a developed nation, as far as I can see, they haven't managed to makes things add up in their annual report for the past four years, when the fire alarm went off.

I knew it was the fire alarm as everyone ran to the coffee machine. This is France remember and did you really think they were going to evacuate into the cold without a hot drink?!

So I grabbed my coat and headed for the four flights of stairs. To be confronted by eight, yes eight, fire engines. Firemen running everywhere, with hoses, hydrants and hyperactivity! There were people everywhere. OK, when I say everywhere, there was me, with the *stand as far away from a building* philosophy whilst everyone else was huddled in the foyers of each of the buildings, yes even the one with the fire (hoses were routed around people), having a cigarette.

The sense of irony hung in the air like the cold Parisian breeze. In fact when the fire was out (it seems it went on strike at the sight of 8 truck loads of pompiers) after 10minutes, the firemen had to get out their axes' and cut through the irony so they could leave.

And then when we given the all clear to go back upstairs, everyone stayed outside. Any excuse for a coffee break eh!

Transport in Common?

*spot the joke in the title...*

It is wednesday today. So half the working population of France stay at home and drink Beaujolais and watch Bergerac whilst being English, I go out and work.

Having got a seat immediately on the metro as there was no one on it, I pootled towards my destination. After sitting on the metro for longer than the usaul pootle it was time for the bus. Having been elbowed in the stomach by the only Parisians who were working trying to get on, I was confronted by a man.

A man with a clipboard. And a badge. A recipe for disaster!

Usually I'm the only person who talks to them; but not today. This man was handing out pieces of paper and they were flying from his hands like freshly baked baguette!

'RATP Enquete de Satisfaction'

And so whilst we hammered it to work (the bus moves quicker than the metro) people were ticking boxes and circling numbers; and amazingly sharing stationary with each other! I must add, I thanked my lucky stars as I was sitting next to a particularly attractive girl who lent me her pencil, so we had an excuse for a chat about public transport and why I scooter to work.

Would this transport en commun experience be common to transport around the world? Does everyone give as much gusto with a pencil for someone to create a graph?

Part of me thinks they should as the last bus 'le balai' I got home arrived bang on time!

Modern Business: Perpetuating the Myth or Bursting the Bubble

'Look boss: I've worked their predicted 2009/2010 revenues out using maths and logic and based on what they've done in previous years and correlated the results to get 710.'

'Let's make it 870.'

And so it goes. And it's not just me. Having discussed this with many people and some of my friends on internships around the world, it would seem that this is the global case.

Even though you've worked something out over a period of days, using maths and correlation skills you once learnt whilst sitting in GCSE maths thinking 'I'll never ever ever use this, why are we learning this rubbish', magically, you get a figure. And then your boss tells you it's wrong and increases it to a number even the rubbish person in the back of the maths class, the one who always used to do nothing and annoy the teacher, the one who you always knew wouldn't get far in life but he's thinks he's effectively God at school, yeh that one, a number even he couldn't have worked out!

'But boss! It's impossible!'

'Wait and see'

A week later, a report comes out, done by 'an analyst', which says '870'. You stare at it blankly.

Then you remember, these people have been in the 'Global Business Bullshit Game' longer than you have.