A Study in Neutrality

 Friday, February 28 Alrighty, last day of the first work week.  Let's finish strong today 😂  The day started with one of the chemists presenting at 8:30, which I managed to pay good attention to initially but as we delved further into chemistry beyond my periphery I got lost.  After that, I had the morning to read a couple reports while fighting off drowsiness, the office was very quiet today.   It was chilly this morning, evidenced by frost on the fields. Step into my office.  A very different take on the office compared to home.   At lunchtime, my offer earlier in the week to join a colleague for un footing came due and he showed me where the locker room was.  We kept the run short (30 minutes) since he had a meeting at 1:30 but it was really impressive how the site has some nice trails along a forested river or hilly vineyards; by contrast, we only have gritty roadways and garbage-laden wetland near my NJ office.  It was a quic...

 Thursday, February 27 Don't forget to stop and smell the roses, but leave the purple flowers alone if they're on fenced-in property. Oh, boy, what a day 😂 I've got three highlights.  First, at work, I got invited by my boss' boss for a 1 on 1 meeting to touch base about my arrival and stay.  Since he's the one who's sponsoring my trip, it was nice discuss with him and get a better feel of his expectations.  As far as expectations, I think my earlier impressions were correct: my stay is what I make of it.  We have a few projects for me to work on as reasons to get out and interact with people so I get a feel for cultural/office differences.  He also raised a point about thinking about company/location strengths/weaknesses and how we need to focus on exploiting strengths to stay competitive; it's adapt or die.  Oh, and his office has a great view right along the Rhone river - simply sublime. An ode to my office window: when it's nice I can open it two ...

 Wednesday, February 26 Today my local boss was onsite today and it was great getting to meet him in person.  I don't have to worry about being neglected by him, my desk is situated directly opposite his so I should be able to just poke my head over my monitor to ask him a question 😆 He might be one of the most international people I know with at least 6 very different languages under his belt!  He's giving me a very slack leash to work with: there's a few overarching projects for me to work on but it's ultimately up to me to define what the success criteria are and how long each project will take.  And as far as meeting the various teams on site, he's putting the ball in my court to coordinate meeting with people and managing my time spent between projects/labs.   With clear skies, the view from the train of the Jura mountains is pretty spectacular.   This evening again featured a visit to one of the train stations supermarkets.  It's such ...

 Tuesday, February 25 Day two in the office required me to get up a bit earlier than the day before, but in reality I actually slept more through the night.  Still, I was a bit tired but pressed on, there was an 8:30 meeting to make and the only train to arrive on time would require me to leave home at 7:15 (the commute is about 45 minutes if I manage my trains right).  I have more sympathy for people who commute by rail than before: you can relax on the train but you also have to adhere to the schedule.  I spotted my colleague I'd spoken on the return commute with the yesterday and sat down just next to her, but she was so zombified in the morning that she didn't notice me and fell asleep 😆 Her commute must be closer to 1.5 hours or so; I get it now, I really do. The last three stops of the train get significantly more rural than Geneva's center. The meeting was chemistry related so much of it went right over my head but it did inspire some interesting questions th...

Monday, Feb 24 Et voilà, it's back to the salt mines today; lucky me that the commute is easy.  I take the tram two blocks from the apartment to the main station where I take a train that terminates a 5 minute walk from the office!  I made use of my morning commute to get in my DuoLingo lessons for the day but I'm going to see about finding either podcasts or audiobooks en français to listen to.  I suppose there's also a good chance I'll run into coworkers on the train too.   Café and a pain aux raisins to kick this off. Sipping on tea while waiting for the tram, I'll eventually be filling this thing with coffee but I didn't feel like messing with the French press this morning. Walking to the plant réception, it was a brief discussion with the security guards to establish I was the guy they'd been notified of.  I'd managed to do the security training online last night so all that was left was to review my passport and give me a badge.  My badge says ...

 February 23, 2025 - Geneva I was pleased to find myself replenished when my alarm went off at 8 am.  I'd managed to sleep through the night; given how exhausted I was going to bed maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise.  My watch says I did 28k steps yesterday and I could feel that when I stood up.  oof Having successfully roused at a reasonable time, I decided to pull the trigger on my harebrained plan to visit the CERN facility today.  There's a tram that runs directly from my apartment to the CERN campus in Meyrin/Geneva.  It turns out that there's a bakery a block away from the apartment and very close to the tram stop, I suppose that'll become my morning staple.  I was only able to take my pain au chocolat to-go today but I had time to drink my café before the tram arrived.   Enjoying my coffee for 5 minutes before walking the extra minute to the tram station. Showing up to CERN (Council European of Research Nuclear) at 9AM is a great ...