Darcy's Paris Blog

First day at the office

Today was my first day at NI France as a semi-full-time employee here. Felt a little like the first day of school, even though I've been to this office many times. My first minor triumph of the morning was finding my car easily with no parking ticket. Merci. I also found my way through the maze of Paris rush hour to the office ok, or nearly, at least. I didn't get lost at all getting outside of Paris; I only got lost when I got off the highway to find the office. Seems like that should be the easiest part, but what do I know? So after much driving that should've been fairly straightforward (as I later learned,) I got to the office early enough, about 8:40, which is a little early according to what they tell me here. I walked into the office and was invited into the break room to have a coffee with the marketing team, as they do every morning, where everyone was again very friendly and helpful. Everyone here really has been helpful, particularly when I've ever asked for anything. The morning was relatively uneventful, just tried to get the RFID demo working for the RF tradeshow tomorrow. Good times. Lunch was again at -- you guessed it -- the mall, although this time at a Euro-style cafeteria. Quick and easy, so it works for me. At lunch I was telling them of my directional challenges finding the office off the highway, and Sophie generously offered to drive me in her car from the office to the highway, and then from the highway back to the office, so that I could make notes and figure out how to get here with less hassle. So incredibly nice of her, and I took her up on it.

The workday was fine, mostly just doing little things and getting set up. Tomorrow I meet with the branch manager to share my goals again with him and to ask for his help on a few things. The way home was easy except for the traffic -- 45 minutes just to get to the public parking down my street, and I'm heading the opposite way of all the traffic leaving the city. Wow. But hey, what do you expect living in such a place?

This afternoon I also decided which language class I'm going to take, after calling the two option schools and asking my questions verbally. Turns out one of them is just headset only, and the other is with a teacher, so I picked the one with the teacher. I've got lots of questions regarding French, and I need to have someone I'm paying to ask instead of bugging everyone I know with French grammar questions. So, I'll be in class every Tues & Thurs 7:30 - 9:00. Therefore, after dropping the car and changing, I took the metro downtown to find the school. Lucky idea, 'cause it took forever to find it, even with the address. I even had to call Mike to ask him to check the address for me. Thanks, Mike! At last I found the school wedged between a futon store and take-out Asian food, so at least I've got two rock-solid landmarks to find it tomorrow. Now if only I can get there on time... For that, I'll probably have to leave work at 5:30 to make it there by 7:30. C'est la vie.

Ate dinner in a brasserie near the Seine, where the waiter was especially friendly but sternly reprimanded me while eating my moules marinieres for not using a discarded mussel shell as my sole eating utensil. Apparently the proper way to eat those things is to use an empty shell like tongs, no fork required. Again, these are the things you learn...although I still think it's possible he was just messing with me.

Enough for now...off to bed...

posted by Darcy @ 11:23 PM