Swiss News

But first a comment or two: It's snowing like crazy here today! I'd say for the last several weeks, we've had steady snow showers that keep the total accumulation to about an inch. No big deal. Today, I'd guess we're up to about 3 or so already and the snow is still coming down. It's so weird to be at work and not at home avoiding the crazy southern drivers while eating my bread and drinking my milk that I purchased at the grocery store yesterday!

I really am having a hard time focusing at work. It's like my body is programmed to stay home when it snows. I guess that's what 30+ years of living in the south will do to a person.

I did wear my snow boots to work this morning. They look phenomenal with the rest of my work outfit. If you're lucky, I'll let Andre take a picture later.

Anywho, a couple of pieces of news came out today that I thought were particularly interesting.

#1: Confirmation that my timing is generally horrible: Zurich has overtaken Tokyo to rank as the world’s most expensive city for the first time in 20 years
http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/15/worlds-most-expensive-place-to-live/?hpt=hp_c2

#2: Immigration issues are not limited to the US. It's weird being an immigrant and thinking there are people out there who don't want you here for no reason other than you aren't originally from here. Obviously the issue isn't that simple. Still.
http://www.thelocal.ch/2574/20120215/

It's hard to learn german....

when these so-called "smart" websites keep detecting your IP address and automatically re-directing you to the website for the country you are currently located in....makes it difficult to buy German lessons when I CAN NOT READ THE WEB PAGE!!!!!!!



What's even better though is once I finally navigated to the purchase lessons page, they don't even offer German as an option. Sigh

Seriously though. It's both comical and extraordinarily frustrating. And something I did not even think about before arriving. Google is the worst. The first time I logged into the blog (after guessing which button meant "sign in"), everything was in German. Took me at least five minutes of scrutinizing every word on the page to finally correctly guess where I should click to change the language.

First Days at Work

I started work this week! I guess it had to happen eventually. Boy have I enjoyed the last 6 weeks of "working" and vacationing. :)

Day 1

Prior to Tuesday, I thought my biggest nightmare was walking into a room full of strangers already engaged in various conversations and having to insert myself into the group. Turns out, my biggest nightmare is walking into a room full of strangers already engaged in various conversations in German and having to insert myself into the group. Just a smidge intimidating....

Of course, it didn't help that when I checked in, they didn't have a nametag for me so I was already concerned about not being in the right place. It all worked out in the end. C'est la vie

Anyhow, after sucking it up and finding some poor new hire to torture with my horrid small talk skills, we started with our day of classes. Day 1 was mostly spent on appropriately brain washing the new recruits. I was quite happy to find out that English is the corporate language so all of my training was conducted in English.

Sidenote: The people here speak phenomenal English. I only hope to one day be able to speak German so well. They do have problems with some of our phrases such as "brain washing" which they'll make rather literal and instead say something like "Once we're done washing your brain here, you'll go on to...". They also commonly add an "s" to words that are already plural so I'm getting a lot of informations and many people have childrens.

The course I found to be of the most interest was the business etiquette course during which we discussed appropriate business attire. As it was presented to us, in Switzerland, Business Professional means "wear suit", Business Casual means "wear coat/jacket" and something called Smart Casual means "98% of Melanie's wardrobe". Looks like I have a shopping trip in my future! Not sure if I'm happy or sad about that. :)

Day 2 - Picture Day (Weather on walk to work - Rainy & Windy)
ahhhh Day 2 - the arrival of my computer

I determined very quickly that I had a couple of problems:

#1 - The keyboard is German. My Z and my Y are switched and ALL of my symbols have been relocated. I don't mind so much the Z having relocated itself but I had no idea how much I used the Y until yesterday. Also the exclamation and question marks! Needless to say, I have already sent more than a few misspelled chat messages and emails.

#2 - When I was put into the system, both my middle & last names were included as my last name so my assigned e-mail address is: melanie.middlename.lastname@ch.pwc.com Approximately 5 minutes after arriving to work this morning, I was on the phone with PwC Help getting that changed.

Day 3

As mentioned above, priority #1 - change e-mail!

I then met with my global mobility consultant who was a HUGE help! We went through an arrival checklist to make sure I had taken care of or was planning to take care of all the necessary administrative things.

I also got a chance to meet with my boss who had plenty(!) of ideas on work for me to do and then I had a delicious lunch with my buddy and my new admin assistant.

I do continue to be frustrated at not being able to speak German. Late this afternoon, we had quite the storm. Upon one particularly loud burst of thunder, everyone stood up to check it out and began excitedly discussing it....in German....sigh. Time for me to get serious about my audio lessons (which were borrowed/stolen from Roland - thanks Roland!)!

All in All - Two thumbs up for Day 3!

Tomorrow I am going to work the first half of the day and then our relocation agent is going to take us to get properly registered, get a bank account, take us on an awareness tour and begin to show us apartments!

The weather here has been surprisingly mild. Or at least mild when compared to our expectations. We've been mostly hanging out in the 2°C to 8°C range. We've had more than our desired amount of rain and virtually no snow. Also, plenty of wind. We're currently under an alert for "Disruption due to wind - Strong gale (lowlands), gusts of 90km/h". I'll leave the conversions to you!

Pics & Observations

Today we began researching the different areas of Zurich so that we can hopefully decide on an area to live. To that end, we spent the afternoon exploring in the city of Winterthur: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterthur

A few pictures:

12.29.2011

Some more random observations:

1. It appears to be more socially acceptable to wear (tight) sweatpants in public here. By grown men....

2. All the good US shows are dubbed in German here (i.e. Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, etc.). All the bad US shows are still in English with German subtitles (Teen Mom, Room Raiders, mostly MTV shows....)

Random Thoughts

I seem to be finding a lot funny today but that may be because I woke up at 4am....

#1 - I had to apply for an EIN (employer identification number) today b/c apparently I'm not allowed to use my social security number for identification purposes when moving internationally. While I appreciate the attempts at protecting my privacy, I'm more annoyed that I now have yet another number to keep track of......

#2 - I registered with PwC for tax assistance today. Here's my welcome note: "Welcome to MyTaxes.PwC.com. We know that many people find taxes stressful, and that this process is more complicated when living in a new country. Your employer (or your spouse’s employer) has arranged to have PwC help you with the preparation of your tax returns." Here's the question: should I be nice or totally put these people through their paces when they prepare our return???

#3 - We picked up our visas last week! Hooray! Next stop....book flights! I have to use a company so who knows how long that will take.....

#4 - Realized this weekend that we're planning to move in two weeks - almost fainted cold when "two weeks" processed through my head - YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!