Poisson d'avril

Up at 3AM for a 2 hour drive to Toulouse to catch a flight at 7AM after my flight from Pau was cancelled over the weekend. However more strikes in Toulouse meant everything had to be pushed back until tomorrow, so I then had a 2 hour drive back to Pau. I now have another 2 hour drive back to Toulouse tomorrow morning to do it all again, but this time I need to fly to London to get to Bangalore because there are no flights from Paris to Bangalore on a Tuesday. Guess who's the April fool in this whole story?! Mental note: focus on the glass being half full...so let's look on the bright side - the whole fiasco meant a bit more time at home and a well deserved siesta this afternoon with Maxime after having picked him up from school.

Double Decker

As I was pondering what to write, I was about to say that I’m on the verge of starting a busy two weeks for work with trips to South Africa this week and India next (leaving tonight in the top deck of an Airbus 380 from Paris to Johannesburg). Then I thought that that actually does a serious disservice to the last couple of weeks which saw trips to Paris, Amsterdam, Geneva and Zurich (the latter including a lovely 3 hour train journey through Switzerland). The good news is that despite all this movement, I’m still managing, on the whole, to keep trips to 3-3.5 days a week; for example this week I left home Monday afternoon and I’ll be back on Thursday night. The trip to Zurich was particularly fun because I met up with my old boss from Wipro, and I was also welcomed like a long lost family member at the hotel where I used to stay every week whilst working at Credit Suisse. My old boss is really fun to be with, and he most definitely knows the best restaurants and wine in the city! I was happy to be back in a wonderfully warm Zurich and catch up with him and meet his new girlfriend. In any case, the next two weeks are now going to start with, hopefully, a good night’s sleep before arriving in South Africa at 11AM tomorrow morning…

The Economist is King

I was show jumping last weekend in Lege near Bordeaux. I was accompanied by Maxime and the new American au pair Jessica. Whilst Maxime slept in the back after a weekend in a nearby sandpit, we talked at length on the journey back on Sunday after a relatively frustrating weekend (I rode well but invariably had a bar or two down). We talked about the US. I confided that I did enjoy going, at least for the first couple of days, because of the over-the-top excessively friendly and false “have a nice day” type of service which does, at least for a short while, make you feel sort of good about yourself. Maybe it has this reaction on me because I have lived in a country where customers are the scourge of any shopkeepers or restaurateur’s life. Customers are clearly not king in France, and are more often resented as being the people who prevent the aforementioned retailers from an easy life. Good service in Europe is therefore all the more noteworthy when it does actually occur. I was most impressed by the customer service team of the Economist magazine who fixed a recent problem with my subscription which had unexpectedly expired. They listened, they explained (in clear English), they fixed, and they were pleasant throughout the whole process (making me feel less stupid than what I actually had been). Why oh why is such pleasant and competent behavior so remarkable?! In any case, I kneel and salute thee my royal Economist master.

Teaching a young dog new tricks

Maxime and Capucine are good little movers (although Maxime has now definitely moved into the stage of enjoying being carried everywhere, as my lower back will testify). Gaston however has always been the last to take up dangerous new pastimes such as walking. Indeed it was only last week that I watched him keep himself occupied for 10 minutes shuffling about on all fours in the kitchen chasing a small ball that he would throw for himself to go and fetch…However serious progress is now being made – he took his first steps at the weekend. A momentous occasion indeed because it probably means that he’ll soon be able to be taken to show jumping competitions at the weekend without fear of him crawling through horse manure. All movement in the right direction you understand!

How the other half lives

185,000, 110,000 and now 55,000 are the rough sizes of each of the different companies I have worked for; Accenture, Wipro and EMC. There is a part of me that thinks that despite being an old world European, at some stage I think the downwards trend (size wise) will continue, and that I’ll end up being involved in a tiny start up type-company. Despite the size thing, another thing that strikes me is the different levels of diversity in each of the different companies. I now believe that there is a very clear difference between cultural and personality diversity e.g. EMC has a lot of white middle class Americans working for it, yet there are fewer different personality types in Accenture. Indeed one of the biggest challenges in EMC is that we don’t typically hire young graduates so our experienced technologists all have very diverse backgrounds meaning they all tend to work in slightly different ways. As a result I would suggest that Accenture teams are actually easier to manage. One of the good things about this personality diversity in EMC is that I am exposed to more people who have been involved in and sold start-ups and small companies. Conversations with them really are very interesting. That said here’s an interesting article which reminds me why working for a big corporate, rather than a start-up can still be pretty good. http://www.fastcompany.com/1825592/9-reasons-to-choose-a-corporate-job-over-a-startup?partner=rss&utm_source=pulsenews&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company+Headlines%29

Big Brother

Nothing to do with any Orwellian best seller, more of a posting which I think is well suited for my big brother Kieran...http://m.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/21/how_to_get_paid_more/ The cat herding youtube video was particularly amusing....

So finally they made a cartoon

Life with Maxime. Enjoy....... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNkp4QF3we8