Back to France

A few weeks ago, we packed most of our stuff in Oaxaca, and sold the rest: back to France for me, and first time living abroad for my wife.

It was a weird time to come back: terrorists had just left seventeen corpses, and helped spread more hate against innocent Muslims. In spite of the warm feelings of national union, the weather is still fucking cold. We are getting used to it, but I will miss wearing T-shirts and flip-flops year-long. ;)

I am again looking for the best rent in Paris, the shortest commute, the best bars, and other mundane preoccupations.

The strangest thing of all is going to the same office everyday: quite useless, unless I am really needed in all those lengthy meetings. Less things gets done: for instance, I already learned that starting at nine is pointless, as people tend to arrive between nine and ten, and will cheerfully salute you in the interval: Work 15 minutes, say hi, repeat, get bored. Then, as French people usually eat between 12PM and 1PM, this has reduced my mornings to roughly two hours. Plan a meeting in the afternoon, ruin the whole day. :p

That may be why I can not really mention the hour(s) at which people leave the damn office. In my opinion, two days a week in an office is more than enough to accomplish our sacred meetings duties: talking with our clients, and making eye contact with the rest of the team, while enjoying terrible French “organic” coffee.

In the end, I know there is room for debate because I really enjoy being around people, however we all need to avoid wasting so much time on bullshit. So far, I feel that being back to work the same job in France is like being back in time to 2011 (only with more upper-management types, but that is, maybe, a another story).

Let’s cut short this whining about work. I have more interesting things to do, but putting some of it in words greatly helps my short lived memory.