The more things change, the more they stay the same

So the other day i was just whining to my friend about how all my colleagues speak only German to each other and don't involve me in their conversation and about how nobody calls me for lunch and I have to eat all my myself on my desk. Then she started laughing and told me how I'd had a problem about eating alone even in my graduation college.
So the other day, after i picked up my sandwich  and was making my way back to my desk, I thought to myself, this can't be right. I'm much older and wiser now. I have two kids and I can't have the same complexes and worries I did 15 years back. So I walked over to the open space outside my office and prepared to sit all by myself and enjoy my lunch. As it happens, one of my colleagues (not in my dept but on the same floor as me) joined me and we spent lunchtime bitching about these bl**** Germans and how no one speaks English in this office or in this city! She's also an expat in case you were wondering.

And today, I again sat all by myself outside and ate my salad in the hot sun and felt proud that I had finally grown up!

Already missing out

I’ve been at work just a week and already I'm missing out on some important stuff in the kids life

A’s ear piercing. The hubby andAjji took A today morning to the jewellers and got her ears pierced. They said she was very quiet and didn’t make a fuss at all. She cried a bit after the first ear but didn’t fuss to have the second ear pierced and sat on the stool by herself. Very different from S who started screaming when they put a black marker on her ears to mark the spot for the ears to be pierced. Shucks I missed this, but she was in safe hands and probably would have kicked up more of a fuss if i had been there

S’s haircut. Alright it was just a trim, but they washed and blew dry the hair and made it straight so she must have been delighted. She loves brushing her hair straight so much, I keep on telling her that curly hair looks lovely but unfortunately all the princesses she idolises have straight hair! Everyone in the family functions fawned over the girls curly hair so am hoping this makes them happier with their lovely curly locks

S sporting activities – according to the hubby S is learning to play cricket and has started batting well under the able guidance of her cousins whom she absolutely adores. She already does front flips on the trampoline which she says her cousin Y taught her. They went bowling as well last night, but that was not so much of a success since the bolwing alley did not have an option of keeping the gutters up and am sure S balls kept going into the gutter

S X ray- i had planned to take S to a paediatrician on our India visit since i wsn’t too happy with the doctors treatment here. Am sure they are excellent but they are not very communicative and I am not sure what to expect in terms of S recovery. So the hubby took S to a leading orthopaedic paediatrician in Bangalore and they did an X ray and said the leg is fully healed now. I wish i could have been there to ask more questions, but cant do it all

I guess this is how its going to be going forward. I won't be able to be there for everything in the girls life like i have been for the last 2 and a ½ years but I hope to make it for all the important stuff or at least enure one loving close relative does. Love you girls, miss you!

The first week back at work

The update is that I’ve finally got a job. It was very sudden, I’d been pursuing an opportunity since May and I’d not heard back from them and then one day I was called for a second interview and told I should start within 1 and ½ weeks.

Firstly yippee, I finally got a job after months of futilie searches, applications and rejections without even getting called for an interview! But the suddenness of it put paid to my 3 week holiday in India which was scheduled to start the same week  they wanted me to join. I asked whether I could join in August but they said that the opening was only now since  its a project for which I’ve been recruited and the conceptualisation stage was going on. So it was a mad week of deciding whether to join, how to manage the kids (it coincided with the start of the 2 months summer vacation!), what to do about holiday etc etc and to top it all the hubby was in Australia so I could only discuss these points with him late at night Zurich (early morning  Australia).  After a couple of discussions about salary and working hours (I barely break even at the salary offered after factoring in the additional tax and nanny costs) I decided to bite the bullet and accept the offer.

Now came the managing kids bit. We realised it may not be possible to to get a nanny so quickly and I was not keen on the girls spending the whole day with a new nanny during  the holidays so we decided to continue our planned holiday in India , albeit without me. So on the 5^th of July, I flew to Bangalore with the girls, spent 1 and ½ days with them making them comfortable and flew back to Zurich to start work on Monday the 8^th of July. The kids were with my parents and their cousins for a week and then the hubby and I flew to India  the following weekend. There was my nephew’s Upanayna (thread ceremony) which i had to attend   (the whole family had flown down for that) and  i left immediately after to get back to work on the Tuesday. The hubby is staying back with the girls in India as per the original holiday plan and will bring them back to Zurich  after two weeks. After 1 week my parents come to Zurich for a month to tide over the rest of the summer holidays and also to be around for the first 2-3 weeks of school so that the girls can settle into a routine with the school and the new nanny.

And so my holiday,is cancelled. Ok cant really complain since ive been on holiday for the last 2 and ½ years. I did manage to get one day leave and fly down for the important function and the girls are in good hands and enjoying themselves so thats fine.

And, getting back to work after 2 and ½ years, hows that been. I feel very much like my first few days at my first job. Quite lost, all the people speak German in office and I can’t really follow what they are saying. The official meetings, conference calls,  notes , ppts and emails are in English but all the informal chatter around coffee, lunch, at the worktable and even some of the discussions around the work are in german so I end up feeling quite lost!   Also the sense of amazement at some of the technical stuff is comparable to discussions i used to have with my b school batchmates about dustbins from Singapore at my first workplace.  The desks here move up and down and many of the people prefer to work standing up! The lift has no buttons and you have to key in the number of the floor you want to go to and swipe your card and the system will display which of the 8 lifts you can take (only if you are allowed access to that floor) and the lift has no buttons so you can't just randomly go to any floor. Seems too high tech for me especiallz since nobody told me that you need to have a pin number to access this compliocated system after 7 pm  so i ended up getting locked out of my desk and could only go out and home one of the nights!Also doesn't help that sometimes the swipe card  doesn’t work too well and you might just end up being stranded on a floor ! And lastly  i have the german keyboard for the computer now – so its not qwerty anymore but qwertz and there's all the äöü etc and some random alt gr function to access this function on certain keys, let me just say that i don't know what exactly i have set the login password as, only the combination of keys i have to press on my keyboard!

And coming to the work. Its pretty different from what I’ve done so far, its in a different area of banking and its a project so I’m getting to learn a lot of new stuff. Half the time I feel like a duffer since I don’t know basic terms which everyone keeps bandying about, and also since  its a project and there are many internal and external people working on it nobody has really sat down with me and told me what exactly i am supposed to do. The first week was very hectic as i was helping on an important presentation. But now that that’s over and i already told my boss i have no work am wondering whether to just be quiet and read up as much on the project as i can, or again go and seek some more work.

And how can i end without saying i must be the fattest woman in this office. All the women are impossibly thin, and since its pretty formal dressing here with shirts tucked into skirts/pants I'll have to start working on my big paunch as i cannot hide behind the blazer forever.

Miss the girls who are away in India. But last week the timings were so crazy in office because of the presentation that I’m glad they are being well looked after in India.