Swiss knives, chocolates, watches and treaty making...
I have not written much in this Life journal of mine. Much of it that you see since we arrived in Geneva is just photos uploaded real time from my handphone. Keeping one open blog about this journey We call life and a private one about my work can be quite a daunting task at times if you lack the discipline.
We have been here in Switzerland for more than two weeks and we have not explored much of the country beyond Geneva. This is because I had started work as soon as we arrived and of course as I expected I got a work shock! The amount of work waiting for me in Geneva is overwhelming. Although office hour here ends at 5 pm, leaving the office at 6 in the evening is considered a luxury. The traffic here during the rush hour when office ends can be horrendous. As my office is near the airport by the main highway and very close to the french border, the traffic jam here can just be as worst as what you get in Bangkok or metro Manila. It is said that due to the very high cost of living in Geneva, around 80,000 people who work in Geneva commute daily from the french side.
There is no point for me to leave office when everyone else is trying to do the same thing. What I learnt in stress management, if you want to avoid the traffic stress, come to the office either earlier when everyone else is still asleep or later when everyone else is already in the office to beat the traffic (of course if you are a boss coming in late is not setting a very good example to your subordinates) and when office hour ends, you repeat the same routine, either leave the office earlier when everyone else is still in the office or later when everyone else has left. I usually come to the office early as my "thinking hour" is usually when no one is around. when you are in management, you will have no time to yourself when everyone else is already around. You will get endless interruptions. I also notice here, all appointments begin after 10 am.
There is also that endless receptions hosted by the hundreds of missions here. Geneva is the second seat of the UN, the other one is in New York. It is the seat of many specialized bodies of the UN such as The WHO, WMO, UNHCR, WIPO and the ITU (You can google on the longer names of these acronyms). Geneva also hosts many other international organizations either affiliated to the UN or not like the WTO and the ICRC. The seat of UN in Geneva is at Palais Des Nations. It is a huge complex that was built just after the first world war for the seat of the League of Nations the predecessor of the UN today. The palace itself hosts roughly 10,000 meetings every year (thats right with three zeros) ranging from disarmament, human rights and all the other real and complex issues facing the world we live in today. Whilst we see much of the news relating to the UN in New York because of the Security Council and the General Assembly (and of course who wont have heard of Ban Ki Moon the UN Secretary General), the work of the UN in Geneva is mostly that of the UN specialized bodies. Many treaties and conventions had actually been formulated here, the famous of which are the Geneva Conventions relating to the international humanitarian laws which at Law School we used to call them the laws of wars. Despite the workload, I am really enjoying my work here as I really could use what I had learnt at law school. This place is also not strange to me having attended various meetings hosted by the WIPO and WTO. I could'nt forget a time here where the car that drove me to a particular meeting was hit by another car driven by the Ambassador of one south American country as her driver was trying to jump the red light when we had a right of way in the opposite direction. Luckily when the car drove through, our car only hit the back of the Ambassador's car which spunned 360 degrees. Luckily no one had any serious injury though I had a slight concussion on my head. That accident left me with a long lasting impression on how orderly this country was and still is. We didnt see any exchange of heated arguments or fights which would probably have happened had the accident been in Asia. Both drivers calmly exchanged their insurance details and asked an owner of a camera shop in front of where the accident happened to take a couple of pictures which I presumed were for the insurance claims. Everything was settled in less than 10 minutes or so and everyone acted in a civil way. Compulsory insurance and efficient settlement of the compensation made all the difference.
Sent from my iPad
