Well, after 6.5 years, they finally sent me to Geneva. I'm sitting in a meeting room on the sixth (or seventh?) floor of the office here, overlooking the lake. It's cloudy and the ceiling is low: I can't see the top of the hill across the water. The trip over was not great but could have been worse. I didn't sleep much but there were no screaming babies. Two colleagues were on the same flight, my old boss JT and a woman from our Afg office whom I'd spoken to on the phone but never met. Didn't realize we were colleagues until we got to the office (separate taxis) and realized we'd seen each other on the plane.
The meetings this morning were good, learned a few things and got to shake a lot of hands and say hello. Most people I'd met before but a few I hadn't, and in any event it's always good to reconnect face-to-face. The Afg person and I have been excluded from the two meetings this afternoon because they wanted to have a smaller group. This is disappointing on the one hand, because the themes were both interesting and relevant (the second one is about Pakistan!) and it never feels good to be relegated to the kids' table. IOn the other hand jet lag is a bitch and it's rolling over me in waves and I'm not sure I could have kept my eyes open the whole time. In here there's no one to see my lids close. And, truth be told, in a way I've kind of started over my seniority: I would have had much to contribute in my old role but this is day one in the new role and I'm in pure listening mode. So it's okay. I'm also not participating in the meetings tomorrow morning -- although I think a bunch more people will be excluded from those -- because an eminence grise (not the main one, a slightly but not much slightly lesser one) will participate and they didn't want to have a packed house. That I do not begrudge at all.
In other news, I took a deep breath and tried to open my work email for the first time in nearly a month. Password expired! Oops. Emailed the IT people to see about resetting it remotely. Fingers crossed.
The meetings should wrap up in about an hour and then I guess we're all bussing over to the hotel, which is in France. Evidently there are several conferences happening in Geneva right now so rooms were at a premium. Not sure what's on the docket for tonight.
The meetings this morning were good, learned a few things and got to shake a lot of hands and say hello. Most people I'd met before but a few I hadn't, and in any event it's always good to reconnect face-to-face. The Afg person and I have been excluded from the two meetings this afternoon because they wanted to have a smaller group. This is disappointing on the one hand, because the themes were both interesting and relevant (the second one is about Pakistan!) and it never feels good to be relegated to the kids' table. IOn the other hand jet lag is a bitch and it's rolling over me in waves and I'm not sure I could have kept my eyes open the whole time. In here there's no one to see my lids close. And, truth be told, in a way I've kind of started over my seniority: I would have had much to contribute in my old role but this is day one in the new role and I'm in pure listening mode. So it's okay. I'm also not participating in the meetings tomorrow morning -- although I think a bunch more people will be excluded from those -- because an eminence grise (not the main one, a slightly but not much slightly lesser one) will participate and they didn't want to have a packed house. That I do not begrudge at all.
In other news, I took a deep breath and tried to open my work email for the first time in nearly a month. Password expired! Oops. Emailed the IT people to see about resetting it remotely. Fingers crossed.
The meetings should wrap up in about an hour and then I guess we're all bussing over to the hotel, which is in France. Evidently there are several conferences happening in Geneva right now so rooms were at a premium. Not sure what's on the docket for tonight.
