Post 29 - First Impressions

Today did NOT go well. My first day at the new job, a chance to impress some very important people and pave my way for either a permanent job offer, or a glowing reference to my current employers back home, ensuring me pay-rises and more projects abroad when I return to Aberdeen.

At 8.30 I was due to start work. I stumbled in at 9.15, a shambling, hungover mess. Instead of getting a good night’s sleep after the 2 hours I got the night before, I decided to go out for dinner and a few drinks, and ended up sitting in a bar till 3am throwing back glasses of the delicious local beer, Cardinal, which it turns out is quite heady. I woke at 8.37 this morning, by a phone call from my equally hungover colleague, also on his first day, asking where the fuck I was. I jumped out of bed, threw on some crumpled clothes, wrapped a tie round my neck negating to actually tie it, slapped some gel on my hair negating to actually style it, and headed for work, which I couldn’t find and got lost. When I finally got there my irate new boss was sitting on my desk ready to read the riot act. I was just a mess. I am reliably informed that I absolutely reeked of booze, and for the first two hours I literally could not keep my eyes open, While my boss was talking to me I would feel my eyes rolling back in my head and my eyelids begin to close, and although a voice in my head was yelling “What the fuck are you doing?!” I just couldn’t fight it. I made an excuse and went to the bathroom, sat down on one of the crappers, rested my head on the toilet roll and fell asleep for 30 minutes. I really was just absolutely entirely wrecked. If first impressions are really as important as they say, I can name two Aberdonians who have properly fucked up big-time.

Shopping in Swiss supermarkets is a bewildering experience. The supermarket next to my flat, Migros, sells only Swiss and French products, and although I am not of the breed that go abroad and search everywhere for Jaffa Cakes, Tetley tea, and British theme bars, I would have liked to at least been able to understand what the labels said (I probably should have learned some French before I got here). After quite a lot of head scratching at the various packets and products on the shelves, I instead decided to plump for the products with the most amusing names. Which is how among other things I ended up with Duo Keks biscuits (delicious!), Nobless coffee, (well actually Noblesse but what’s an E amongst friends?) Douche Fit Man! shower gel, Sanissa butter (I thought it sounded like a feminine hygiene product), Erdissbutter peanut butter (I thought it sounded like anal lubricant), and Belherbal shampoo, which doesn’t sound that funny, but when you take into account that it has pictures of peanuts all over the bottle you see why I had to buy it. The milk I bought tastes like cheese, the cheese I bought tastes like Satan’s bell-end, and the Nobless coffee, as well as smelling exactly like gravy granules, is quite possibly the single worst thing I have ever tasted in my entire life – and I’ve eaten bubble bath.

The food in the restaurants though is sublime. In the last two days I’ve had some of the best food I’ve ever had. Swiss chefs seem to have 3 simple rules: make it taste strong, make it taste rich, and make the servings fucking huge. And although the prices of virtually everything in Geneva is enough to make Bill Gates dread picking up the bill in a restaurant, the quality of the food and the service make it not seem painful to hand over £30 for a one course meal and a bottle of Diet Coke. Though the fact that my company are paying all my expenses makes it that little bit easier to order a 12oz sirloin and leave a £10 tip.

Song currently stuck in my head – “Lilac Wine” by Jeff Buckley.
dissolvoray@hotmail.co.uk