For me France is the romantic land, famous for its cheese, perfumes, wine, country side, trains and cars. Amidst the tight schedule in my project I had a brief official visit in France for a week. This trip has introduced me to the France that I am not aware of it, in a two tier city named Poitiers, in the central France. The 900KMS ride from Germany was covered in over 6 hours by the TGV express– it is indeed the fastest train :-) While in full speed, when you surf outside from the train’s window, it will get an illusion as an airplane in the runway, it is quite fast, smooth and quiet. The trip haven’t favoured a lot to explore as the weather was not kind for the entire week and also I got meetings & sessions back to back which kept my day completely busy.
Nevertheless I had a wonderful time and a pleasant experience, some of the interesting things I found worth lodging in this post. Why I like the French office is for its timings, really flexible, most of them start between 8:30 am to 9:30 am. First thing they do is to greet all their colleagues, by a brisk handshake and in case your team has female colleagues then you‘ll start the day with a lip peck.
Before dealing with their emails & IDE’s, they head to a strong coffee and skim the headlines of the newspaper. The normal office day goes pretty much the same way. The lunch break is about 60 mins, ample time to negotiate and complete a three course menu. I have been informed that consuming wine for lunch is not uncommon, as long as it enriches ones concentration at work. Anyways I stick on to the universal elixir – Water. Every month the canteen serves food in a particular theme, one among such days fell during my visit and had an Indian theme. Pictures of girls in sarees, salwars greeting you in the entrance, other decorations with Taj Mahal miniatures, lord Ganesha’s idols etc., ironically I have to eat rice and chicken curry with fork & knife ;-) Euro-Indian uah…!
As far as the meeting timings are concerned, a delay of 5 mins to 10 mins is normally accepted. Coming from Germany I see an Indian IT office in France; it is pretty much the electronics city office atmosphere with the very kind & nice people.
As far as the language is concerned, I learned to wish “Bonjour” & “Merci” in a typical French accent, hiding the fact that I don’t know a bit more than that. So I was pretty much a dumb man when dealing with waiters, taxi drivers and hotel receptionists, Ofcourse sign language helped me a lot to survive.
As always I enjoyed travelling in TGV, which sped over 350KMPH, the return journey was very cool with a 2 hour break in Paris. It was enough to have a quick road trip to have a second glimpse of that metal tower and the city. Later got the connecting train to Germany, had a good movie to watch the rest 3 hours of my journey. On destination, while getting off the train the railway station’s display stated that the TGV is late by 9 minutes.. lolz!! See the fastest train’s fate in an extremely punctual country.
But one shouldn’t forget what France has given to the world. This same land has introduced to the world the adding machine, the hot air balloon, the airship, the parachute, the submarine, the ambulance service, photography, animation and cinema. France is the only country that has won the most Nobel prizes for literature.
Then should I need to tell about the “French Kiss”..??
Love & Peace,
Jayabalaji
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