Oct 10, 2008

The perfect little consultant

Well, as you may have guessed from my silence since the last post (apologies to those of you who have been clamoring for news), things have livened up a bit at BM. Although my weekends have remained work-free (with the exception of one, outrageously extravagant and blessedly juvenile 4-day "office retreat") my weeks are now choc-full with problem-solving sessions, conference calls, meetings left right and center, and of course the artistic creation of Picasso-esque slides. In French: pages.

That's something else I've had to get used to. It's not enough to have to adapt to an entirely new way of working, new people, new types of problems, I also have to do this in French. Well, a language that pretends to be French, anyway. More like Franglais with a BM-twist. By next month I can guarantee that my family and friends will no longer be able to understand a word I'm saying.

So here I am, dutifully listening to my manager (who is younger than me), drawing pretty boxes and arrows and bubulles, and thinking back with longing of those days when I used to have a social life. And time to eat (the great mystery of why all BM female consultants are so thin having been resolved).

When I'm not attempting to force a business manual down my client's throat (and dodging the errant bullets from angry protesters outside the building), I am attempting to settle into my new apartment. I'm not complaining, the apartment is fabulous. Or will be, once the gigantic cardboard-box maze running through it finally gets cleared and my belongings become somewhat accessible. This morning witnessed the first breakfast, as I finally found cereal bowls and one spoon (why on earth there was a box containing a single, lonely spoon, I will never know).

So now that I've managed to ramble on incomprehensibly (not very consultant-like of me...) I will leave you to your fabulous lives and exercise my amazing powers of persuasion on my colleagues to see if they can be convinced that 2pm is not actually too early for lunch.