Clint's Post

This past week has been a rollercoaster, but definitely more ups than downs. A few moments of "oh shit, what have I done? How could I move to France when I speak no French?", but more moments of "maybe I could extend this from six months to a year".

Day 1 City Tour
I got here on Sunday morning. Got to my hotel around 10H00 (that's how they write the time here), but check-in was at 15H00 so they said to come back later. Typical European "can't do" attitude. I figured that there are worse places in the world to be stranded for 5 hours, so I hopped a train to the city. Walked from the Champs-Elysees to the Tour Eiffel (yeah, the Eiffel Tower) and then had a beer at an Irish Pub - can't do too much French in one day.
BCG Paris

Monday was my first day of "work". This was my big "oh shit" moment. I quickly figured out how the French/English thing works over here:

• French people can speak English just fine.
• French people hate speaking English. Its not that they hate you (necessarily). The main reason is that they just feel more comfortable speaking French. They feel like they can express themselves better in French and most have a bit of a complex about the quality of their English, although almost all speak it perfectly. Occasionally, someone will say "what's the word in English" but I'll do that occasionally too.
• The office is huge. I can't get an estimate to the nearest 100. I've heard as low as 300 (maybe that was just the number who went on the Outing) and as high as 500 (must include admin staff, etc.). They are in two buildings on several floors each and have plans to expand to a third building.
• I have maybe 10 friends. New hire group (that includes Leslie, who is French but has only worked in NY and Australia) and the foreigners (Rita, Karin). The new hires are cool. I've had a lot of good times in 3 person groups or 1-on-1. One guy lived in LA and loves the nba, etc. They are mostly around my youngest sisters age - they are called VA's (visiting associates), like our summer associates but their schooling allows them to do 4 to 6 month internships before their last year of undergrad. Rita is a C2 ambassador from Lisbon that I met at the INSEAD recruiting dinner a couple of weeks ago. She actually graduated from Kellogg the same year I did, although she was in the 1Y program so I didn't know her. She speaks French but gets made fun of because its not that great, so she prefers speaking English. She has introduced me to a couple of other foreigners (Karin is Swiss) and also a guy who is French but went to Texas A&M for school. We are supposed to get together with Matt Evans, the ambassador from San Fran, for dinner sometime this week.
  I'm trying to not follow one around too much, so I'm pretty much switching off between Rita and friends (the foreign kids) and the new hires.

Learning French
I did discover that I know more French than I thought. It turns out that a lot of American words are actually French. I seriously feel like I have learned a lot of French. I can't imagine a situation that facilitates faster language learning: an absolute requirement to know French just to be able to understand a conversation; everyone around you constantly speaking French, helping you learn pronunciation and get used to speaking rate; and emails, instructions, and training slides in French, helping you learn spelling, sentence structure, etc.

I really feel like I have made huge strides. I've had a few events that I consider real accomplishments: I got a brochure in Croatia that I was almost able to completely translate
The French new hires had a conversation about how they thought the pool water was going to be hot, which I completely understood;
I met somebody new and was able to go 3 or 4 rounds with him speaking French and me speaking English "is this seat taken, I'm so-and-so, are you from the U.S.,..."
I haven't tried to do any speaking yet other than some occasional "merci's", "bonsoir's", "au revoir's" and the like. A little afraid of butchering words like I did when I said I was doing some ipod "equite et repite" lessons. I'm pretty sure that I am being ridiculed for listening to French lessons on my ipod - somebody told me that they heard I was doing that and it appears that a new hire girl, Elodie, has been telling people. Come on, Elodie! What better way to be productive riding the Metro?

Oh well. When Leah gets here, I plan to start taking some classroom lessons and trying to talk to her.

L'outing
The outing was out of control. It sets the bar to "unachievable" for whatever the big Dallas retreat will be next year. People have been getting excited for weeks leading up to the Outing. Everyone I met before Wednesday, their first words were "Nice to meet you. Are you going on the outing?". The theme for the outing was "No Stress", which brought with it a themesong http://www.imeem.com/people/i0U-JkV/music/R6Bzs3xO/laurent_wolf_no_stress/. The song was played at least a thousand times over the weekend.

The Outing was in Hvar, Croatia, which is an island on the Dalmation Coast on the Adriatic Sea (across from Italy). Its becoming the new hotspot for European vacationers. Beats the hell out of Austin.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=hvar,+croatia&ie=UTF8&ll=43.173135,16.446533&spn=5.832587,10.898438&z=7&iwloc=addr

The first night we got there and had a big party with a dinner, then dancing. It was almost like a Hawaiian Luau at first with a bunch of torches and candles everywhere. Then it turned into more of a club, with American techno music interspersed with the No Stress song.
Day 2 started with a sailing race (the French is regatta, and so is the English!). This place is famous for having over 310 days of sun per year but it happened to be raining that day. We sat in the covered part of the boats in the rain and played this card game. I probably could have figured out the game if they were speaking English or figured out the French if I knew the card game, but since I knew neither I just sat there lost for most of the time. Finally it cleared off and we went sailing. I happened to be standing close to the back of the boat so I got volunteered to pull in the rope whenever we made a turn. I had a lot of fun. Our boat actually did pretty well - we came in second out of 30 boats. Now I know the French word "deuxieme". When we got done we went back to the outdoor area of the resort where we went swimming, played volleyball, and did rock climbing.

Next it was time to get cleaned up for dinner. We had a nice served dinner inside and watched some songs that L'equipe Outing put together. One was "Chez BCG" which lamented the condition of an associate who was here to do strategy but was stuck on a PMI. Another was called "Alors, Alors, Monsieur Office Tiger". For the latter, people were running around in tiger costumes, bunny costumes for the former (I have no idea why).

Then we had a late-night party at a place called Top. It kind of looked like Ghost Bar, in that it was glowing blue, but it was only at the top of a 4 story building. The bar had a swimming pool inside (yeah). About 4 songs into the party, people decided to start jumping in the pool with their clothes on. By the tenth song, the wet people were tackling the dry and throwing them in the pool. It was out of control, but I and a few other sensible people found a spot on the next floor up and managed to stay dry.

FAQs
Most people that meet me ask me the same few questions. My regular buddies have started to take notice and tell the asker "he has heard that a lot", but that's fine by me. So of the favorites:
Are you an ambassador? or just...What are you doing here?
Experience Europe? Which office are you going to next?
Where is the Dallas outing this year? (hahaha)
Are you learning French?
Where is your flat?

Staffing
I'll be staffed on a 12-week case for Orange, which is a European telecom company based here in Paris. Should be a good fit with the work I did for Nokia and it's a growth case so it should be interesting. Orange is a very French company but my module is multinational so it should be all in English (I hope!)

Work/life balance
They bitch and moan about work/life balance here but I am betting it is actually 100 times better than Texas
They get 3 weeks off in August. Yes, that's right. Its highly likely that I'll get as much time off in August as I have for the rest of my BCG career combined
They don't really travel. Almost all of their work is in Paris. If they do have to go somewhere it is a 1 hour flight to Lyon or something. Although I like traveling in Dallas, I think it will be great to be staffed locally here.
Their billability is high, but not 100% like Dallas. My first week in Dallas I had 1 day of training, got my computer on Monday afternoon and already had case meetings scheduled. I was on a plane to Houston Tuesday morning. Here we had three days of training and my original meeting with staffing was scheduled for Monday of week 2. I only know my case now because I sent some emails and asked. Most of the new hires have their meetings with staffing this week and anticipate being on the beach for a few days. Also, after I found out who my principal and partner would be on Tuesday, I sent an email to the principal asking for some materials so I could ramp up. He didn't respond ever and just talked to me at the outing. We are meeting in 30 minutes and he said he would give me some stuff to read. This seems like a much less intense environment than in Dallas.

They do stuff during the week. I can't remember the last time I went out during the week other than sneaking off for a dinner with the younger members of the case team, but apparently in Paris there is time to get done with your work and go out to eat, go to the movies, go party, etc.

Food
Lots of carbs and coffee. Other than the new hire dinner that they had for us the second day (creme brulee was magnifique), I haven't been eating too much good food. Mainly an espresso for breakfast, ham sandwiches on baguettes for lunch, crepes, possible a glace (ice cream). I did go to one good dinner by myself for which I paid 36 Euro. It included a champagne aperitif, escargot, rack of lamb, crepes au grand marnier, and a bottle of Bordeaux. Not bad when I'm spending 16 to 20 on a typical sandwich and drink.

Tips for Living in Europe
Credit card machines - your typical fast swiping technique will not work. You really have to leave the card in the machine for about 5 seconds for it to read. Took me about 6 attempts at the Metro station to figure that one out.
1st floor - its actually the second floor. They call the first floor the ground floor. I knew this, but got nailed once. In the other BCG building I was looking for the San Francisco training room and the receptionist told me it was on the first floor. I replied "where are we?"
Walking - bring comfortable shoes. I wish I had a pedometer, because I bet I've walked a marathon since I got here.

So far, I've seen the Champs-Elysees, the Tour Eiffel, Cathedrale Notre Dame, and Roland Garros (I bought a general admission ticket during the French Open final and got to go around the grounds and watch it on the screens outside the stadium). Can't wait for Leah to get here and we can really start seeing more stuff!