11 - Ça plane pour moi (for now) - Dax and Castets
Friday, December 01, 2023
It's hard to be believe how quickly 3 weeks has flown by... It seems somewhere between the blink of an eye and... 🤔 about 3 weeks 😆. There's definitely been some mechanical progress on site though there's still a ways to go as not all equipment has been re-received on site. I finally got my claws on something I felt I could do: validate that the reactor had sufficient cooling for our exothermic reaction! Of course, AIGP will be doing this too but it doesn't hurt to have someone "internal" crunch the numbers and compare against what we see in Newark.
I had a meeting with my boss yesterday. It was just a quick catch up call, no more than 30 minutes. I'd sent him a report about how things looked on the ground here but he was more interested in if I was settling in well and how I was feeling. It was such a small thing to voice outloud, but it felt significant to say "yes, I think I am doing well here."
I can list many reasons why (it's only week 3, I know it's only 3 months long, work hasn't been demanding yet, etc) but I suppose 3 weeks is enough time to announce that I'm not miserable living in France. Eh, not miserable is a pretty low bar and I feel like I'm doing much better than that. Absolutely, catching dinner with the guys from AIGP made a huge difference; even if we don't get dinner every night together, it was enough of an on ramp to get comfortable and a heck of a lot of conversation practice.
I suppose having a decent grasp on the language goes a long ways too in feeling comfortable here. Alas, I still have my deer in the headlights moments when somebody says something too quickly for me to distinguish words and song lyrics on the radio are usually just noise until I can read the title on the car's console, but I feel like I've improved significantly. In the past, it usually took a glass of wine for me to feel like I could participate in a conversation; no wine allowed at work so I suppose sober immersion has its benefits too 😂
I suppose yesterday's revelation was made more significant in a meeting today with the German vendor. The two of them (the manager of the project and a backup) had come on-site on Monday to help get the equipment skid in a condition that we could run a performance test (run it and see that we get 12 hours of contractually agreed upon conditions). At first I wasn't sure if it was a cultural difference between Germans and French or the relationship of a vendor having to overcorrect for a client, but things have felt tense between the camps.
AIGP appears to get along swimmingly well with the Firmenich staff, working as a team with the Firmenich people and other contractors. There doesn't appear to be the same rapport with the Germans (les Allemagnes), despite this project team having been in talks with the German company (and it's project manager) for several years. Anyhow, the tension I felt was most apparent in the meeting's we've had onsite a couple days between the three companies. The memory of the German manager removing his glasses, rubbing his cheek bone or pinching the bridge of his nose before sighing when asked a question... the tension was palpable.
I'll admit to being very conflict averse so it was interesting to me when he said it out loud, "we are here to supervise, we don't feel like you are offering enough support". To be fair, he did have a point: he shouldn't directly open and close automated valves or tap into Firmenich's compressed air. Apparently, he ended up running around on Wednesday trying to find leaks while pressure testing the equipment without any way of getting in contact with Firmenich people; I guess yesterday was better because he was given a radio (cell phones aren't allowed unless explosion proof). But also to be fair, an engineer from AIGP had asked if he needed help on Wednesday and been told no thanks. 🤷♂️
Again, I'm just glad that things haven't been stressful and I feel like part of the team. My takeaway from the story is that one bad experience can really sour things even if it was just a short blip in comparison. Here's hoping I'm not the one pinching my nose bridge in January 2024 🤞
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