The Neanderthal of Zurich

6 12 2010

A friend of mine is on the prowl for a new job. She is a little younger than me, childless, strong-minded and very well-educated. Her degrees are from ivy league schools and she has spent most of the last 15 years working her way through the corporate landscape on both sides of the Atlantic.

She had a job interview two weeks ago. The company is a service provider in an industry she knows a great deal about, and in which she has a very strong interest. She went into the interview from a position of strength – she is not wildly desperate to leave her current employer, but is kind of itching for a new challenge. The job ad she answered sounded like the perfect fit.

She tells me the interview went great till close to the end. The two (male) interviewers, the head of the Human Resources department and the head of the department in which she hoped to work, told her that the person who did the job previously had to leave the company because of illness. (“Not due to overwork, hahaha,” said the HR manager.) The other guy added, “Yes we haven’t had a lot of luck with incumbents in this job. They tend to leave after three years. And it really would be nice to have some continuity here. We had a lot of problems with pregnancies… and, well then there was that one adoption, but mainly we’ve had issues with pregnancies.”

Over in the corner, the HR dude squirmed uncomfortably.

My friend did what every late-thirties, job-seeking career woman with a brain and a pulse would do. She did not skip a beat and just continued to smile her sweet, insincere corporate smile, perfected by enduring years of bullying in the corporate trenches.Later she told me that she was so stunned at the words that had just come out of the Neanderthal’s mouth she couldn’t even formulate a sentence even if she had wanted to. She wondered if she really just heard what she just heard and it took all her willpower not to reach across the table and strangle the guy.

Though I’ve made it clear in earlier blog entries that I was not born to be a mother, I will violently and loudly defend every woman’s right to decide what she wants to do with her own body and her future – even if I don’t agree – and not be penalized for it. I think that is a basic human right (last time I looked it was, anyway).

So it never ceases to amaze me that in an allegedly advanced, intellectual, highly industrialized country in the middle of Western Europe, which, lest we forget, currently has a female president, two women leading the two houses of parliament and a female majority in its cabinet, such clearly discriminatory and misogynist attitudes seem common among men in positions of power. The fact that this person would even think something like that makes me furious, the fact that he said it to the face of a female candidate and potential subordinate is more than stupid.

They didn’t invite my friend to a second round of interviews. And she is curious to know if that was because she is a woman of child-bearing age, wielding a lethal weapon called a womb, or if she was just plain old overqualified. After all, men really hate being outshone or beat at their own game.

In my lifetime, please.


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Categories : EuroTrash, Just another working stiff, This & that in the real world

Intolerance 2, Integration 0.

29 11 2010

Yesterday, the Swiss electorate voted in favor of another xenophobic, inward-looking, unbelievably intolerant referendum. The world champions of direct democracy approved a measure that now allows the government to automatically deport any foreigner who has come into any possible conflict with any law, regulation or statute. The final vote was 52.9 percent in favor, 47.1 percent against. The initiative was sponsored and supported by the Swiss Peoples’ Party – to be found on the political spectrum slightly to the right of Attila the Hun – and must now be anchored in the constitution.

So as a foreigner in Switzerland, that means if I get caught stealing a crouton from my salad before paying for it, or maybe for making noise after 10 p.m., or parking in a no-parking zone, I run the risk of being kicked out of the country.  This initiative applies to only non-Swiss criminals, or criminals with a foreign or immigration background, even if they have a Swiss passport. Swiss criminals are more equal than foreign criminals, you see, and they get to stay.

The growing animosity towards anything non-Swiss that dares to settle within its borders is rather disturbing. The “Yes” committee advertised with this poster:

Get the hell out of here if you don’t look like us.

So this to me says that anyone who is a not a white sheep will ostracized from society and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. This placard is only slightly more insulting than last year’s advertisement for the referendum banning the building of minarets. This was also approved, a year ago exactly, to the incredulity of the rest of the world. (FYI – there are exactly four minarets in the entire country. That’s about half of the number on the poster.)

Minarets are actually missiles – did you know that?

So where does this intolerance come from? An ignorant, closed, hillbilly perspective on the world. The arrogance of exclusivity and special-ness. The avid refusal to believe that those not born and raised in lily-white Switzerland are just not good enough.

And even though I wrote about all the things I love here in Switzerland a few weeks ago, I pretty much guarantee that this is the one issue that will make me leave this place someday.

The longer I live here, the less welcome I feel. Even though every month I pay a boatload of taxes and do more than my fair share to help keep the state pension system liquid. And that’s the irony of it: the Swiss know they need to import workers from abroad in order to keep the country running – they can’t educate enough doctors, tradesmen and other skilled workers to cover their own local needs. Without foreigners, Switzerland’s economy would come to a screeching halt. Its trash would lie on the street, its health system would collapse, its IT logistics would crash and its banks would go bust.

I honestly do not get the logic of yesterday’s referendum. Maybe one of my Swiss friends can explain it to me someday.

But after this vote I will once again advise my non-Swiss friends to avoid the place completely because you never know if you will run into an over-enthusiastic citizen policeman that just doesn’t like the way you dress. Before you know it, you could be on a plane back to wherever it is the authorities think you came from, even if the place is mired in war and violence, and you and your family will not be safe. Even if you never spent any significant time there and know not a soul.

With no chance of appeal.


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Categories : EuroTrash, Just another working stiff, This & that in the real world

Giving Thanks

24 11 2010

A friend of mine once revealed to me a few techniques she uses to fight insomnia. Counting sheep doesn’t do it for her, so she developed some exercises of her own. One was to count backwards from 100 to 0 by threes. In French, German or Swahili. Another was to think of all the different languages you can say “please” in.

A third exercise is to go through the alphabet and name at least three things per letter that she is thankful for.

I like that one, and in honor of Thanksgiving tomorrow – the most important day of the year – here is some stuff I am thankful for (in reverse alphabetical order). People, events, things and places that make my life a little happier, and each day a little more meaningful.

  • Zebras, Ziploc bags, Zippers
  • “Yes we can!”, Yosemite and Yellowstone, YOU – my reader(s)
  • Xtra cheese in my fajitas, Xtra gin in my drink, Xtra cash in my paycheck
  • Winter sports, Washing machines, Wine of all colors
  • USA, Uhu-glue, the Universe
  • Velcro, Vacation days, Voracious appetite
  • Tulips, Time, Tea with lemon
  • Sweetie, Sourdough pretzels, Sunshine, Strong women, Swimming pools, Scallopine al Limone, San Francisco, Skate-marathons, Speed, Singapore (Slings), S-L-E-E-P!

(Sorry, went a bit overboard on the S’s…)

Very few bartenders know how to make these well.

  • Rollerblades, Relatives in South America, Rose-colored glasses for the proverbial rainy day
  • Questions, Quaker Oatmeal, Queen’s University
  • Pa, Petra, Philadelphia(ns) and the Flyers
  • October 11th, 2008, Oceans, Opportunities
  • Naaahfick & Co., Non-violent civil disobedience, New shoes
  • My big brother and his kid, Many old and new friends all over the world, the Month of May
  • Life, Love, Latte Macchiato
  • Kindle, Kiwi-raspberry juice, Knowledge
  • Journalism, July 4th fireworks, Jet airplanes

BOOM! Nothing like a couple of good explosions on a warm summer evening.

  • Ironic Mom, Ikea, Italian pasta dishes with white sauces
  • Happy landings, Hershey’s Kisses, Hot showers
  • Grand Canyon, Good health, God
  • Fritzi the dog, Fitness, Freedom of choice
  • Early mornings, Eighties music, Eucalyptus trees
  • Dairy Queen, Driving my SmartCar, DasLetzte.ch
  • Columbia University, Cell phones, Common sense
  • Bagels, Blogging, Black Jack
  • Autobahns, Aviation, Apt.#410

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Make it a great day.


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Categories : Americana, Blood relations, EuroTrash, Just another working stiff, Skater Girl, This & that in the real world

Swiss winter fun

19 11 2010

Now that the first snowflakes have fallen in the lowlands of Switzerland, many of my Swiss friends are making plans for the six months of the year when a grey fog the consistency of cream soup descends upon Zurich. What do they do? Head to higher ground of course. Where the sun shines and the danger lurks.

While I too look forward to enjoying good couple of crisp, clear days above the fog-line in the picturesque mountains during this, my sixth winter here, I now know where I’m capable of holding my own, and where I should just not bother to try. Having grown up in the tropical sunshine of Southeast Asia, I will never be a snow bunny, no matter how much money I spend on the accessories.

Nice try, Evelynn.

Analog to Swiss Summer Fun a few months ago, here are a few of the astounding and crazy things that the locals enjoy paying good money to do during the winter. For more information on any of these, or to create your own wild winter adventure, check out the Swiss Tourism Website.

Alpine skiing – A world cup race on TV is kindergarten compared to what Swiss skiers are capable of on their slopes. No wonder helmet sales are up by something like 500 percent every year.

Cross-country skiing – The skis are much thinner and exponentially more unstable requiring exponentially more strength and coordination to stay upright. And Swiss people don’t just go out for a Sunday ski-stroll. Nonononono. When Swiss people strap on their cross-country skis, they end up doing things like this.

Igloo-building – And here I thought this was just for semi-nomadic native peoples in northern latitudes. No, the Swiss have a thing for building igloos, too. A winter weekend in the mountains is not complete unless you spend part of it constructing your own accommodation and then sleeping in it. Believe me, this is nothing for claustrophobics or folks who chill easily.

 

Please don't try this at home unless you're an architect.

Ski jöring – For the truly insane. Instructions: Attach skis to feet, attach self to galloping horse.

HA! Yeah, right!

Tobogganing (winter version) – Nothing against some harmless sledding down the slope behind your house. But we are talking serious, professional-grade tobogganing here, on near-frozen tracks many kilometers long, almost vertically down the sides of mountains, while sitting on rickety, unsteerable wooden sleds invented in 1883. This sport is generally done late at night (i.e. in the dark), helmetless, and only after an illegal amount of alcohol has been ingested.

This was an activity at my company’s “Rookie Camp,” a sort of basic training for new employees I attended a few years ago. It was scheduled for 11 p.m. and the toboggan run was a sheet of ice. After narrowly missing a large fir tree in the first turn, and then flying out of control, twisting a knee and landing on my butt in the snow in the second turn, I decided my long-term health was more important than any dumb rite of passage. So I walked the rest of the way, all the while keeping eyes in the back of my head and diving for cover numerous times to avoid others who careened down behind me. At the base, hours later, I found out that one member of the group lost control of his sled, flew off the side of the mountain and ended up in the hospital with a concussion and a gash over his eye.

Peanuts, my Swiss colleagues said. Anything less than a crushed vertebrae gets no sympathy.


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Categories : Cruisin', EuroTrash, Just another working stiff, Sports that can kill

Kerosene Dreams

28 10 2010

There are sights and sounds and tastes that just make me sentimental. You know, it’s like when that 80’s song on the radio reminds you of the teenager you were, and the really embarrassing clothes you wore. Or the taste of cookies that as a young child you used to “help” your mother bake, and that she always yelled at you for eating too much of her yummy (raw) cookie dough.

Well, there is also a scent that reminds me of another life I had – of a time and place I felt like I was out changing the world (for the better, of course), or at least getting the world to listen up, pay attention and think. It was also a time when I still believed the values of democracy would easily and swiftly destroy the Taliban. (And boy, were we all wrong about that one, huh?)

One frosty autumn morning not long ago, on my way to work, when the sky was clear and the breeze was just so, this sharp, trenchant aroma out of my deep and distant past showed up and literally socked me between the eyes.

Sniff, sniff…Could it be?… Ahhhhhhhh…

Jet fuel.

In a split second, the biggest adventure of my journalistic life appeared before me like a vision. I was ten years younger and standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson in the middle of the Arabian Sea, the hellish noise of afterburners thundering into the core of my being. It was my introduction to – among other things – what it felt like to be shrouded in a cloud of jet fuel.

At the time, I was a freshly minted private pilot and couldn’t get enough of aviation in all its fascinating shapes and forms. The F/A-18 “Hornet” fighter jet was a far cry from my Cessna 152 single engine piston trainer, and not on the list of aircraft I ever thought I’d get to know up close and personal. But here I was, standing open-mouthed about five feet from a whole gaggle squadron of them.

I was on the ship for a reason, which my editor at the other end of a satellite phone never ceased to point out. But being the carrier-rookie-nerd that I was at the time, it was really tough to tear myself away from the delicate choreography of human and high-tech aircraft unfolding before me – with one of the biggest and most sophisticated naval vessels ever built as the stage, in a theater so very far from home.

That was the first of numerous trips to the region for me, a reporting adventure in several chapters, over the course of two years. Again and again I had the privilege of hanging around jet fuel, and it became a really good friend. In the spirit of true companionship, it even took the trouble to penetrate my clothes, cling to my hair, settle on my skin and comfortably infiltrate my consciousness.

Inhale deeply, savor the scent. Ahhhhhhhh...

It’s been almost a decade since then, and the Taliban has still not gone gentle into that good night. Like the irritating relative who just doesn’t know when enough is enough, it sits around and lingers on the sofa long after the party’s over, making crude jokes and finishing off your expensive whiskey.

Jet fuel, on the other hand, is an exceedingly agreeable guest, and welcome back any time.


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Categories : Americana, Cruisin', Just another working stiff, The Savvy Aviatrix, This & that in the real world

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