Working briefly in Switzerland
As I mentioned in the previous article I was in Switzerland for business reasons. After living for a while in London I was quite surprised of how things work there.
The radio stations we have partnered with were from relatively small towns in different valleys. Part of our job was to help them sell long term advertising to medium sized businesses. My first surprise was the wide usage of fax machines. The second surprise was the way how people agreed to do business together. Handshake in many instances was more than enough. I never saw a signature on a quarter of the contracts. But because the two traders knew each other their trust was enough to agree to start a business deal. And to my surprise each one of those deals actually lasted full 12 months as per the handshake.
Another thing that was new to me were the attitudes of people in different valleys towards each other. We had to travel every single day to a different valley and set up shop because people generally refuse to visit other towns even though they might be about half an hour drive away. That made our jobs a bit tougher but also allowed us to see more places.
Food was another thing. Every time we ate at a restaurant, which is every day on business trips, I had to ask for child size portions. I could not eat the normal sized meals as they were way too big for me. Admittedly it was a treat, slightly on the heavy side, but definitely delicious.
The last thing I will mention as it was a personal nightmare was the lack of wifi access. A huge portion of my job depended on having access to internet and without it my work phone bill got enormous thanks to hot spotting. This is the price you pay if you want to be surrounded by some of the most breath-taking views in Europe.