Top 5 things that happened on my first day of work in France

 

1. I got a chance to ride the train into Paris with my brother-in-law this morning and met some of his friends. They were all so friendly and encouraging about my first  “official” day of work.

2. The office manager at my new job, we will call him J-dog, is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! (He has big shoes to fill since I used to be super spoiled in my last position in the states.) Today he answered a minimum of 20 questions, got me copies of things I needed and ensured me that I would do wonderful in my first teaching session.

3. In 30 minutes I prepped for a 3-hour class (most classes are 90 minutes). I did this without any information available about the client’s level of English, needs, or what he hoped to gain/his goals. The prep session was last minute as this session was added to my schedule late Friday afternoon after I had left the office. (This may have been a blessing so that I didn’t have as much time to freak out and over prepare. Especially since I found out that the person is in a high level position within his company, title “country manager.” Yep, no big deal! I just manage the entire sector of the company in France!)

4. The above-mentioned session was a success in my book. I received confirmation by an email that I was copied in on this afternoon. It stated the following “Juste pour vous confirmer que mon premier cours de ce jour s’est très bien passé en compagnie de Lynn ou j’ai pu apprécier son sérieux ainsi que son professionnalisme.” Thanks to Google this roughly translates to “Just to confirm that my first course of the day went very well along with Lynn and I could appreciate its seriousness and professionalism.” 

5.  While waiting for the return train home this afternoon I had a true laugh-out-loud moment! We will title this experience as the “pigeon lady.” This deserves an entire post  to fully illustrate what went down. So give me a day or so to upload the photos to share with you.

(Bonus event, I  get to spend the day with my hot husband tomorrow. Our schedules don’t match up much right now so I am looking forward to sharing a day with him!)