SiX wEeKs In ZuRiCh
July 23rd, 2006: Sunday
I vaguely remember watching Labyrinth with one eye. To use two eyes, meant I could not focus on the film. I had smoked a bit too much Smiezel. There was too much heat, humidity, and way too much nagging wife (ahem sorry dear, you were tense before the trip, which is what I was getting at).
After crashing to bed, I awoke slightly hung over and definitely zoned. The guilt of my indulgence washing over me...tunes of David Bowie, Pink head losing Muppet's, pounding at my brain. I had watched that damned Labyrinth the night before, horribly drunk and stoned. Was it Bowie's cod piece or the realization that Terry Jones, Brian Henson, Jim Henson, as well as Frank Oz had collaborated so well? I remember seeing this movie at the movie theatre as a child. The perfect Eighties escape for someone living in a cramped two bedroom Brooklyn apartment during the crack cocaine wars.
Now, what does any of this have to do with Zurich? This whole trip began rather abruptly a few weeks ago. You see today (most writing will occur in the first person as this is directly from the written journal, I hope to do a good job with my tenses, if I fail, humor me, because I have no editor) I woke up with the goal of getting to London City Airport. My assignment is to go to Zurich, where my firm has a Swiss Bank branch. The hangover, zonked after being stoned feeling, and heat was not helping me getting ready to head to an airport.
The Swiss Bank is highly secretive stuff, you see (you have to be secretive if you made most of your money playing off both sides in WWII and then maintaining the racist, torturing, killers money in vaults, to enrich yourself). The manager in Zurich, is a slimy, back stabbing weird little prick, who has gone off to India, where they opened an office. India is currently a place where the next generation managers are sweating it out. It's become a bit like Hong Kong in the Nineties or Tokyo in the Eighties.
The Swiss Bank office in Zurich apparently has a large back log of work. I am to go down to do whatever these Swiss want me to do, in terms of work, and report back to management in London. I've been given SiX wEeKs In ZuRiCh to get this done. I would like to say, this should have been four weeks. When this manager of the Zurich office left, nobody in my London Office knows if they truly are busy there. The contents of the Zurich office contains two temps and one full time guy, lacking a lot of compliance experience.
I should mention that I work for an investment bank and that I am a compliance officer. (As I could lose my job, I will try to remain anonymous, although you will see that much of what I will write about takes place out of the office, and not much is said about the actual job at hand. No account information is revealed,)
Of everyone in the London office, it is surprising I got tossed this assignment. I have been caught completely off guard, thinking I got called into the office for ranting about news again, on my emails to my good friend Captain Chick Peas. I've been married only two years, working on moving to a new house in the UK, and repairing the house I bought most of this time. I recently went on vacation in May for a Caribbean cruise, where I lost my damn passport. Which is another long story, not included here. Point is, I am stressed and just when I finally feel settled in my house, to enjoy a nice English summer (thank you global warming for giving us sunny dry summers) BOOM, my manager asks me to go do fuck all in Zurich.
I vaguely remember watching Labyrinth with one eye. To use two eyes, meant I could not focus on the film. I had smoked a bit too much Smiezel. There was too much heat, humidity, and way too much nagging wife (ahem sorry dear, you were tense before the trip, which is what I was getting at).
After crashing to bed, I awoke slightly hung over and definitely zoned. The guilt of my indulgence washing over me...tunes of David Bowie, Pink head losing Muppet's, pounding at my brain. I had watched that damned Labyrinth the night before, horribly drunk and stoned. Was it Bowie's cod piece or the realization that Terry Jones, Brian Henson, Jim Henson, as well as Frank Oz had collaborated so well? I remember seeing this movie at the movie theatre as a child. The perfect Eighties escape for someone living in a cramped two bedroom Brooklyn apartment during the crack cocaine wars.
Now, what does any of this have to do with Zurich? This whole trip began rather abruptly a few weeks ago. You see today (most writing will occur in the first person as this is directly from the written journal, I hope to do a good job with my tenses, if I fail, humor me, because I have no editor) I woke up with the goal of getting to London City Airport. My assignment is to go to Zurich, where my firm has a Swiss Bank branch. The hangover, zonked after being stoned feeling, and heat was not helping me getting ready to head to an airport.
The Swiss Bank is highly secretive stuff, you see (you have to be secretive if you made most of your money playing off both sides in WWII and then maintaining the racist, torturing, killers money in vaults, to enrich yourself). The manager in Zurich, is a slimy, back stabbing weird little prick, who has gone off to India, where they opened an office. India is currently a place where the next generation managers are sweating it out. It's become a bit like Hong Kong in the Nineties or Tokyo in the Eighties.
The Swiss Bank office in Zurich apparently has a large back log of work. I am to go down to do whatever these Swiss want me to do, in terms of work, and report back to management in London. I've been given SiX wEeKs In ZuRiCh to get this done. I would like to say, this should have been four weeks. When this manager of the Zurich office left, nobody in my London Office knows if they truly are busy there. The contents of the Zurich office contains two temps and one full time guy, lacking a lot of compliance experience.
I should mention that I work for an investment bank and that I am a compliance officer. (As I could lose my job, I will try to remain anonymous, although you will see that much of what I will write about takes place out of the office, and not much is said about the actual job at hand. No account information is revealed,)
Of everyone in the London office, it is surprising I got tossed this assignment. I have been caught completely off guard, thinking I got called into the office for ranting about news again, on my emails to my good friend Captain Chick Peas. I've been married only two years, working on moving to a new house in the UK, and repairing the house I bought most of this time. I recently went on vacation in May for a Caribbean cruise, where I lost my damn passport. Which is another long story, not included here. Point is, I am stressed and just when I finally feel settled in my house, to enjoy a nice English summer (thank you global warming for giving us sunny dry summers) BOOM, my manager asks me to go do fuck all in Zurich.
posted by Chuck Deggsy | 7/23/2006 10:20:00 AM
