As discussed in my introduceyourself post , I was a manager at CERN for 6 years. As people keep asking me what life at CERN is like, I’ve decided to start a series of post where I describe life at CERN in a fictional way…
Image Credit
CERN is a very diverse community of over 10,000 people. The appointments I held gave me the opportunity to meet a great variety of CERN characters and subcommunities, so in this series I’ll focus on people possibly more than on technologies. I might impersonate a different character in each post…we’ll see!
My first tale below is about a guy who has just been hired as a CERN staff member…
DISCLAIMER: this is not a diary, just reality-inspired fiction!
A New Job
Got the official appointment letter – I’m in the family now!
One step back in time: in the last few months before getting the job, I had been occasionally sneaking into the CERN site just out of curiosity, to see what a physicist with international civil servant status looked like…
During these semi-clandestine strolls, I was most impressed with the atmosphere in the main entrance hall, where the UBS Bank branch is located. It’s a fairly busy place, where people come and go, nonetheless you get a weird feeling of quiet and wellness being there.
It took me a few days to figure out the origin of that feeling. Eventually, I realized that it was related to the sturdy, free-standing ATM machines standing in the hall. Their touchtone key pads generate very melodious sounds. So, you have these sturdy vaults, full of money, which sound like a church organ. People approach them with serenity, celebrate the ritual of withdrawing cash from a wealthy bank account, and leave quietly but in a hurry, as if they felt somewhat embarrassed by their own wealth.
All in all, it feels like being in a sort of temple, where UBS employees are priest-like creatures looking at you (or after you) with caring eyes.
I was also spending a lot of time in the main CERN cafeteria, just to watch people. They looked less relaxed than when withdrawing cash. Most tables hosted parties of two to four people. Later, I learned that the cafeteria is a place for eating, brainstorming, but first and foremost for internal politics discussions and informal interviews, so that a cafeteria invitation for a junior staff member or a job candidate can be a stressful experience.
Anyway, now I am a staff member, so I should shape up!
My first task is to get a CERN photo ID. And the first challenge is to find my way among hundreds of buildings on the main site. The way CERN buildings are numbered makes you think of a lousy random number generator…sometimes you see correlations (neighboring buildings with subsequent numbers), but these are unpredictable and not frequent at all! In other words, you should never assume that if you get invited in a meeting at building 134, and your office is in building 131, it’s a quick short walk. If you do, you’ll be late for the meeting!
Eventually, I locate the photo ID building. I am directed to a crowded room, where lots of people are waiting to get their ID pictures shot. I reckon I am surrounded by two very distinct sorts of human beings:
- Middle-aged men, with blue eyes, looking like construction workers, and speaking very broken English.
- Young women, native French speakers, speaking decent English with a strong accent.
The former are so-called Project Associates (PJAS to make it short) and come from an Eastern European country (what’s a Project Associate? I’ll tell you next time…). They are waiting to have their IDs issued, like me. The latter are administrative CERN personnel in charge of taking the pictures and issuing the IDs.
PJAS are being somewhat flirtatious to the girls. This attitude (plus the broken English) makes the girls impatient and unease. It’s time for me to score my first point…
Looking at the most attractive among the girls, I ask an irrelevant, borderline stupid question, by ensuring that my excellent French is contaminated by a tiny bit of Italian accent…
In return I get a smile, immediate attention, and a comment which I would translate as: “You have a cute, light Italian accent…!”.
Eventually, I obtain my CERN ID, plus an additional smile and private email address from the girl.
I feel that my first day at CERN is a success.
