Wednesday October 18: Getting into my appartment

Third working day: I'm starting to see some differences between the US way of working and the European one. Take for example meetings; when people here talk about meetings, in 90% of the cases they actually mean conference calls & when they talk to people on the phone, they keep using the other person's first name (e.g. Yes Pieter, I understand, but Pieter, you should know that... -> this is a very effective technique to create a feeling of involvement).

The New York office is very effective in involving transfers into the office live: from day one I have been enrolled in all possible mailinglists & since Monday I have received offers to go to opera, to go and watch a Mets game at someone's place, to try-out a new recruiting case with a consultant, to take over someones Pre-ACT training session for 20$,... Next week there will be a Halloween contest (every bay has 150$ of budget to decorate the bay 'Halloween style') and my bay (Intrepid) has won the previous 2 years so we have a reputation to defend...

Now off to the actual subject of this mail; since today I'm officially settled in my appartment. Turns out that the building is actually right next to ground zero, but I will go with Titi's advice (Titi is the girl from Goldman Sachs who's subletting this appartment to me); "Lightning never strikes twice".



The appartment is located in a full-service building, which is something that doesn't really exist in Belgium. My definition of full-service would be that you are paying way too much for your appartment and in return you have access to all kinds of services, for which you obviously have to pay way too much (the chique word for these services is 'valet').

Now seriously, I'm very happy to have found this appartment. At a certain moment last week, it really seemed like I would have to stay for 6 months in something which was the crossing between a YMCA (youth hostel) & an IKEA-furnished motel room. Anyway, all of this thanks to Craigslist!

Below some pictures of the appartment (click to enlarge):