IBM Switzerland Headquarters - Zürich

Rather than driving home Sunday night, I decided to stick around for another night, with the hopes of visiting a teammate of mine, Cecilia, and working at the IBM Zurich office Monday morning. I had mentioned to Cecilia the week before that I might try to do that, but I didn't actually confirm this until exchanging some voice and text messages with her Sunday night. So Monday morning, I got up and figured out how I would get to the IBM building. It would have been easier to take the train there, but I figured I better drive so I can leave town directly from there. Of course, like with most big cities, parking was the next problem. So I talked to Cecilia and figured out a nearby public parking place to leave the car at. Then I packed up my stuff, said my goodbye's to Kevin and Shannon, and was on my way.

I didn't have too much of a problem finding the IBM building, although it's on the other side of the city from Kevin's places so it took me awhile to get over there. When I got there, I checked in at the desk to get a temporary badge, and called Cecilia down to come meet me in the lobby. As you can see from the pictures here, this building is much nicer and newer (it's about two years old) than the one I visited last week in Stuttgart. It is not only the IBM Switzerland headquarters, but some major IBM Europe operations were moved to Zurich a couple years ago from Paris, so this is one of the more important IBM facilities in Europe.

After Cecilia came down to meet me, she brought me up to the 2nd floor, where she had reserved me some desk space near her for the day. After getting my computer setup and checking a couple notes, Cecilia came by and asked if I wanted to go down to the cafeteria and get a coffee (I'm surprised it took that long, coffee breaks seem to be the first thing you do when you enter work in Europe). So she gave me a little tour of the building and then we sat and had a cappuccino while I asked her several questions about her situation in Switzerland and working for IBM Switzerland. Cecilia actually grew up in Mexico, but then went to high school in Wisconsin. She moved to Switzerland about 15 years ago, after marrying a Swiss man. Now she is divorced, though, and all of her family and closest friends are either in Mexico or the US, so I'm not sure how much longer she will be in Switzerland. She lives in the Kanton of Zug, one of the 26 "Cantons" (the equivalent of our states) in Switzerland. It takes her about an hour to commute to work each day, a car/train combo, so she only comes into the office a couple days a week and works from home the others. None of her teammates work in Switzerland, and her boss is actually out of IBM Germany, so it doesn't make sense for her to go into the office any more than that.

After having fallen in love with the city of Zurich over the weekend, and thinking about potential future opportunities to work abroad, I was really grilling her about working there. I guess I wasn't too subtle about it, because she did ask me, "are you trying to find a job here?" If the right opportunity ever presented itself to me, I would seriously consider it. I love Switzerland, the mountains and lakes, and I think Zurich is now my favorite city I've ever been to. Not so much of a tourist city, I just really think it would be a great place to live for a couple years. I wasn't shocked to learn that Zurich was named the city with the "best quality of life" in the world in several surveys from 2006 to 2008. With that, comes a price though - it also consistently shows up in the top ten of the most expensive cities in the world, well ahead of cities we consider expensive the US like New York and San Francisco. Nonetheless, I was still curious to know more about jobs at IBM in this area - you never know!

Cecilia does the same job function as me, but for the team in Europe. In Europe, it's just her and Stephanie (the person I met with in Stuttgart last week) that do this job, so I wondered what their workload was like, covering so many countries, and if they would ever have a need for an extra person. I also wondered if Cecilia would be trying to move back to the US, and perhaps we could just switch jobs with each other. These were just a couple thoughts running through my head. Soon, I have to start thinking about my next move with IBM, as I'm nearing my "2 year commitment" with this job after I get back. Again, just something to think about and maybe worth having a conversation with management about when it's the right time.

Another thing I was curious about was communication in the Zurich office. Cecilia, like most people in the area, speaks several languages. It can certainly help you to speak German, but I don't think it's a necessity here. The universal IBM language is English, so pretty much everyone speaks English and I heard a lot of it being spoken in the hallways and overhearing phone conversations while I was in the office for the day - actually, I heard more English than German. Also, since this is a European hub for IBM, many of the executives are from all over Europe and English is the language they come together with. Switzerland alone speaks several different languages - mainly French, German, and Italian - depending on the region. But I also learned that the German spoken in Switzerland (Swiss German) is not the same as the language spoken in Germany (High German). It is a different dialect, but then once inside the Swiss German region the dialects spoken in the different cantons are even different from each other - and there is no written language for the Swiss German dialects. This could make things very confusing if you go to Switzerland with the idea that you will learn German, so pretty much everybody in German-speaking Switzerland speaks their local dialect and High German, among other languages. It is very impressive how many languages the people in this area are able to speak.

After our long "coffee break" and catching up for a bit, we headed back upstairs to work for a bit before lunch time came around. I didn't get a lot of "work" done in the short time I was there, but the main point behind the visit was to spend time with Cecilia, a teammate who I generally would only see once a year at our worldwide team meeting. It was a nice visit with her, certainly worth the trip. I was right in Zurich, so I had to stop and see her while I had the opportunity - and Laura was still in New York, so I wasn't in a rush to get back to Kempten.

Cecilia had lunch plans with somebody from another department named Andy. He is trying to learn Spanish, so they meet for lunch sometimes so he can practice with her. Since I also know some Spanish, I joined them and Cecilia decided to put me to the test. So Spanish was the language of our lunch conversation. The cafeteria food was pretty good, and not too expensive when you factor in the half price for showing an IBM badge. I also ran into John in the cafeteria, the guy I went on the hike with the day before. After lunch, it was back upstairs to check a couple notes, and then I decided to hit the road. A half day was good enough to fulfill my purpose of being in the office, and I thought I better get back during the day to avoid traffic. It took me a little over 2.5 hours to get back to Kempten, where I would finish the rest of my workday.