The first week working at WHO

The first week of working at WHO is behind me. Overall, I am very pleased with how it went. I have nice and interesting colleagues, an inspiring director, a pleasant house and a good bike. What else can one wish? Of course there were also some less fascinating things. Especially in a first week there are many things to arrange. I had to fill in numerous forms, some on paper and some in a rather complicated employee self service system: to get a Swiss ID card, a Swiss bank account, and full rights as WHO staff member. I also needed to arrange a computer account, a telephone, a proper desk and a reusable coffee cup. But I expected worse and many people were very patient and kindly explained me what to do.

So let me elaborate on the pleasant things. As said I have great colleagues. My room mate for the coming 2 months is Chek from Singapore. He is a short term expert to write for our long term care meeting a paper on structuring and financing long term care in low and middle income countries. Next to our room is Tuohong, seconded from China, a country that is facing serious challenges in ageing due to years of one child policy. Then there is Lisa from Germany. She coordinates the age friendly cities programma, in which 1000 municipalities now participate. She gets assistance from Alicia, an intern from Barbados. In her room is also Andrea from Canada who will contribute to the long term care meeting with a paper on frailty and dependence. Ritu, a fixed staff member who is already many years working at WHO will be responsible for the world report on ageing to be published in 2015. Islene from Brasil will join the team later and finally Charlotte the secretary keeps this whole international bunch of people together.

The director of the department is John Beard. Untill recently he had few people working for him, but as the topics of ageing and health over the life course are gaining in importance at WHO, he is able to expand. He is from Australia and is involved in many interesting scenes, such as the World Economic Forum at Davos and the sustainable development trajectory in New York (follow up of millennium development goals).

Then my pleasant house. I live in Eaux Vives, 200 meters from the lake in the appartment of a German lady involved in opera scenography. She used part of the house as working place and there is a cupboard full of painting stuff as well as many opera books and CDs. The house is full furnished and I really mean fully. As she now lives in France I can use all the stuff I need. I have 2 big rooms, a small kitchen and a bath room. It is just what I wanted and the neighboorhood is very lively with small bars, 3 supermarkets, a cheap but good pizzeria and an art cinema.

There is also a small cellar where I can store the bike that I bought from my predecessor at WHO. In the morning I take it out and I bike 10 minutes along the lake before going uphill to the WHO. That is already in winter a very pleasant tour and gives me some exercise. The streets are a bit dangerous as cars are not used that much to bikes, but you can usually use the bus lanes which makes it safer.

Next time I will write more about how we started preparing for the conference. Good luck!