It's my first business trip since I moved here. To get to know my staff and for them to know me, my boss and I have planned a series to visits to the key locations of the business and Paris was chosen as the first location.
I got to Paris at around 7 PM. My boss took a different flight, so I was alone taking the Metro to the city. On the way I got off at ? to grab a kebab from a restaurant I know. It's not that the kebab is so good, it's just that it's the only want I know in Paris that is halal. I'm sure there are a lot more in other areas. By the time I finished the last piece of the meat, it was already turning dark. I reached the hotel close to 11.
The hotel was very quite nice by European standard. If you are familar with hotels in KL, I can probably say it's similar in standard to the Coronade hotel in Bukit Bintang. The only difference is, it has more more "stars" than Coronade. In the past, coming from Malaysia, I was always booked to a small cheap 3 star hotel. I guess, that's why Malaysia is classified as a Lost Cost Country, which in effect makes the staff Low Cost Employees.
It's been more than 2 years since I was last in Paris. It was not so clear in my mind the direction to the office, but I managed to find it in the end. My boss hadn't arrived when I reached the office. I was welcomed by the head of the IT group there. I was later joined by my boss and the rest of the group. For a start we did a round table introduction of each other. It was kind of weird to be facing my subordinates who were all mat salleh. They did some presentations about the organisation there, their roles and responsibilities and budget figures. Before the session ended, the group expresses their gratitude of us visiting them. According to one of them, it's very uncommon that you get your boss' bosses coming down from head office. I felt a bit chuffed.
All in all, the cost of me coming to Paris for one night is about 600 Euro! I was very surprise when I saw the price of my flight ticket -- it's 700 CHF (equivalent to 470 EURO)! Plus the hotel another 150 Euro. And I can't believe that it's common for some people (mostly in the management group), to live in one coutry and work in another - e.g. live in UK, but work in Switzerland. These people normally stays in the country of work in the weekedays and go back home in the weekend. That's must be costing a fortune to the company! Try requesting a similat thing in Malaysia (live in KK and work in KL for instance), you'll be shot by HR.
