Another daily accounting of why perhaps it's really best not to even consider doing ANY science in France, unless you have a totally capable bi-lingual secretary with the patience of Mother Theresa.
I need a price for 2 items from Roche. We can't just plug in our customer # on the Internet to obtain the price for our institution, because our funding source, Inserm, is afraid that we would leap to internet ordering which is strictly forbidden. They can't keep track of how much money we spend on what by using their infuriating "Product Categorization" system. This system by the way, requires a special ordering form and an addendum of an "Inserm category number" to each product that is ordered. I have to look up what this friggin number is every time I place an order. So I decide to speak in English when I call to get the prices. Why waste my brainpower speaking French, it's an international company, right? It should be no problem.
"Bonjour, Hello. I need to get the price for 2 items, please".
The operator transfers me without so much as a "Merci". The next person asks me where I am from, and transfers me to the Paris representative. I think I get transferred again at this point and the next person who answers has absolutely no clue why I am looking for prices, she's in the marketing department. My thoughts are that they kept transferring 'cuz they didn't want to speak English. I hang up.
I call back. "Bonjour, j'ai besoin de les prix pour deux produits, SVP." She asks for the product. "DIG washing and blocking set", I say, in English. I am NOT saying "wash-eeng ee bloc-ayh" with a French accent, I sound stupid. She says in French that she doesn't understand. I ask her if I can give her the product number (in french this time). "Oui". Ok, we have an accord.
I recite the number American-style, one number at a time, rather than saying the french four twenties plus nineteen (which equals 99 by the way) because I make my own head hurt for a 12-digit number like that. She zings off the price at a lighting pace, and the gals behind me are yakking in French and I can't understand a bloody thing. I ask her to please repeat it slowly for me, which she does, but rather than saying 179 Euros and 79 cents, she says "comma" in french and I don't know that word so I am yet again confused and have to ask her to repeat it for me one more time. Incredible.
And I should add that she couldn't find the second thing because the website had an old catalog # listed, so this was yet another 5 minutes while I searched around the website with her still on the line. There was no way I was going to call back and go through the whole painful process yet again. Evidently that would have been just too much for her to figure out the new # for me.
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Today I am in the animal room doing my thing- trying to get out of the tiny, windowless, smelly room as quickly as humanly possible and I hear a huge bang, what sounds like a cannon being shot off inside of the fucking building. Good god! Either we're being bombed or one of the construction workers has just lit a cigarette and ignited some flammable material in the lab and everyone is engulfed in flame. Sweet Jesus have mercy!
I peek out the window in the adjoining room and see that it's become foggy outside. Wait! That's smoke, and the streets are filled with.... firefighters? Zillions of them. All in uniform, and quite pissed-off I might add, with some of them carrying flares, all of them shouting completely unintelligible angry-firfefighterman-french things. I make my way upstairs and the building is now reverberating with the explosions like we're being shelled. How the fuck am I supposed to dissect organs from this 4 day old mouse with this nonsense? As everyone in the lab is acting like it's a fucking circus coming down the street, replete with pink elephants and ponies on tricycles, I decide to take a peek out the window even though I am beginning to spew smoke from my ears and shouting things like, "How is anyone supposed to work with all of this god-damned noise?". I see that across the street the fire hydrant is gushing water all over the street and the pavement in front of the hospital is like a scene out of "Blackhawk down"- a roiling mass of very imposing-looking dudes who are now increasingly turning towards the hospital to shout towards the building at people gawking out the windows, I suppose. BOOM! I never did see what the hell they were using to make all of that noise, but how is that a part of PeACeFulL demonstration, pray tell?
I rub my temples, wishing desperately for at least the tenth time in 2 weeks that there were enough room in the tiny dorm-sized fridge for a six pack, or better yet a flask of 140-proof whiskey to hide itself. I decide to update my website while all of this is going on, as it's clear I won't be able to actually work. I would have gone to the library or another lab, but the only functional area is on the side of the building facing the brouhaha. A few minutes elapse and out of my peripheral vision I notice a strange face peering at me from the other side of the cubicle/shelf above my desk. What the hell? I get up and see a fireman in full regalia (ok minus the hat) hanging out the window. What is he doing? Taking pictures with his digital camera. Yep. A circus all right. Then the lab is flooded by at least a dozen fireman proceeding towards the widows to get a birds-eye view of the scene of mayhem below and appreciate their handiwork fully. By this point I am out of my chair and possessively tromping round the lab, they outnumber us scientists in the lab, and some of them are really quite large men. I am pretty certain that I have a mix of surprise, shock, incredulity, and a good portion of amusement written on my face at this point, and my jaw is gaping open quite noticeably. I am now saying things (in English of course, I default back to the mother tongue in emotional moments) like "Does anyone find this to be NORMAL behavior?", to no one in particular, but secretly hoping that some fireman will get the hint and get the hell out of MY lab!
After about 90 seconds of us staring at them and them hanging out the windows and shouting and waving like Charles Lindbergh were passing in the street below and this was merely a ticker-tape parade; they began to file out. I am more amused than shocked now, because, I mean, come ON- I get to write about this in my blog-man! I am mocked by a fireman who mimics my face as he smilingly parades out of the lab, and I realize that none of my friends in the States will believe what it's like to do science in France because the lab doesn't yet have a digital camera for me to document these moments; the moments of our lives.
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