Okay, second post today. This is on my mind because I've spent a good chunk of this week arranging travel for myself. After a few months of mostly staying on the ground with just those quick flights to Paris and Prague, I'm going to need to refamiliarize myself with the Zurich Airport. In addition to the trip I just took to the Twin Cities, here's the rest of the year's itinerary so far:
May 11-14: London for corporate training to make me the World's Best Manager (even though I don't currently manage anyone)
June 9-16: Twin Cities for business
Late June or early July: Oslo and northern Norway
July 23-August 4: Twin Cities to work while the family catches up with everyone (and, gasp of horror, I have to fly coach on this trip because it's technically home leave rather than a business trip)
August 4-18: Utah
October/November sometime: Twin Cities for business
December/January: Twin Cities and Utah for home leave (again, flying coach, ugh)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The ethics of soda
You wouldn't think that a little bottle of Pepsi would lead to an ethical dilemma, would you? But here it is.
Once or twice a week, I have a 16-ounce (actually 50 cL) bottle of soda with my lunch. I usually buy it in the morning on the way to work and then put it in the fridge so it's cold by lunchtime. I think I've been pretty good about keeping track of when I do and don't have a soda in the fridge, but I may have missed one.
You see, for weeks now, I've seen a bottle of the type of soda I drink perched on the top shelf of the fridge. It doesn't seem to have gone anywhere. No one seems to be claiming it. I've started to wonder if it's one of mine. I see four possibilities:
1. It's my soda and I forgot about it.
2. It's someone else's soda and they forgot about it.
3. It's someone else's soda and they're perfectly aware of its existence, but they're saving it for a special occasion, and they'll be horribly crushed if anything happens to it.
4. Someone drinks a bottle of this soda every day and then replaces it with a new bottle in the same place for the next day, and now they don't have a soda to drink with their lunch.
After staring at this bottle of soda for literally weeks (or, in light of #4 above, maybe it's a different bottle every day), I decided to drink it with lunch today. I'm enjoying it at this very moment. One of four things is now going to happen:
1. If it was my forgotten soda, then no big deal. I owned it, I drank it, and the universe remains in perfect balance.
2. If it was someone else's forgotten soda, then no big deal, and I'm ahead of the game by one Swiss franc.
3. If it was someone else's and they were looking forward to it, then I've ruined someone's day, and I may have to face severe negative consequences from a colleague (assuming I ever 'fess up).
4. Ditto if it's a new bottle every day for someone.
So I'll put the matter up for a popular vote: Did I do the right thing by drinking it?
Once or twice a week, I have a 16-ounce (actually 50 cL) bottle of soda with my lunch. I usually buy it in the morning on the way to work and then put it in the fridge so it's cold by lunchtime. I think I've been pretty good about keeping track of when I do and don't have a soda in the fridge, but I may have missed one.
You see, for weeks now, I've seen a bottle of the type of soda I drink perched on the top shelf of the fridge. It doesn't seem to have gone anywhere. No one seems to be claiming it. I've started to wonder if it's one of mine. I see four possibilities:
1. It's my soda and I forgot about it.
2. It's someone else's soda and they forgot about it.
3. It's someone else's soda and they're perfectly aware of its existence, but they're saving it for a special occasion, and they'll be horribly crushed if anything happens to it.
4. Someone drinks a bottle of this soda every day and then replaces it with a new bottle in the same place for the next day, and now they don't have a soda to drink with their lunch.
After staring at this bottle of soda for literally weeks (or, in light of #4 above, maybe it's a different bottle every day), I decided to drink it with lunch today. I'm enjoying it at this very moment. One of four things is now going to happen:
1. If it was my forgotten soda, then no big deal. I owned it, I drank it, and the universe remains in perfect balance.
2. If it was someone else's forgotten soda, then no big deal, and I'm ahead of the game by one Swiss franc.
3. If it was someone else's and they were looking forward to it, then I've ruined someone's day, and I may have to face severe negative consequences from a colleague (assuming I ever 'fess up).
4. Ditto if it's a new bottle every day for someone.
So I'll put the matter up for a popular vote: Did I do the right thing by drinking it?
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Sometimes, the Swiss are too much
For all the nice things about living here, you just have to shake your head at the Swiss sometimes. I have a colleague here at work who received a fine of almost $500 in the mail. His offense? Driving with too much snow on the top of his car. I can't remember everything that went into the fine, but it was something like $50 for the cost of taking the picture of the car driving with snow on the roof, $200 for the fine itself, $200 for court costs even though no one ever appeared in court, and a couple of other things. What this means is that someone, either a contractor or an employee of the canton (the equivalent of a state here in Switzerland), is driving around specifically looking for cars driving with too much snow on top. Give me a break! I believe I've complained in the past about the Swiss requirement that drivers who wear glasses or contacts must carry a spare pair of glasses in the car just in case they're needed. (We tend to ignore that law, but I'm sure it's going to bite us sometime before we move back.)
If you step back from the ridiculousness of some of the requirements here, though, it's interesting to think about how each society balances freedom and safety. In the past week or two, Minnesota has had a rash of car accidents involving young drivers (16 or 17 years old). Those accidents have resulted in eleven deaths. Many of the victims were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you were to raise the driving age to 18, which is the case in most European countries, you'd have fewer deaths but less freedom to get around. It's the same with drunk driving laws. In Switzerland, the limit is 0.04; in most states, I believe it's 0.08.
You can take this even further. We could save thousands of lives each year in the United States if we lowered the speed limit on the freeway to 30 miles per hour, but most of us wouldn't be willing to make that tradeoff. On the other hand, we could all get around much faster if we raised the speed limit to 120 miles per hour, but most of us wouldn't be willing to make that deal, either.
Each society has to decide these issues for itself, but of the extremes on both sides of those decisions, you can bet that the Swiss are on the side that wants to fine you for something. It's not really their fault. They just can't help it; they're Swiss.
If you step back from the ridiculousness of some of the requirements here, though, it's interesting to think about how each society balances freedom and safety. In the past week or two, Minnesota has had a rash of car accidents involving young drivers (16 or 17 years old). Those accidents have resulted in eleven deaths. Many of the victims were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you were to raise the driving age to 18, which is the case in most European countries, you'd have fewer deaths but less freedom to get around. It's the same with drunk driving laws. In Switzerland, the limit is 0.04; in most states, I believe it's 0.08.
You can take this even further. We could save thousands of lives each year in the United States if we lowered the speed limit on the freeway to 30 miles per hour, but most of us wouldn't be willing to make that tradeoff. On the other hand, we could all get around much faster if we raised the speed limit to 120 miles per hour, but most of us wouldn't be willing to make that deal, either.
Each society has to decide these issues for itself, but of the extremes on both sides of those decisions, you can bet that the Swiss are on the side that wants to fine you for something. It's not really their fault. They just can't help it; they're Swiss.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
And, he's back
Here I am sitting in my office at work in Switzerland. No problems at all. In fact, there were two empty seats in the business class section, which I didn't expect. (I have no idea how crowded it was in coach. When I'm in business class, I try to pretend that the coach section doesn't exist.) There were long lines at the ticket counters in Amsterdam, though, so I know a lot of people are still trying to work things out.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Outta here, probably
Well, it looks like I couldn't have timed my trip better. I got here just before the volcano kicked up, and I'm leaving just as Europe has started flying again. It looks like I'll be able to go home tomorrow. Darn--I'll miss the annual Minnesota mosquito hatch.
I did something weird tonight: I watched the Minnesota Twins play baseball, in Minnesota, outside. The new stadium is amazing. It was a fun night and a great game. I have mixed feelings because the poor taxpayers had to kick in a lot of money for the stadium, which just doesn't seem right with all the struggles that state governments are facing these days, but I might as well enjoy the stadium since it's there whether or not I'm happy about how it got there.
I did something weird tonight: I watched the Minnesota Twins play baseball, in Minnesota, outside. The new stadium is amazing. It was a fun night and a great game. I have mixed feelings because the poor taxpayers had to kick in a lot of money for the stadium, which just doesn't seem right with all the struggles that state governments are facing these days, but I might as well enjoy the stadium since it's there whether or not I'm happy about how it got there.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
The upside
Well, since I'm apparently going to be stuck in Minnesota for the rest of my life due to a volcano in Iceland (I just can't believe how completely absurd that sounds), I've started to compile a list of advantages that Minnesota has over Switzerland. I suppose there are worse places to be stuck than Minnesota in April (for example, Minnesota in November, December, January, February, March, July or August.)
Here are some of the good things:
1. Minnesotans speak a dialect of English that most Americans can understand with only a little difficulty.
2. I don't have to worry about walking to work or to the grocery store anymore.
3. I can sit outside and watch Jed mow my lawn all summer.
4. I don't need to worry about having any more of those "babies don't come from storks" talks with Tanner.
5. I don't have to spend my days staring at those hideous Alps.
6. A large hot chocolate at Starbuck's doesn't cost eight dollars.
7. When someone tells me the temperature, I don't have to make a futile attempt to convert the number to Fahrenheit in my head, which usually just ends up in me giving up.
8. It's fun to walk around the Mall of America trying to guess which kids have health insurance and which kids have lost it due to parents' job layoffs, preexisting health conditions, actually becoming sick, and that sort of thing.
9. They have baseball games here.
10. If I get busted for going 120 mph in a 70 zone, I find out about it right away rather than getting a ticket in the mail three weeks later.
Here are some of the good things:
1. Minnesotans speak a dialect of English that most Americans can understand with only a little difficulty.
2. I don't have to worry about walking to work or to the grocery store anymore.
3. I can sit outside and watch Jed mow my lawn all summer.
4. I don't need to worry about having any more of those "babies don't come from storks" talks with Tanner.
5. I don't have to spend my days staring at those hideous Alps.
6. A large hot chocolate at Starbuck's doesn't cost eight dollars.
7. When someone tells me the temperature, I don't have to make a futile attempt to convert the number to Fahrenheit in my head, which usually just ends up in me giving up.
8. It's fun to walk around the Mall of America trying to guess which kids have health insurance and which kids have lost it due to parents' job layoffs, preexisting health conditions, actually becoming sick, and that sort of thing.
9. They have baseball games here.
10. If I get busted for going 120 mph in a 70 zone, I find out about it right away rather than getting a ticket in the mail three weeks later.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Stranded in the U.S.?
It's a little too early to start changing plans, but I'm starting to wonder if I'll get back to Switzerland next week. The volcano has now shut down Zurich's airport, too. All of Delta's flights to Amsterdam and Zurich have been cancelled through tomorrow. I was thinking that maybe I could escape the trouble by going directly from Atlanta to Zurich, but no such luck. Let's just hope that things are back to normal by next week. Who would have thought that harmless little Iceland could cause me such trouble?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)