I have now finished work for 2009. Even though I didn’t start work until April, it has been quite a long year, moving from being an immunology post-doc academia to a clinical epidemiologist in pharma. I am very glad that I made the change. I much prefer working in the team-based approach in pharma, with clearly defined operating procedures and deadlines. I am very lucky that I don’t have to attend too many pointless meetings, and I am mostly left to my own devices to just get the job done.

My colleagues have been warm and welcoming. There is no strong siblinghood of shared difficulty that I found during my PhD, but everyone is kind and friendly. I look forward to the cafeteria lunch, where the French chefs cook up a diverse range of treats. Usually I stick with a soup and fruit-salad, much to the puzzlement of my European colleagues who treat lunch as the main meal of the day. However, the chef put on a special holiday menu, so I couldn’t help treating myself to scampi and scallop skewers followed by a quatro of desserts – chocolate mousse, panna cotta, jam poffertje and profiterole.

After Saint Nicolas’ day, we returned to work to find that someone had placed a selection of mandarins, marzipan, chocolate, and speculoos on the desk of every single person in the building. Such a thoughtful gesture, and very nice to have a little sugar boost to help me through the afternoons.

Soon after that we had a small forest of fir trees spring up in the lobby. Each tree was a different species, their needles slightly different colours and textures. So much thicker than the ones we get over in Australia, but they still smell like the holidays. Often as I passed by I would stop and sniff the branches, ignoring the quizzical looks from the receptionists.