Dansons in Delaware

Yesterday, I went down to Grenoble in southeast France to present some results to colleagues from another research center. The meeting was scheduled for Friday morning, from 8:30 to 12:30 with a tour of their facilities afterwards.

I stayed with a coworker at his parents' house on the outskirts of Grenoble, and we set off for the meeting at about 8:00, running late. I've been to French meetings before and know they start late and lack structure, but I've never presented at a French meeting. In the US, I would have arrived early, set up the projecter and presentation, and been ready to go by 8:30. In contrast, we arrived at the entrance gate at 8:40. Two cars ahead of us at the gate was one of the guys with whom we were supposed to meet. It also turned out that because I am a foreigner, there were some special forms we had to fill out that we had forgotten to request. So we finally got into the facility at about 9:10. Then we met some other colleagues working there. We arrived at the meeting room around 9:30 and there was no projector. So after finding a projector that turned out to be broken and having some coffee and croissants (as it was croissant Friday) we started without a projector. It was a small group, 6 of us, so that was ok. A bit later, one of the guys left the meeting and came back with a projector that works. Then the technical director arrived about 10:30, halfway through the meeting, because he had some other things to attend to first. A second participant left about 15 minutes later. After all was said and done, it was actually very productive and went over well. So that's how French meetings work.

I was talking about it afterwards in the railstation bar with an English coworker, who was also down in Grenoble for the day, and he told me a funny story about a meeting he had been to in Spain. It was to start at 10:00am. Since he has been in France for awhile, he was smart, arrived around 10:15 and was greeted by another Englishman and a couple of Germans. About 10:45 some other people start trickling in. At 11:15, the Spanish professor who had organized the meeting rolls in and starts setting up his presentation. Finally, after 11:30 the talk finally gets going.