Working for the public sector

Today was my first day at my job at..... (drum roll please)...

the University!

I've been hired as a "contractuel", or temporary employee, for the next 10 months. My job is basically an administrative assistant for a program that is taught all in English and thus has mostly foreign students and instructors.

It's kind of a funny story how I got the job: late June at a friend's dinner party, I chatted about how I was looking for a new job but was frustrated that so many potential careers were closed to me for now because of my non-European nationality. Two days later, said friend emailed me with a link for a job offer at the university. I promised to check it out since she had taken the time to tell me about it, but I was rather pessimistic since the job was described as "Categorie 2" grade. I sent off a short inquiry about any nationality restrictions for the job and got the surprising response that there weren't any. The next day I sent off my cover letter, got a response that they wanted to interview me, and about 3 hours after my interview received an email that they were offering me the job. The first week of July I had my job lined up for the fall!

I didn't write about it because at the time I was also applying for a job at the American Consular Post in Toulouse and didn't know how things would turn out.

Today was the general orientation for all the new hires, so we started off with pain au chocolat and coffee and a speech by the President of the university. After more than 2 hours of listening to the HR director explain how the different parts of the university are organized, it was time for the lunch cocktail, complete with red wine and even champagne for the desserts. The afternoon was completed with a tour of the campus, which I only followed half way because I will be working at the campus where I did my Masters.

So far the university seems like a really nice place to work. I met the woman I'll be sharing my office with and she seems really friendly. The professor I'll be working with to plan classes seems pretty relaxed too, and I found out I'll be "chaperoning" a trip to a ropes course as part of the student orientation.

It's the first time I've had a job contract this long in a long time; I guess my 9 month teaching assistant contract is the closest. I'm looking forward to working in an environment where I know I'll still be in the near future. I'm sure I'll have comments about working for the public sector, but for now I've only dipped my toe in the pool of 'Public University'.