New job(s)

As I was walking through Manhattan again last tuesday I decided to go to the UN area. I had not been there yet and I thought it would be nice to get a first glimpse of my new working environment. As I came closer to the the area I saw the impressive UN building appear in the background. As I stood in front of the buillding taking some pictures I began wondering where the GPF office was located. I did not have the address on me but I remembered that their office was right in front of the UN building. I took a wild guess and walked into one of the buildings on the other side of the road and asked the security guard where the GPF office was located. He replied that it was located on the third floor and before I knew it I was standing in front of my future boss, James Paul, and my future colleagues.

The atmosphere was very kind from the beginning. I first introduced myself to everyone and I then started chitchatting with the whole group. I felt immediately at ease and everyone seemed very interested towards me. I noticed that the group of interns was very mixed in terms of background and they were all relatively young. James Paul finally told me my new job would start on monday at 10 a.m.. I left the office feeling really excited.

Speaking about new jobs. Yesterday evening I watched President Obama's State of the Union address on television. In the State of the Union, comparable to our 'Prinsjesdag', the President reports on the state of the nation and outlines his political agenda to the American Congress. Obama and his Administration have been under a lot pressure lately. Their notorious health care reform plan has still not passed the Senate and to make things worse the Democrats lost Ted Kennedy's Senate seat last week to the Republican Scott Brown meaning that the Democrats lost their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. In other words, health care reform seems to be further away than ever.

Then ofcourse the Obama Administration has taken other economic decisions the past twelve months which were not received with much enthusiasm by the American public. Think of the economic stimulus package which cost $ 787 billion and the hundreds of billions spend on bailing out big banks. Obama had some explaning to do yesterday and I was curious to see how he would perform. In the end I think he did well. In his eloquent speech, as usual, he aggressively made clear that he was not planning to change his political agenda and that his main priority for the year would be the creation of new jobs. He finally said that during his campaign in 2008 he never said his changes were going to be easy or that he would realize them by himself.

Indeed, people seem to forget very easy. I would say give the man some more time!