Cambodia Day 3; First working day!

Well the jet-lag isn't wearing off quite as fast as I would have liked...

I woke up this morning wondering what to wear for my first day at work. Might sound like a small thought, but it was a big dilemma. Was I going to that press conference my future boss had told me about the day before or not? Cause that makes a HUGE difference! For the first thing, I realized I hadn't brought too many bottoms to wear, just a lot of tops. Given the dress code here in Cambodia I wasn't quite sure if the lengths of my bottoms were appropriate or not (so I didn't bring them)...but looking around me now I realize: absolutely appropriate! I settled on a skirt...found a nice blouse and was about to leave when I figured that that blouse would probably be showing some ugly sweat stains later on...I wouldn't want to feel uncomfortable with that on my first day at work would I? So I settled on a rather boring t-shirt and some sandals.

Out the door I realize that I will be driven via motorbike to work...ARG! I get on the machine sideways, you know like the princesses do on horses and politely ask the driver: "Do you mind if I hold onto you??" to which he replied with a smile and a laugh and said "No problem"Arriving to my workplace I felt my hair was already as flat as a pancake: charming. I confidently get to the office to find that I am pretty early (Miss punctuality award!!!) and wait around until my boss gets here and tells me I will come with him to the press conference, YAY!

After a short moto drive over to the Australian Embassy, we pass metal detectors and are given a goodie bag, and info about the conference. I shake some guy's hand and politely say: "Pleased to meet you" and look around the room....BAM! I realize that I look like a teenage schoolgirl compared to all the "pros" all dressed up in the place...We sit and wait until the journalists stop taking massive amounts of pictures. Turns out the guy whose hand I just shook was the managing director in Cambodia for WING, a company that does text message banking with ANZ Royal Bank. A lot of important people were there, some officials from the Cambodian government and the CEO of ANZ Royal Bank...

Too bad I was too jet-lagged to actually listen to much of the speech, but what I got from it is that they have developped the text messaging system for banking so that Cambodians in remote areas can make payments and even save some money in the process. Apparently this concept is part of ANZ's corporate responsibility program. After the speech, there was a little buffet so my boss and I hung around there a little and then headed back to the office. It was quite funny when the bike stopped in the middle of the road and my boss said: "Oops...I forgot to put gas in there..." So he had to push the bike to the nearest "gas station" (which consists of a barrel with a pump under an umbrella).

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, I finally got to sleep for a bit...until the air conditionner broke and I started melting...well that's a whole new day!