MBAs vs Laundry machines

One of the things that I find really different in the US is the approach to doing laundry. In Europe, I’m used to having a laundry machine in my house. And it is common practice for all houses and flats to have its own laundry machine.

For me it’s different to say the least that flats in new buildings that are 8 or more stories high do not have laundry machines inside. Instead, there is a set of laundry machines in one of the stories or in the basement and people go there to do the laundry. Sadly enough, most of these machines are coin operated.

That poses two problems. Firstly, it is costly. Secondly, if you have never seen this system in place and the laundry machines are old, you might be completely clueless when it comes to operate them.

That’s exactly what happened to us in our temporary accommodation. There was a set of machines and they were all coin operated. However, they were very old and there were no instructions. Now imagine being in a foreign country with a limited number of clothes and at some stage, having all of them dirty! I’m sure you’ll understand the case is even worse if I say in Washington it is more than 35 degrees now and humidity is very high!

After many unsuccessful attempts to put them to work, things didn’t seem that bright. As clever Cambridge MBAs we thought we were, we didn’t give up. We tried all different possible combination of coins, all different buttons and still the damn machine wouldn’t start working. After exhausting all possibilities and making use of our recently learnt MBA skills, I’m proud to say we finally found a reasonable solution:

Shelter in place

The World Bank is a very exciting institution to work for. It deals with many interesting projects that will have a huge impact in the community it is addressing. That is what we learnt on the first day of work.

On the second day of work we learnt there are other forms of excitement in the Bank sometimes. We were eating at the canteen when an announcement was made through the speakers: “For security reasons, we are imposing a Shelter-in-Place. No one is allowed to enter or leave the building until this condition is lifted”.

Shelter in place occurs whenever there is a potential threat to the World Bank’s personnel. Despite being locked inside, it seems like no one really cares that much. The World Bank building is so big that it seems like a city by its own right. Apparently, some individual left a suspicious package near the World Bank and the police was investigating. Turns out it was nothing.

I just hope if this happens again, it doesn’t happen by the end of the day. It’s my first time in Washington and I still have lots of sightseeing to do, so I need to get out early from work!

Visa rush

By late May we had some great news: we got an internship with the World Bank! That was very exciting but it was only the beginning of a long journey to get the logistics of our journey done. We knew the internship would start on the 1st of July and we wanted to get to Washington beforehand with some time. However, for cost reasons, we booked our flights for Monday, 30th of June. Since we still had an entire month before the flights, we thought that would be more than enough time to sort out the Visas and take care of accommodation.

Well, turns out to get a diplomatic Visa, we need the World Bank to send some forms to the Embassy. After a couple of weeks, our contacts there were kind enough to send the paperwork for us, but the Embassy requires the central HR department to take care of everything.

By this time of the year, the World Bank is packed with requests for Visas and its central services operate in a first come first serve base. To make a long story short, we spent two weeks exchanging emails with the World Bank and the American Embassy in the UK.

The paperwork was only sent on Wednesday, the 28th of June to the American Embassy in London who was already more than sick of us after so many phone calls and email exchanges. It usually takes 48 hours to process a diplomatic Visa, but Thursday for some reason was a public holiday. The stress was huge and we weren’t seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Most likely we would have to reschedule our flights and start the internship later.

Bottom line...we got our Visas Friday afternoon, just the last week day before boarding to Washington DC. What a rush!