Suso, Emmanuelle (eng.)
Apr 24th, 2011 by Charlotte Haug
Emmanuelle writes:
Dear Reader.
Should you ever work with and for Gudmund:
- learn to expect the unexpected, particularly when he is preparing a speech or a presentation (Do you know how many screws were used to build the Eiffel tower? What happened to the explorer ship La Recherche after it went to Norway? – try googling that one, you will understand the predicament. What’s that got to do with that? Attend the presentation!)
- elevate multitasking into an art of living (I would have said working, except week ends often start on Sunday 9 p.m.). You will research a subject, while preparing a powerpoint, while translating a course, while locating the art gallery that has just issued a limited series cast of Michael Angelos Pieta (which you will arrange the delivery of, in spite of the stubborn Customs Officer).
- have your own, customized SABRE system. You will be asked to find the most straightforward way from Paris to Tokyo via Livingstone, Zambia and back. Time imperatives apply (meet ministers, give a lecture, chair an international conference, etc.). So get cracking!
- never assume all will be fine during his travelling (except perhaps while the plane is in the air). Rather expect:
- to receive a mildly panicked call: I think I have dropped my passport in the cab, could you please ask the driver to U-turn? The plane leaves in 40 minutes.
- to discover everything you never wanted to know about airports (like the massive storage room of lost items, how to get there to search for - and eventually retrieve - lost belonging, and who to plead with and coax to locate the previous two pieces of information).
- to take an advanced course in twisting your SABRE system in order to get him back on the right itinerary (after he has been stranded in Arusha for instance).
- never recycle the IHT until the Peanuts strip has been carefully collected. (You actually may become a fan.)
When working with Gudmund also expect:
- to learn something every day (of negotiation, politics, new scientific findings, literature, newly discovered Vivaldi manuscripts,…)
- to develop your sense of humour (because you will laugh, irrespective of the situation, the amount of work, the deadlines, the level of stress)
- to believe that the sky is the limit, because he believes in human potential, as well as developing talent and creativity (thank you Gudmund for believing in the junior I was when I joined your office).
In short, expect to work with a gifted, uncommonly curious intellectually, and deeply humane person.
Dear Gudmund, it has been a privilege to know you, work with you, and be mentored by you.
Have an exceptional birthday!
Emmanuelle – how could you!!! Anything butt he truth!
The more I read the comments on this blog, the more I feel privileged to have worked with some amazing people. Emmanuelle, of course, is one of them.
Not only did she get all I asked for, and in abundance. She of course also was the on-top-of-everything shepherd, who intuitively knew when or where I would get lost, and by shrewd application of the precautionary principle prevented most calamities. However, as she alludes, even the unexpected does occur with regularity – and with me low-probability events turn up with certainty. She was the combination of a guardian angel and ever alert trouble-shooter.
Not only did she get what I asked for – she also started to give me clips and links to thinks she thought I would fancy or could use – e.g. from The Guardian. And invariably I could. But my hunch is that this was a shrewd ploy on her part: By sending me things I had not asked for, I would have less time for asking her for new things.
I guess Emmanuelle survived because she combined her sharpness and shrewdness with a kind of concerned amusement. Sometimes she must have been tempted to push me over cliff – but if she ever did, she would be at its foot to catch med before hitting the ground.
Emmanuelle also knew the intestines of UNESCO, hence was an invaluable advisor for the bureaucratic politics of an international organization.
I sometimes lamented that UNESCO’s problems were rooted in the fact that it had recruited bureaucrats from all over the world and kept the worst. Emmanuelle attests to the fact that this explanation is completely wrong: She is still there!