"Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living"... Or rather working 9 to 12, not getting paid at all

This week, life in Montpellier really began... I started my work placement.  But, as seems to be the pattern recently, things haven't exactly gone smoothly.  In fact, I'd deign to say that this is officially the aspect of life here that has given me the most grief.  And yes, that does mean that it has been even more frustrating than finding an apartment, opening a bank account, having a wardrobe but no hangers, or discovering that they sell Heinz Spaghetti in the Casino Géant for €1,50 a tin.


For those who don't know, I didn't decide to live In Montpellier for four months just for the fun of it - I came out here with the purpose of taking up a work experience placement for a mere twenty hours a week at Paul Valéry University.  When I was offered the placement back at the start of June, I was sent the following job description...

Most of the job will be related to the organization of the Master Degree in “International Cooperation” within the Politics department, and will involve:

• Following-up on students and alumni;
• Promoting the degree (website, leaflets, etc.);
• Helping organize meetings and events;
• Helping students develop their communication skills (presentation of their project, interviews, etc.)

On the face of it, this looked like a great opportunity for me to gain a bit of experience in a vaguely relevant field, given that I want to work in Events Management after uni.  However, somewhere between that email, and me travelling 900 miles for that job, the outline of my placement magically transformed into the following:

• Library work: helping the students in the library of the Department of Political Science find relevant information, helping organise resources, and assessing the quality of the bibliography offered as regards courses (for instance, international cooperation).
• Archive work: reading, selecting and organising relevant dossiers from online resources (to be used by Master’s students); press reviews on particular topical issues.
• Elaboration of bibliographies on specialised research themes.
• Data collection: location of the internships offered in the International Cooperation Master’s Degree.
• Helping students present and enhance their individual career projects.

Its funny how that happens really, isn't it?  When I was presented with this 'new' job description, having been in Montpellier a mere week, I thought that I would give the whole situation the benefit of the doubt.  I signed the 'Training Agreement' needed by both Holloway and Montpellier University, hoping that somehow it would all work out.  So it may not have been the placement that I travelled 900 miles for, but I was here now and as they say, "Everything happens for a reason".

In hindsight, my 'optimism' was probably just 'blind stupidity' as things took somewhat of a turn for the worse.  I arrived at the Politics department at 2pm on Monday the 3rd all prepared to meet the librarian who would show me around and explain the 'library' aspect of my placement.  I'm pretty sure that 'lost in translation' can't surely even begin to excuse the fact that the Politics department mistook a room with four bookshelves in it as a so-called 'library'...

In the 12 hours that I spent in that room this week, a sum total of six people came into the library, and two of them actually came in at the same time!  My vocabulary didn't stretch much beyond "Bonjour" and "Merci, au revoir", which I'm 99.9% certain I could have coped with before spending two years at university studying French.  With no sign of the three other riveting tasks that I had been assigned making an appearance, I decided it was high time I should see if I could get some clarification on the whole situation.  However, this is the part where it gets really complex... There are three universities in Montpellier: the inspirationally named Montpellier 1 and Montpellier 2, and Paul Valéry (aka Montpellier 3).  Each of these universities supposedly run as separate institutions, but have agreements on certain things such as sharing sports facilities.  The work placement was offered to me by Paul Valéry, but I am actually working in the Politics department of Montpellier 1.  This means that I have a work experience 'co-ordinator' at Paul Valéry, and a work experience 'supervisor' within the politics department at Montpellier 1.  Just to really put the icing on top, I am also being overseen by the gentleman in charge of the library at the politics department.  To keep things simple, and so as to allow them to remain anonymous, these people shall be known as the following:

Work experience co-ordinator at Paul Valéry - Madame Mécontent, aka Mme M
Work experience supervisor at Montpellier 1 - Monsier PetitGraveetChauve, aka Mr PGC
Library manager for the Politics dept at Montpellier 1 - Monsieur FontaineD'Information, aka Mr FDI


Mr FDI is in general a lovely man who appears to have visited the South West of the UK before and takes great delight in commenting how lovely it is every time he sees me.  He is also the one who encouraged me to speak up and see if I could revert my placement back to what it was once supposed to be.


Mme M is most unhelpful.  I went to go and see her to ask why everything had changed so much, and she seemed convinced my placement hadn't changed at all!  She was under the impression that Mr PGC still wanted me to help his students with their projects, and that collecting data on internships counted as 'following up on students and alumni', which I couldn't really argue with to be honest.  However, she sarcastically commented that I can't help organise events if there aren't any to organise (well why put it on a job description if its not actually going to be a regular feature of my job?!) and had no real answer as to where the activities involving promoting the degree had disappeared off to.  She claimed that I knew that the intern's tasks could vary from the start, and the addition of a load of library work, archiving, and creating bibliographies apparently counts as 'a little variation'.  In short, "c'est la vie".  Well merci bloody beaucoup.


I've saved the best for last though; the delightfully charming Mr PGC.  So delightful in fact, that he even gives Pete the Creep a run for his money (see post number 4).  A meeting with him today finally gave me an explanation for why everything has changed so drastically.  Apparently the intern who was in the department last year was much better at French than I am, and therefore had the opportunity to help the students with the many events that are apparently taking place within the department (surprise, surprise Mme M's sarcastic comments weren't even founded on any solid knowledge of the politics department or my placement).  Sadly, my French isn't good enough, so I have to work in the library.  In a couple of weeks I (might) get the chance to help some of the students with their projects etc, but that depends on how much my French improves whilst I am sitting in an empty room with four bookshelves.  He of course explained all of this in French.  The fact that I was then justifiably a little upset and not fully capable of focussing on what he was twittering on about, meant that each time I didn't understand something he re-itterated the fact that this is the problem - my French just isn't good enough.  Lovely.

So, for the foreseeable future I shall be sitting in the library doing some kind of research work.  I'll keep everyone updated on the headcount, but something tells me it wont be anything to write home about.  By the end of this week, I was half wishing that perhaps even a stray cat might wander in to keep me company.  By the end of next week something tells me that I'll even take the odd lonesome mosquito for companionship... Perhaps I could accept it's constant blood-sucking tendencies as a sign of affection?!

Every cloud has a silver lining... This is the outside of the wall that runs along the front of Rue de l'Université and the Cité International de la Danse (above), and the archway that leads to Rue de l'Université (below).