Working At NATO

Working at NATO has been a fascinating, frustrating, and educational experience....

First let me say that the people are fantastic. Sometimes strange, often fun, but always interesting. On my team we have people from Canada, Poland, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Slovakia, The Netherlands, Denmark, and Turkey. I enjoy watching the interactions between these different cultures as everyone has a different way of going about things...and many of the stereotypes are true. The Germans are methodical about everything. They like to organize and hate the ineffeciancy that is so common here. The Italians and Belgians seem to take their time with everything and enjoy their long coffee breaks and wine at lunch. The guys from the lesser developed countries such as Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary are lots of fun and love a good drink, but are also quite hard working. I especially love to hear stories from the Polish guys about life in a communist country...they were only allowed to purchase six loaves of bread per month, but that didn't matter since bread was rarely available at the stores. If you owned anything from America such as blue jeans or a Coke, then you were either filthy rich or worked for the government. For example, one guy told me about the time his father saved his monthly $20 salary (everyone in Poland was paid the same wage, regardless of what you did) and bought him a pair of real Levi's jeans...for $17! Apparently when he was a child, there was a food shortage and the government went on TV and told the people that America had dropped "Stonka Bugs" from a plane to eat all of their crops! At the time they believed it, as there was no independant media to tell them otherwise.

The NATO employees have a pretty fantastic deal here. They are paid very well, pay no taxes to any country, get tax free shopping, tax free cars, half price gas, free healthcare, and free education (including college). In addition, there are 19 official holidays, and they get 35 vacation days!!! Also, every two years they get an additional 10 days to return to their home country and their travel expenses for the whole family are paid by NATO. So, every other year they have 3 months vacation. When they are at work, it's generally very low stress. Since people have so many vacation days, no one is ever here. So, any time you need approval for something, you have to wait until they're back from holiday. Nothing ever gets done.

The base itself is quite large and has most everything people need to survive. Several thousand people actually live on the base, so there are small houses and apartments in the back. There are a couple of schools with soccer and baseball fields, a movie theater, bowling alley, barber, dry cleaner, and grocery store. As far as I can tell, the people who live on the base never actually leave it. Unfortunately there are very few restaurants within 10 minutes of the base, so I generally eat lunch at the cafeteria. The building that I work in is about 60 years old and has had almost no updates. The most glaring problem is the lack of air conditioning. Now that I've been through a summer here I can say that it never really gets that hot relative to DC, but there were definitely a few weeks that we were sweating it out in the office.

Absolutely everyone here works the same schedule, there are no "flex hours" like you see back home. You are expected to be here 8:30 - 5:30, Monday through Thursday and you eat lunch at 12:00. No more, no less. The nice part is that Friday is 8:30 - 3:30, so you get an early start on the weekend. I wish I could be more flexible with my hours, but when there are only 38 per week it's hard to complain. The other nice part is the coffee breaks...these guys LOVE their coffee. Most everyone takes 30 minute coffee breaks at 10:30 and 3:30. We go as a large group and spend the time socializing. As I've said in blogs before, these guys work to live, not live to work.

There are a lot of differences between the work environment here and one back in the US. The first thing you notice here is that there are almost no women. Part of this is due to the fact that it's a military base, but even the NATO civilian positions are almost always filled by men. The women that are here are dressed in ways that are just not appropriate for work in the US. Low cut tops, short skirts, tall boots and fishnet stockings are standard for the civilan women. For the military, it seems that many of the countries have a competition to see who can dress their women in the shortest skirts. The environment is similar to what I picture for the US in 1950. Women are treated as objects, not employees, and people are rewarded for their age, not their competence level. Crude jokes and bad language are the norm, and commenting on people's appearance (especially women) is perfectly acceptable. For the men, you see some very interesting outfits as well. Uniforms that are way too tight or way too big, foot-tall fuzzy hats, and handlebar mustaches are all on display here. Sometimes it's hard not to chuckle when I walk through the hallways.

The best part about working in an international environment is that I get to experience parts of other cultures in a very authentic way. The guys here love to share their favorite drinks from home...so far I have received a few bottles of Slovakian moonshine made by my coworkers father, Italian wine, and a bottle of Polish "Bison" vodka complete with a blade of grass in it. Apparently the bison urinate on the grass, and that gives it a "special" flavor. I haven't had the guts to open that one up yet. Also, many of the countries are currently holding Christmas Markets on the base where they bring authentic food, drink and products from home. Last weekend we attended the Norwegian and Canadian markets. At the Norwegian market we had some Gluvine (heated, spiced wine) to go with my reindeer sandwich. Yes, apparently I ate Rudolph. At the Canadian market I picked up a bottle of "Moose Milk"...which is more like heavily spiked egg-nog. It has nothing to do with moose other than the story behind it.

Overall, it's been a great experience so far, and I'm looking forward to another year of new experiences with my international friends.