Let's see if you recognise yourself in Jason's tale of his stay at his multinational company's head office in Paris:

“When I got to the front desk, they told me I had to wait because they hadn’t received my badge yet. Twenty minutes went by before my manager arrived to authorize my entrance. He then walked me to my new office and and told me that a meeting was scheduled with the team at 3pm that afternoon and that, until then, I could read through the files.

I had my own laptop but couldn’t get the Internet connection to work. For the next few hours, I could see people walking by peering into my office but not a single person came in to introduce themselves to me. I went to get a coffee and discovered that the machine wasn’t coin-operated and that I needed a card. For lunch, I had already eaten in the cafeteria on previous trips and had a voucher so I was able to get a platter together. But I remember feeling quite alone and wondering if I was ever going to fit in.

At the afternoon meeting, I was introduced to my colleagues. They were courteous but none really reached out to make me feel welcome. As soon as I wasn’t directly involved in the conversation, they reverted to French. And to be honest, when they spoke English, I wasn’t always sure that I understood what they meant.

I put my discomfort down to tiredness and first-day jitters. But, in the days that followed, I still felt like an outsider. I felt a little more settled once I got my diplomas, photos and other personal mementos out. And yet, that seemed to create an even greater distance and no one seemed to respond to my obvious friendliness and approachability.

Once we got into the rhythm of work – especially for the key project I was assigned to run – I had less time to worry about what they thought of me and our only priorities were progress, deadlines and results. At the end of my term there, I wasn’t too sad to leave. Though the project had been quite successful, I had never really felt quite at home. I was happy to hear that I was being transferred back to the States.

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