Impressions from the desert: How it all began

I am sitting at the airport in Beijing and just tried to write a first entry into my blog. Unfortunately, I had to accept that I cannot connect to the google blog website. It might be that the website is prohibited by the Chinese government same as facebook, youtube and the wikipedia entries about China. Apart from that the airport offers a western standard with free Wifi and what was even more important for me I have a power supply in the café where I am sitting right now.

How did I know from Oyu Tolgoi?

Exactly one month and two days before I was sitting in the Accenture office in Zürich. After spending whole march in the army I was waiting for a new staffing. Previously, I worked five month with BASF, world’s biggest chemical company, and it was likely that I would return to Ludwigshafen as my project was not completed, yet. There were many requests from projects and I prepared my CV for eachof these very carefully, but in the end I could not achieve one single hard booking. The high Swiss salary and changes in the clients project planning were the reasons why I was still waiting to get staffed. Thomas Walther, a guy that has recently spent months in the office waiting for a project, was sitting also on my table drinking coffee and chatting. He started to tell about a project in Mongolia. A project unlike than all the others, in the middle of nowhere. I got curious about this special project and wanted to know more. He explained that Rio Tinto, a top three mining company, was building a new gold and copper mine named Oyu Tolgoi (Mongolian for turquoise hill) in the Gobi desert and that they are calling unassigned employees in ASG with resources background. There were two open roles, but they are struggling to find anybody because the working conditions are totally different in comparison to a standard Accenture project.

My Effort to get on this Project

I asked Thomas to forward the email with the role descriptions to me. I read the mail text carefully and recognized that this project would be a real adventure. The working schedule would implement to work 28 days in a row followed by two weeks break. Two weeks break in the middle of Asia, I thought, the perfect opportunity to travel. I left the office with this project not going out of my mind. A had a quick chat with my flat mate who spent 7 month in Australia and 9 month on a round-the-world trip and of course he supported my idea to go for it. The other morning I wrote an email to Mariska (the responsible for the open roles) and asked if there are still available roles. We arranged a call next morning. Mariska tried to scare me with demonstrating all the difficult conditions that would expect me in Mongolia and especially on the mining site. She said there were many people interested in this project, but after the first call they declined. But that was not the case with me. As I was expecting harsh conditions and as that was part of my motivation I was still keen to get a role at Oyu Tolgoi. Thus, she forwarded me to Myriam Vacher, a manager working at Oyu Tolgoi. I had a call with Myriam the same day. I tried to demonstrate my skills gained in different areas and show that I am capable to absolve the tasks and that was enough. Myriam told me that she would give me the chance to come to Oyu Tolgoi and show my strength. The reason why she gave me the commitment was more dependent on my motivation than on my skills. I was asking myself if I was risking too much, but I was in the mood to challenge me and I wanted to proof myself on a new level.

Administrative Issues

Myriam told me that there will be an issue with Swiss labor legislations and that I should inform HR about my plans. I did that, and while Myriam informed the client about me and tried to get the approval, Swiss HR department faced the issue that a working permit for such a working mode would never go in line with Swiss legislations. A few days later Myriam gave me the final ok to proceed and I started the process to get the visa. On the same point of time Anselm, my former team lead at BASF booked me for two days in Germany what was standing in conflict with the preparations for Mongolia. While the managers discussed about my availability, my scheduler told me that I won’t get an approval for the trip. A dream died in one second. I thought it was all over and out.
It was a bad situation for me and even more for Myriam who had to tell the client that they have to look for a new resource, after getting through all the administrative tasks. Some days passed by and I thought that this was the end of my planed adventure in the desert. But it was not. HR tried to find a solution. They offered a contract where I had to rest one day per week to go in line with the law and in parallel Myriam did not gave up to bring me to Oyu Tolgoi. After some further discussions I was assigned to a new role and I could start again with the visa application process. The schedule was though, because there were many dependencies. I tried to do my best in handling the preparation while I was supporting an UBS project in parallel. Everything went fine since of the visa. On Friday morning I stayed at home waiting for the postal delivery, but there was no envelope for me. I called the embassy in Geneva and they told me that they have mixed me up with another person with the same surname. Thus, I had no alternative but to travel to Geneva. Although I spent nearly the whole day in the train I was glad to have my visa in the evening. I was ready to go and so I entered the airbus in Zürich to fly to Beijing. My adventure has started.