Work

It just occurred to me that I have yet to tell ya’ll about my work—somewhat odd as that is what I was actually sent here to do. Believe it or not, I’ve been a working fool. When I came here I didn’t really know if I had a job or what I would be doing…I figured that worse comes to worst, I could just hang out, sightsee, and drink good Georgian wine on Columbia’s dime…but alas, internships have definitely worked out.

My full time gig is at the American Chamber of Commerce. There I’m helping to write and edit articles for the AmCham News. Also, I’m working on a customs tariff project funded by USAID—definitely the most serious and interesting thing I get to do...on Tuesday I get to lunch with the head of the World Bank in the Caucasus so he can confirm my notion that abolishing all import taxes is bad…very bad. I’m also the “Drinks Chair” for the upcoming Embassy Independence Day event. Basically, I’m in charge of making sure Borjomi Water, Pepsi, and Nestle are capable of serving 1,400 thirsty Expats. Also, I’m working on a project proposal to find out what big companies are outsourcing from Georgia and finding and/or funding domestic industries capable of providing the same goods for lower prices. On top of all that, I’m individually working on a business proposal to make the AmCham News magazine (most definitely the best English language source of news in the region) a subscription service. In general, I get to hobnob with lots of important people including all the Ambassadors. Today I’m getting to meet judges from the Supreme Court because I’m writing a judicial reform overview—that’s the fun part of AmCham. But in all honesty, a huge part of my life is spent wasting away in meetings after meetings after meetings. I don’t think I’ve ever been to so many damned meetings in my life. The event planning is definitely the worst as I have to meet with the drink companies, security, embassy, city municipal, and everyone else and their brother too. There are committee meetings, subcommittee meetings, individual meetings, lunch meetings, etc… It’s very sad. But fortunately I’m working for and with the wealthy foreigners so all the meetings are airconditioned—much to Dana’s and Paul’s chagrin.

I’m also helping out at a new NGO called World Experience for Georgia. The idea behind the NGO is to bring international expertise to Georgia to help resolve some of their bigger issues. The two projects we are currently focusing on is the Value Added Tax system with regards to electricity and anti-monopolies/Gazprom. Dana’s working there full time, so basically I’ve just been helping her and have started creating a website for them.

And last but not least, I’ve also been asked to write for “The Messenger” which is the national English language newspaper. It’s weird, but whenever they send me “on assignment” they introduce me as their new journalist and I always feel embarrassed. I’m not a journalist! But I can read and write grammatical English, and I guess that’s good enough for Tbilisi. I’m not complaining too much, because they send me off to non-Tbilisi places to meet interesting people. Just a few days ago they sent me to Rustavi which is fairly close to Tbilisi in kilometers, but definitely not in mentality—it’s the quintessential Soviet factory town...it reminded me of Russia. There I met with CiDA, a local NGO that’s fighting corruption and trying to foster some sort of civic awareness. Getting them national publicity, even if it’s in my embarrassingly unjournalistic words is good service and I’m happy to do it.

The point is, I’ve been working so much that it’s starting to pile up. There’s any number of things to do here if you’re willing to work for free—“free” being the key word in that sentence.

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