Help!

A day in the life

Disclaimer: this is purely FICTIONAL.

Except the facts. They're facts.

/

Really, he was honoured to have been chosen for this role. He knew it was because someone became sick and had to return home prematurely and outside of their usual rotation. But he worked his butt off, was always obedient, had always good marks, did not once fell out of the norm. He was aware that him and his family being from Taiwan did not help his career in diplomatic services, the system automatically being suspicious and surely, his family and his performance were being more scrutinized than that of his peers.

But here he was. As a delegate for the Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations in New York fucking City.

It was a massive sign of trust that they gave him the file of humanitarian help, but he would have wished for a tad bit more assistance during his first week and with such a massive portfolio. For example where to find meeting rooms.

The United Nations Headquarter (UNHQ) was a bleeding maze, all meeting rooms were in the basement. And how on earth did he end up in the Café Austria again?!

He cursed under his breath and looked at his notes. Conference Room 4. There was no directions for room 4 anywhere. Any longer and he would be late to the briefing of the UN Special Envoy for Syria on his latest journey to the country.

With a sigh, he just turned to the next person who walked past him. For a split second he was wondering if the men was working for China as well as he was Asian and Eddy certainly didn't knew all his colleagues yet but then he was too unsure to ask, too many nationalities running around the UN to guess.

"I am so sorry, but do you know where Conference Room 4 is?"

"You have to go through that door left of the Café Austria and then you're in the Conference Centre. Room 4 is just at the end. You can't miss it. Maybe next time use the entrance next to the General Assembly that's quicker than making your way through the gift shops and tourists."

"Thank you", Eddy rushed out and was off.

When he got inside, he immediately felt awkward. Damnit, why did no one told him the proper protocol for events like this?

The room had a square seating arrangement with two rows but then also chairs leaning against the walls, space for a solid 60 people. If it would have been up to Eddy he would have just sat on one of them in the back but then, he also represented China, so he assumed that he probably was meant to sit somewhere on a table with the display showing his country. Those meetings never had a strict order for countries, some genius or algorithm at UNHQ always coming up with it.

Before he could panic any further, an usher asked him where he was from and then placed him in the first row of tables, making 'China' appear on the display.

Eddy was mostly here to take notes and see if the Special Envoy had anything new to say but he was too new himself and not deep enough in the topic to ask too many questions and Peking didn't order him to do so.

Geir Pedersen was a sober man, not talking around too much but letting them know about his latest talks on the grounds and repeating the latest information the UN had gathered from their own sources. Nothing of that was new to Eddy, most of the things he had read about in the files on his desk or from his own embassy in Damascus.

"Did the hospitals, schools and refugee camps who registered on the deconfliction list notice any positive or negative advantages on doing so?"

Eddy had started to space out when Pedersen opened the floor to questions. He knew that voice from somewhere though and perked up to see who had spoken.