And so I started working for VSO in Dhaka. I think I'd forgotten what it's like to work in an office with decent computers, a network, an Internet connection that mostly works, and above all else, air conditioning. Oh it just changes your world does air conditioning. You can quite happily spend hours in the office with your colleagues and the Internet if the AC is working and you know how hot and humid it is outside. I'm sure the novelty will wear off in a few weeks but for now I'm loving it.

What then am I doing when I'm not pondering the delights of an air conditioned environment? I essentially have 2 areas to cover for which I'm basically entirely responsible and autonomous. The first is a review of VSO Bangladesh's knowledge management system which was really designed and set up by 2 previous Dutch volunteers based in the VSO office last year. This covers a database in which volunteers etc. can put documents they've written or acquired that they think could of use to others as well as the resource room which is basically a small library that people can borrow books and audio-visual things from. It does go a little beyond this to other sources of information and systems but these are the 2 main things as far as most people are concerned.

The second area I'm covering is what we call short interventions. These are short projects where I (or another volunteer) provide support or advice to another partner NGO other than the one we normally work for. While volunteers are brought in to work on a specific set of problems or questions, there can sometimes be other issues that arise that can fall outside these boundaries. Sometimes the volunteer can deal with them directly, but often they require skills that the volunteer in situ may not necessarily possess, or time that they just don't have. There may of course be another volunteer who does have the time and skills to do the work, and that's what a short intervention is. Ideally the existing volunteer population would cover these requests but in practice they just don't have the time to leave their own placements for a week or 2 to work for someone else. The solution that seemed to work well last year with the 2 Dutch volunteers was to have a volunteer attached to the VSO office who could work for whichever organisation needed them and hence wouldn't be neglecting their own placement obligations. Currently that volunteer is me, and it's basically like being a consultant again!

In some ways my first week was spent doing the usual time consuming rubbish that everyone goes through before they can actually start doing something productive. In my case there weren't really any administrative hoops to jump through as I'm already on file with VSO and they just pay my monthly allowance in cash each month and I sign a receipt. The real time waster was that usual suspect IT. My computer wasn't delivered until the end of the week so I just used my laptop to work. This was fine as I had all the tools I needed, but it took a few days of tinkering to get my network connections to work normally, and as for printing… well that's always the biggest problem as far as I can tell in any organisation regardless of how well resourced or techno-savvy they are. It was kind of the same at IBM and that was a company that sold, installed and managed printing solutions as a line of business!

The funniest thing about my first week though was how normal it all was. You see, while I've never worked for VSO I have been working with them since October 2003 and so know all the staff, what they do and how they are. They of course all know me and mostly understand what work I do, so there wasn't that strange period of trying to work out who does what and getting to know a bunch of strangers. The one thing that was new, and is the same anywhere, is where on earth they keep information. There are a number of servers with loads of folders and files, and basically it's a bit of a shambles. Ironically, I could and probably will argue that this sort of situation comes under the remit of my knowledge management work so I may ask to be unleashed on some internal organisational points as well! I think I'll take that one slowly at first and test the water a bit, but I know I have the support of Mike our resident IT volunteer.

Putting aside the first few days of not really being operational, and the obvious improvement in my working conditions, I really enjoyed my first week at work with VSO. The work I've been given is very varied not only in terms of the organisations I'll be working with (both VSO and its partner NGO's) but also intellectually. So far I've received requests to look at how a lawyer's association manages its case files, provide training on PowerPoint and Excel, design an appropriate strategic planning process for an organisation that's never done it before, possibly developing 2 web sites, review a management training course and put together a video about a study tour to Uganda! While some of these may never actually go anywhere or just represent a few days work, there are a few that look really interesting and could go to the very core of how the organisation operates which always makes me feel like I'm doing something important. And even if that doesn't come off there's still the fun of putting a film together which I've never done before!