At the start of another new year, please allow me, as in previous years, to convey my very best wishes to you. May this year bring you satisfaction at work and fulfilment in your personal lives.

I hope that you will continue to respect others in your work, with an added touch of kindness from time to time for those who need it most. But don’t be afraid of being kind to yourself as well: we can’t always be on the top of our game 366 days of the year (this being a leap year of course)! If you feel the need, don’t hesitate to get advice from one of the many CERN support services, as this is exactly what they are there for.

Don’t forget to watch out for behaviour that doesn’t seem to comply with the Organization’s Code of Conduct and don’t hesitate to talk about it with the person in question.

I hope that a spirit of openness and sharing between colleagues will continue to feed your creativity and lead to innovative solutions that will keep us at the cutting edge of our field.

Differences of opinion give us the opportunity to bounce ideas off each other and to advance our knowledge and skills. We should aim to promote diversity in our Organization and to adopt an inclusive approach in our daily lives.

Moreover, if you manage to top all of that with a bit of humour, everyday life will be nicer and more relaxed!

I hope that 2020 will be a fruitful and enriching year, full of pleasant surprises, for you and your loved ones!

Pierre Gildemyn

If you’d like to comment on any of my articles or suggest a topic that I could write about, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at Ombuds@cern.ch.