Always moving on to pastures new

As a young woman, Nicole Kubli would never have dreamt that at the age of 50 she would be the assistant of the Head of Human Resources at ETH Zurich. 30 years ago, she was a newly qualified medical practice assistant. Unlike her colleagues who went to work in doctors' practices, she began her working life at the Institute of Behavioural Sciences at ETH. "For me, it was an entirely new world." This was not least because of the obvious passion felt by the researchers, she says. "I had not met many people before who so lived for their work."

For nine years she supported the researchers there with their complex psychophysiological human trials, and then the professor retired. Unlike most ETH staff who stay in their job when the boss retires, Kubli, who was then 29, wanted to try something new. A few months later she transferred to the office of the Solid State Physics Laboratory. "I liked the fact that so many people from all over the world were carrying out research there." And some of them came to her with some very mundane concerns, such as the one who asked where he could get a hole in his trousers repaired. It was things like that that often made her smile: "I liked the fact that the atmosphere was so relaxed." But not for long. In this job, too, there was a change of boss in 1999 due to retirement, and once again she voluntarily cleared her desk.

"This time I wanted a job where the boss was younger and wasn't going to retire in the foreseeable future," she recalls. In the HR department, she struck lucky. Her previous work at the coal face with researchers is useful to her in her present job. "I understand both sides very well – the researchers and the admin people." If a professor gives her an invoice which is not properly filled in, Kubli is relaxed about it, she says. "Scientists concentrate on their projects, not on paperwork."

From office chair to saddle

Nicole Kubli was never just comfortable working in administration. Her big passion is horses and wild west riding. Every day after work and at the weekends, she and her husband ride their horses. In 2004 she even turned her passion into a part-time job by training to become a qualified riding therapist. Now, every Friday she works with disabled children at a special school. Kubli says that the results-focused ETH Zurich and the socially-focused special school have some things in common: researchers have to try to get their results published in prestigious journals, and wheelchair users have to try to pull themselves up on to a horse. "Both of them have to perform to the very limit of their capabilities."

And there is about to be another upheaval: her third change of boss. "What happens to me next is in the lap of the gods."