hot air
I haven’t had much time in the last couple of weeks to write anything. Blah! What with the Japanese presentations and my sister coming here to drive me crazy. I am finally able to get some rest this weekend.
I sat through the two days of presentations with the Japanese feeling bored and uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable because my business unit manager and the company president were acting like complete idiots. I haven’t made up my mind whether it was their arrogance or their lack of competence that made me more embarrassed. They pushed discussions that the Japanese were clearly not ready to have at that point in time. The leader of the JPs told us their/our number one priority is quality, and second to that is cost. The soon to be former president began to argue that cost should be first. It seemed like a good simple statement from Yone, one to ponder. It’s good to have one’s priorities in order. I was watching my president commit career suicide right before my very eyes. Good for him, he really is an incompetent nincompoop. I hope the JPs can turn us around.
My friend and colleague Tasos made into town for the presentations. I miss him a bit, as he is really one of the few people that I actually feel that I can trust any more in the company. I have designed some new machines for him in the past, one of which was just installed in record time last week. I want to post some pictures of it on my photo blog so you can get an idea of the proportions of the machines I design. I saw Tasos talking with Yone and didn’t think much of it. They both came back into the room and Yone made the comment jokingly that I should move back to Ann Arbor with him. He has been living there for a year now.
My friend and colleague Tasos made into town for the presentations. I miss him a bit, as he is really one of the few people that I actually feel that I can trust any more in the company. I have designed some new machines for him in the past, one of which was just installed in record time last week. I want to post some pictures of it on my photo blog so you can get an idea of the proportions of the machines I design. I saw Tasos talking with Yone and didn’t think much of it. They both came back into the room and Yone made the comment jokingly that I should move back to Ann Arbor with him. He has been living there for a year now.
Tasos drove me and Norbert to the dinner that was planned for the end of our first day of presentations. I was sad at the end of the day because of the idiots I work for, and all the stress they induced in the past week. I felt that I wanted to quit really bad. After dinner Tasos and I dropped Norbert at his car and decided to go for a drink. We went to Cluster; a tiny bar in the Martin’s quarter. I was getting down on the company and told him that I felt that I was going to be left behind in this takeover. He told me that he had mentioned to Yone that I had designed all the new machines that are now in demand. Tasos then reminded me of what Yone said about moving to Ann Arbor, and that he was talking me up with him outside right before he said that. I hope he remembers me.
I gave my presentation on Wednesday, at 8.30a, as scheduled. I opened with a little ditty about my history with the company, and that I have moved back and forth a couple of times now. Dieter W. commented at the end of with “and next is Japan”, which was met with a chuckle from the group. Instead of coffee that morning I had a calming tea that is supposed to help with anxiety and nerves. It seemed to help. I asked at the beginning that everyone hold their questions till the end, and that I would gladly answer them then. I also asked them to stop me if anything I have said is unclear.
As soon as I had hit on the first slide of substance Dieter piped in and opened the door to questions. (the batteries in my wireless keyboard just died-shit!) My half hour presentation turned into an hour thanks to DW arschloch. It went off without a hitch otherwise. All my colleagues complemented me on my performance. A couple of them said that I speak with a comical English dialect. I was just speaking as I normally would speak English without any slang, trying even harder to make my points understood easily by non native English speakers. I realized that my colleagues never hear me speak English anymore since all I normally speak at work is German. I never utter more than a couple of words in English, much less an hour at a time.
Afterwards on Wednesday night Tasos and I went to the Grohe for something to eat and a couple of beers. I showed him my apartment and he consequently had to use the toilet. I realized after I said yeah, that my makeup caddy is on the top of the dryer, shit! No time to hide it. I’m sure he saw it. Plus I had a bunch of sewing stuff hanging around the living room. He noticed my sewing machines in the hall way and asked me if they were mine. I said they were and that I sew also. I told him that the pants and vest that I wore the day before I had made myself. He didn’t mention anymore about it. I am not sure what he is thinking now. He doesn’t know about my transition. I debated on whether or not to tell him now, but decided not to just yet. I somehow think he would be relatively ok with it, though.
Thursday was a quiet day spent trying to calculate bearing lifetimes to answer one of the JPs questions. I tried to go to the train station and buy some tickets to A-dam for Saturday. I got there just in the nick of time to be the last customer. As it turns out there were no more seats left on the trains that we wanted to take, only in the smoking car. I am a smoker, but I don’t want to sit in there for four hours. I went home and checked into renting a car from my car sharing program, but they didn’t have anything good left. I decided I would call the garage first thing Friday to reserve a car. I went to bed really early at 9.30p; feeling totally drained both physically and mentally. The house cleaning would have to wait till morning.
I sat through the two days of presentations with the Japanese feeling bored and uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable because my business unit manager and the company president were acting like complete idiots. I haven’t made up my mind whether it was their arrogance or their lack of competence that made me more embarrassed. They pushed discussions that the Japanese were clearly not ready to have at that point in time. The leader of the JPs told us their/our number one priority is quality, and second to that is cost. The soon to be former president began to argue that cost should be first. It seemed like a good simple statement from Yone, one to ponder. It’s good to have one’s priorities in order. I was watching my president commit career suicide right before my very eyes. Good for him, he really is an incompetent nincompoop. I hope the JPs can turn us around.
My friend and colleague Tasos made into town for the presentations. I miss him a bit, as he is really one of the few people that I actually feel that I can trust any more in the company. I have designed some new machines for him in the past, one of which was just installed in record time last week. I want to post some pictures of it on my photo blog so you can get an idea of the proportions of the machines I design. I saw Tasos talking with Yone and didn’t think much of it. They both came back into the room and Yone made the comment jokingly that I should move back to Ann Arbor with him. He has been living there for a year now.
My friend and colleague Tasos made into town for the presentations. I miss him a bit, as he is really one of the few people that I actually feel that I can trust any more in the company. I have designed some new machines for him in the past, one of which was just installed in record time last week. I want to post some pictures of it on my photo blog so you can get an idea of the proportions of the machines I design. I saw Tasos talking with Yone and didn’t think much of it. They both came back into the room and Yone made the comment jokingly that I should move back to Ann Arbor with him. He has been living there for a year now.
Tasos drove me and Norbert to the dinner that was planned for the end of our first day of presentations. I was sad at the end of the day because of the idiots I work for, and all the stress they induced in the past week. I felt that I wanted to quit really bad. After dinner Tasos and I dropped Norbert at his car and decided to go for a drink. We went to Cluster; a tiny bar in the Martin’s quarter. I was getting down on the company and told him that I felt that I was going to be left behind in this takeover. He told me that he had mentioned to Yone that I had designed all the new machines that are now in demand. Tasos then reminded me of what Yone said about moving to Ann Arbor, and that he was talking me up with him outside right before he said that. I hope he remembers me.
I gave my presentation on Wednesday, at 8.30a, as scheduled. I opened with a little ditty about my history with the company, and that I have moved back and forth a couple of times now. Dieter W. commented at the end of with “and next is Japan”, which was met with a chuckle from the group. Instead of coffee that morning I had a calming tea that is supposed to help with anxiety and nerves. It seemed to help. I asked at the beginning that everyone hold their questions till the end, and that I would gladly answer them then. I also asked them to stop me if anything I have said is unclear.
As soon as I had hit on the first slide of substance Dieter piped in and opened the door to questions. (the batteries in my wireless keyboard just died-shit!) My half hour presentation turned into an hour thanks to DW arschloch. It went off without a hitch otherwise. All my colleagues complemented me on my performance. A couple of them said that I speak with a comical English dialect. I was just speaking as I normally would speak English without any slang, trying even harder to make my points understood easily by non native English speakers. I realized that my colleagues never hear me speak English anymore since all I normally speak at work is German. I never utter more than a couple of words in English, much less an hour at a time.
Afterwards on Wednesday night Tasos and I went to the Grohe for something to eat and a couple of beers. I showed him my apartment and he consequently had to use the toilet. I realized after I said yeah, that my makeup caddy is on the top of the dryer, shit! No time to hide it. I’m sure he saw it. Plus I had a bunch of sewing stuff hanging around the living room. He noticed my sewing machines in the hall way and asked me if they were mine. I said they were and that I sew also. I told him that the pants and vest that I wore the day before I had made myself. He didn’t mention anymore about it. I am not sure what he is thinking now. He doesn’t know about my transition. I debated on whether or not to tell him now, but decided not to just yet. I somehow think he would be relatively ok with it, though.
Thursday was a quiet day spent trying to calculate bearing lifetimes to answer one of the JPs questions. I tried to go to the train station and buy some tickets to A-dam for Saturday. I got there just in the nick of time to be the last customer. As it turns out there were no more seats left on the trains that we wanted to take, only in the smoking car. I am a smoker, but I don’t want to sit in there for four hours. I went home and checked into renting a car from my car sharing program, but they didn’t have anything good left. I decided I would call the garage first thing Friday to reserve a car. I went to bed really early at 9.30p; feeling totally drained both physically and mentally. The house cleaning would have to wait till morning.
posted by Christine Cormier @ 9:55 PM
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