Small Temple, a Shrine
What a hectic week. I am glad that it is over. Monday morning started with me going to city centre to drop off my slacks (I hate that word) at the dry cleaners and also picked up a bouquet of flowers for Helmi’s birthday. I set out everything on Helmi’s desk, as he wasn’t there yet. There were the flowers, a bottle of cognac, a card, and an apple pie. I ate a pie for breakfast to make sure they were OK, but I think a little more cinnamon is in order next time. I also gave two pies to Mari, one to Johannes, and one to Elvira, our department secretary. Everyone seemed to like it, albeit a bit different from German pastries. Pie as Americans or the British know it, is not a normal German thing. I worked on my presentation a little more on Monday at work to try to bring it to completion. I was 90 percent there by the end of the day. I tweaked it a bit more at home on Monday night and went to bed relatively early.
Tuesday I had a short meeting with my fellow presenters, Jürgen and Christian, to go over our presentations. I stuck to more of a simplistic overview, given that I only had 45 minutes to deliver. Jürgen had something like 49 slides for the same amount of time. His seemed to be a bit too busy for someone to follow well enough to understand it. We usually burn all the presentations on CDs and distribute them to the participants, so the Japanese can review them later and gain a better understanding. After meeting with them, I decided I should add a couple of slides showing our project flow map to tie our engineering process into it. I spoke with my chef, Jens, at home to ask him to go over my presentation as he has access to our network there. I had to run home real quick to be there to receive my new Camper boots. I tried them on and decided to wear them. I later went to get a birthday card for Mari at Karstadt. I found one that was a take on Gustav Klimt’s “kiss” with two kitties instead of humans. She likes art nouveau and kitties, so I felt it to be perfect. I went back to work and finished the day trying to fine tune my presentation. I went to bed fairly early again on Tuesday night.
Wednesday I had to pick up some flowers for Mari in the city centre for her Birthday. They put together a nice arrangement with the base color orange. It worked out well because She also likes orange. I got to work and set the flowers up in a vase and gave them to her with a hug and kiss on the cheek. I finished my presentation by early afternoon, deciding that anything more would be too much. I received an email from Jens telling me that he went through it and felt it was well done and he had no changes. After all, he was supposed to author our process, but had done nothing. For the rest of day I worked on a really heavy duty machine concept for Tongi University in China. I had promised to work this analysis into this week with the goal of having a go, no-go answer for our department leader by Thursday night. He was in China visiting customers and was to visit with the Tongi people on Friday. I was hoping to get some better information from the motor manufacturer to enable me to have more security with my feasibility answer. The information never came. This is what is called “seat of your pants engineering”. If we get the order, I hope my assumptions were correct that I used to come to my conclusion, if not, I am fucked. I went through my presentation with Mari, Helmut, and Norbert in the conference room. It ran 20 minutes and they all had some constructive critiques for me. Mari suggested that I try to breathe more life into it, as it was mostly text and is fairly dry subject matter. They also suggested that I add some drawings to spice it up a bit. I left work with only minutes to spare to pick up my pants at the dry cleaners. I went home, had some dinner and ironed my shirt in preparation for the next day. Went to bed early again.
I got ready for the day and got to work at about 8:15, with just enough time to drop my shit and get to the conference room. Uwe was there and told me that I didn’t have to be there for the whole day if I didn’t want to. So, I decided to go back to my office and add the drawings to my presentation. I ate lunch in the cafeteria real quick like and got prepared to do battle. I always get nervous; call it stage fright, when I am to give a presentation. The meet and greet part of the process is always fun. It is traditional Asian business etiquette to give and receive business cards with both hands and to study the card, not just throw it in your pocket, and never put them in your back pocket. That basically means you want them to kiss your ass and that you could care less about them and who they are. The exchange is difficult because you sort of need an extra hand.
This group of Japanese men was specialized in project management and operations. They were sent here to review our processes. One of them was repeating my name out loud and then told me that my last name sounds phonetically like “small temple” or “shrine” in Japanese. He wrote out the Chinese characters for me and gave it to me. That set me totally at ease with the situation. I delivered my presentation without pause, and with my nerves at ease, I was able to put more feeling into it. I liked being able to do that. I estimate that I spoke for 30 minutes and then answered questions for another 30. It was a good exchange and I felt that I had done a good job. We finished our session and made plans to meet later for dinner. I went back to my office and wrote the email to the department manager regarding the concept I had been working on for him. I gave him a positive answer, but with a few cover your ass statements. Jürgen came to get me and we left to go to dinner.
I ended up sitting right next to the group leader of the Japanese guys. He had lived also in Germany for many years, but was now living back in Japan. He spoke very good German and also English very well. He was curious about me and my history with the company. I went outside with him for a smoke and had some more philosophical discussions. He asked me what my opinion of them buying us, and whether or not I had thought about Japan. Uh-oh, I’m not sure if he was asking if had thought about moving there, or just about my opinion of the Japanese. I expressed an interest in the possibilities of moving around within the company, as they also produce analysis equipment for blood, environmental, chemical and pharmaceutical. I told him that eventually I would like to get into some sort of research oriented work. I felt that I bonded with him on both a personal level and also professionally.
I’m not sure whether or not these guys are looking to find people for them, as they are all mostly slightly higher level managers either here in Germany, or in Japan. I am hoping that I will be discovered and relieved of the shitty job I have now and be moved to a management level position somewhere else. Thursday’s experience gave me a better perspective of the Japanese, that they can be friendly, and therefore a more optimistic outlook on the future. The first group I had presented to was not so friendly, and now that I have had a contrasting situation, I can better understand why the first was so difficult. The first meeting was difficult because there was a lot of pride and some ego involved. We had presented our design which had competed against theirs before they bought us out. We are no longer allowed to sell that particular product, until such time that it meets their criteria. We are allowed to continue our development, under close supervision. I still have work for a while apparently. I am currently working on a project for Audi and the development of the next generation machine at the same time.
After finishing our dinner together, they all went back to their hotel. Jürgen brought me back to work to get my bike. I called Mani to find out whether he was still at the Ratskeller. He had just left, but wanted to have a beer with me, so I told him I would meet him there in ten minutes. We closed the place after having about four beers each. We mostly talked about our experiences with moving overseas. He had moved to the states at the same time I was moving to German. He mentioned something that I had not thought about. My work permit states my company name which hasn’t really existed anymore for about a month now. I will probably have to re-apply with the new company name. At which point I can probably ask about how to go about changing my name in my German documentation. I got home a little after one in the morning and went to bed, drunk.
I got up yesterday with a relatively light hangover, but a hangover nonetheless. I went to work and Heike was there. We chatted quite a bit about the events of the past few weeks at work and also some personal stuff. I mentioned about the name change thing, and she mentioned something that I had read somewhere. The German authority has a lot of restrictions on birth names and hyphenated last names. They usually push for people to have blatantly male or female names. They also have tendency to assign Herr (Mr.) and Frau (Ms.) to people according to the first name’s gender, even if the gender marker doesn’t match. So, theoretically if I change my name to Christine Joan without changing the gender marker, I will be addressed as Frau blah-blah. Cool! I showed her the pictures that Petra had taken last weekend at Linda’s. I went home feeling very tired, the combination of the hangover and all the stress had taken its toll on me.
Linda called and we chatted for a few minutes. She suggested I take nice hot bath, which I did. I had bought a bath bomb at Lush last year, but never used it. I broke it out last night. Once you drop it in the water, it fizzes like an alka-seltzer and releases all kinds of good stuff into the bath water. It was very soothing, if a little too hot. My forehead was sweating when I got out of the tub. I felt so relaxed and was ready to go to bed. So I did.
I will take the train later to meet Linda in NI to go to Ffm to return my boots and buy some Bembles for Sandi back in the states. Linda tried to convince me to wear makeup today and therefore go totally feminine into Ffm. I am still undecided. We will meet Chloe there. On the one hand, when I am not wearing makeup, I feel more comfortable because there isn’t the pressure to pass. But it is also easier to shop for feminine things while wearing makeup and looking more female. I look very gender neutral when not wearing makeup, not displaying so many clues. I know why she is encouraging me, I need to build my confidence in public. I would definitely feel more confident if I had better clothes, which I need to either make or buy. I want to look for a casual winter jacket today. I should probably start to get ready to go. The urban beautification process takes a bit of time. I think I will wear makeup and put my hair into a bun. Wish me luck. I’ll give report tomorrow. Ciao!
Tuesday I had a short meeting with my fellow presenters, Jürgen and Christian, to go over our presentations. I stuck to more of a simplistic overview, given that I only had 45 minutes to deliver. Jürgen had something like 49 slides for the same amount of time. His seemed to be a bit too busy for someone to follow well enough to understand it. We usually burn all the presentations on CDs and distribute them to the participants, so the Japanese can review them later and gain a better understanding. After meeting with them, I decided I should add a couple of slides showing our project flow map to tie our engineering process into it. I spoke with my chef, Jens, at home to ask him to go over my presentation as he has access to our network there. I had to run home real quick to be there to receive my new Camper boots. I tried them on and decided to wear them. I later went to get a birthday card for Mari at Karstadt. I found one that was a take on Gustav Klimt’s “kiss” with two kitties instead of humans. She likes art nouveau and kitties, so I felt it to be perfect. I went back to work and finished the day trying to fine tune my presentation. I went to bed fairly early again on Tuesday night.
Wednesday I had to pick up some flowers for Mari in the city centre for her Birthday. They put together a nice arrangement with the base color orange. It worked out well because She also likes orange. I got to work and set the flowers up in a vase and gave them to her with a hug and kiss on the cheek. I finished my presentation by early afternoon, deciding that anything more would be too much. I received an email from Jens telling me that he went through it and felt it was well done and he had no changes. After all, he was supposed to author our process, but had done nothing. For the rest of day I worked on a really heavy duty machine concept for Tongi University in China. I had promised to work this analysis into this week with the goal of having a go, no-go answer for our department leader by Thursday night. He was in China visiting customers and was to visit with the Tongi people on Friday. I was hoping to get some better information from the motor manufacturer to enable me to have more security with my feasibility answer. The information never came. This is what is called “seat of your pants engineering”. If we get the order, I hope my assumptions were correct that I used to come to my conclusion, if not, I am fucked. I went through my presentation with Mari, Helmut, and Norbert in the conference room. It ran 20 minutes and they all had some constructive critiques for me. Mari suggested that I try to breathe more life into it, as it was mostly text and is fairly dry subject matter. They also suggested that I add some drawings to spice it up a bit. I left work with only minutes to spare to pick up my pants at the dry cleaners. I went home, had some dinner and ironed my shirt in preparation for the next day. Went to bed early again.
I got ready for the day and got to work at about 8:15, with just enough time to drop my shit and get to the conference room. Uwe was there and told me that I didn’t have to be there for the whole day if I didn’t want to. So, I decided to go back to my office and add the drawings to my presentation. I ate lunch in the cafeteria real quick like and got prepared to do battle. I always get nervous; call it stage fright, when I am to give a presentation. The meet and greet part of the process is always fun. It is traditional Asian business etiquette to give and receive business cards with both hands and to study the card, not just throw it in your pocket, and never put them in your back pocket. That basically means you want them to kiss your ass and that you could care less about them and who they are. The exchange is difficult because you sort of need an extra hand.
This group of Japanese men was specialized in project management and operations. They were sent here to review our processes. One of them was repeating my name out loud and then told me that my last name sounds phonetically like “small temple” or “shrine” in Japanese. He wrote out the Chinese characters for me and gave it to me. That set me totally at ease with the situation. I delivered my presentation without pause, and with my nerves at ease, I was able to put more feeling into it. I liked being able to do that. I estimate that I spoke for 30 minutes and then answered questions for another 30. It was a good exchange and I felt that I had done a good job. We finished our session and made plans to meet later for dinner. I went back to my office and wrote the email to the department manager regarding the concept I had been working on for him. I gave him a positive answer, but with a few cover your ass statements. Jürgen came to get me and we left to go to dinner.
I ended up sitting right next to the group leader of the Japanese guys. He had lived also in Germany for many years, but was now living back in Japan. He spoke very good German and also English very well. He was curious about me and my history with the company. I went outside with him for a smoke and had some more philosophical discussions. He asked me what my opinion of them buying us, and whether or not I had thought about Japan. Uh-oh, I’m not sure if he was asking if had thought about moving there, or just about my opinion of the Japanese. I expressed an interest in the possibilities of moving around within the company, as they also produce analysis equipment for blood, environmental, chemical and pharmaceutical. I told him that eventually I would like to get into some sort of research oriented work. I felt that I bonded with him on both a personal level and also professionally.
I’m not sure whether or not these guys are looking to find people for them, as they are all mostly slightly higher level managers either here in Germany, or in Japan. I am hoping that I will be discovered and relieved of the shitty job I have now and be moved to a management level position somewhere else. Thursday’s experience gave me a better perspective of the Japanese, that they can be friendly, and therefore a more optimistic outlook on the future. The first group I had presented to was not so friendly, and now that I have had a contrasting situation, I can better understand why the first was so difficult. The first meeting was difficult because there was a lot of pride and some ego involved. We had presented our design which had competed against theirs before they bought us out. We are no longer allowed to sell that particular product, until such time that it meets their criteria. We are allowed to continue our development, under close supervision. I still have work for a while apparently. I am currently working on a project for Audi and the development of the next generation machine at the same time.
After finishing our dinner together, they all went back to their hotel. Jürgen brought me back to work to get my bike. I called Mani to find out whether he was still at the Ratskeller. He had just left, but wanted to have a beer with me, so I told him I would meet him there in ten minutes. We closed the place after having about four beers each. We mostly talked about our experiences with moving overseas. He had moved to the states at the same time I was moving to German. He mentioned something that I had not thought about. My work permit states my company name which hasn’t really existed anymore for about a month now. I will probably have to re-apply with the new company name. At which point I can probably ask about how to go about changing my name in my German documentation. I got home a little after one in the morning and went to bed, drunk.
I got up yesterday with a relatively light hangover, but a hangover nonetheless. I went to work and Heike was there. We chatted quite a bit about the events of the past few weeks at work and also some personal stuff. I mentioned about the name change thing, and she mentioned something that I had read somewhere. The German authority has a lot of restrictions on birth names and hyphenated last names. They usually push for people to have blatantly male or female names. They also have tendency to assign Herr (Mr.) and Frau (Ms.) to people according to the first name’s gender, even if the gender marker doesn’t match. So, theoretically if I change my name to Christine Joan without changing the gender marker, I will be addressed as Frau blah-blah. Cool! I showed her the pictures that Petra had taken last weekend at Linda’s. I went home feeling very tired, the combination of the hangover and all the stress had taken its toll on me.
Linda called and we chatted for a few minutes. She suggested I take nice hot bath, which I did. I had bought a bath bomb at Lush last year, but never used it. I broke it out last night. Once you drop it in the water, it fizzes like an alka-seltzer and releases all kinds of good stuff into the bath water. It was very soothing, if a little too hot. My forehead was sweating when I got out of the tub. I felt so relaxed and was ready to go to bed. So I did.
I will take the train later to meet Linda in NI to go to Ffm to return my boots and buy some Bembles for Sandi back in the states. Linda tried to convince me to wear makeup today and therefore go totally feminine into Ffm. I am still undecided. We will meet Chloe there. On the one hand, when I am not wearing makeup, I feel more comfortable because there isn’t the pressure to pass. But it is also easier to shop for feminine things while wearing makeup and looking more female. I look very gender neutral when not wearing makeup, not displaying so many clues. I know why she is encouraging me, I need to build my confidence in public. I would definitely feel more confident if I had better clothes, which I need to either make or buy. I want to look for a casual winter jacket today. I should probably start to get ready to go. The urban beautification process takes a bit of time. I think I will wear makeup and put my hair into a bun. Wish me luck. I’ll give report tomorrow. Ciao!
posted by Christine Cormier @ 11:25 AM
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