I’m Too Old For This Shit!

Nipped up to Nürenberg yesterday to discuss an outsourcing project with a major customer.

I must admit that, since I gave up sales and entered the brilliant and fascinating world of IT 9 years ago, I rarely had the chance to experience the familiar situation whereby you sit in-front of a customer and try to convince him (or her/it) that whatever you have to offer is even better than sliced bread.

So I actually looked forward to the day and was determined to assert whether I actually missed my previous occupation or not:

1) Getting up at 05:00 is totally uncool!: don’t know about you, but the flesh on MY face invariably only wakes up around 09:30. Sitting on your terrace while consuming your first IV of caffeine at 05:15 is quite interesting though: you can catch various members of the local wildlife doing things you wouldn’t even dream of doing (and I don’t mean the “ghastly neighbours..).

2) Purchasing your train ticket the day-before is cool: my colleague turned up 15 minutes before the scheduled departure time and stood for 8-9 minutes in a queue which was serving 2 (out of 4) counters.

3) Having a BRAIN which only wakes up at 09:30 can be cool: the Deutsche Bahn has banned smoking from its train stations since September 1; including the platforms. Said colleague immediately lit up as soon as we had deposited our rucksacks on the floor. I spent the last few minutes waiting for our train eying the conductor which was standing a mere 2 meters away.

4) Eating a lavish breakfast on a train is absolutely cool: I don’t eat breakfast during the week. Somehow I still can’t get rid of the taste of the porridge Mum used to force-feed me with; neither can I forget the porridge-tasting burps which would then burden me for most of the morning.

Sundays are something altogether: our weekly brunches are legendary and we all fully enjoy the gentle carelessness associated to the absence of school/work.

So what to do at 07:30 if you’ve got 5 hours train ride in front of you?

Simple:

5) Taking souvenir pics in a factory is absolutely uncool: especially if there are signs literally EVERYWHERE warning potential paparazzi of the fate which awaits them. Still, it is rather tempting when your cell-phone has an inbuilt camera. BTW: t’was the above-mentioned colleague once again; not ME!

6) Eating a Double Whopper with Bacon in the DB first class lounge is uncool: especially surrounded by managers slurping Darjeeling.

7) Finding out that each platform has this neat yellow “smoking-allowed” perimeter is cool: so you can smoke if you absolutely need to; but those who don’t want to share your exhalations know where you exactly where you are and can avoid you at leisure.

Getting a phone call from your boss asking you to solve a technical problem once you’re back home is totally *BLEEP*: especially if you can’t benefit from the the wireless LAN which will be present in the ICE you’ll be travelling in because your battery is dead. And you know you won’t be home before 23:00. (Colleague again)

9) Reverse-engineering your laptop’s power plug by breaking off the grounding pin in order to make it German-power-socket-compatible is cool (as long as your power supply never finds itself needing that pin).

10) Finding out that the promised-WLAN is out of order is uncool: especially has you’ve managed to solve your power problem.

11) Connecting yourself via your cell-phone, GPRS and Bluetooth is technically cool: I’m just glad I won’t be the one submitting my colleague’s expense reports!

12) Solving the problem while hurtling through the Black Forest at 200 KMH is “way-out” cool: but see point 11.

13) Arriving back home at 00:10, 19 hours after having originally left the warmth of my mattress is more uncool than you can ever imagine: I’m too old for this shit!