Last Friday, I typed up a little piece, then skipped out for the weekend, which started in fantastic style as I hit the pub for another Friday night of action (having laughs with Stefan, chatting up Susi, having one too many chupitos, etc), and left somewhere around 4am.
Because the week had ended on such a positive, I felt pretty chipper on Saturday morning, and despite the late hour I'd been out the night before, by 9.30am was enjoying a nice morning having a coffee and listening to a Chick Corea/Bobby McFerrin Mozart Sessions CD, which happens to be bloody brilliant. I'm not a particular fan of either of those two, but this little disc put me in a nice mood.
That mood continued through the rest of the weekend, which did not include any further trips to the local; one has to remain sensible about these things, eh?
Monday morning, I had to meet my local chimney sweep, who doesn't actually come to sweep the chimney (I don't have one), but instead checks the emissions from the fixtures in my apartment. I wish I could explain this better, but basically from 7.30 to 7.40am I let some guy dressed in black into my place, he stood next to the hot water heater for the entire 10 minutes, gave me an "Alles klar," then left, allowing me to head off to work.
Things didn't go so wonderfully at work, as two key members of my team were off sick. This was to be a week of heavy preparation for the project which starts the 26th of March. My technicians were in the UK for some intensive training. Meanwhile, I was hoping to get the materials ordered, the warehouse set up, the systems installed, and also host the customer for a brief inspection of the facility later in the week.
I had one of those really busy days where nothing really got done, which obviously creates an amount of frustration. Thus, I found myself back in the pub Monday evening, where I got to excitedly, perhaps dynamically, tell my buddy John how much I enjoyed the Mozart sessions disc he'd made for me. During the conversation, the barmaid Nadie took my Rock Again Bush compilation and popped it in the pub's CD player. John and I proceeded to listen to both discs over the next couple of hours, and though it was a pretty quiet night, I ended staying rather late chatting with Nadie.
Tuesday, I spent most of the day with a colleague from the UK, hammering out the financial process for the program. I was expecting the return of my materials manager and my IT guy, but both were apparently still sick and unable to come to work. I appreciate health and wellness, but a problem we tend to have in this repair facility is a 15% sickness rate. Those are almost bubonic plague numbers, and it makes it incredibly frustrating to accomplish anything, let alone a notebook computer repair program. The significance of these two guys was tremendous; we had to have our initial stocking order placed to allow for delivery and put away. The IT guy had to set up all the systems and hardware before my English co-manager showed up on Wednesday to help set up the shop floor control system.
By 6pm Tuesday evening, I had no idea if we had parts on order, systems in house or anything. I was so mentally exhausted (and physically, for that matter), that I left the office, told myself I'd go clear my head and hope like hell things were better on Wednesday morning. My customer was coming on Thursday, so if Wednesday didn't go well, I'd be absolutely fucked for their visit.
After briefly contemplating what it would feel like to jump in front of the U-Bahn, I wisely elected to actually board the train, and got myself back to Bornheim. I stopped off in the pub to have a little dinner, and ended up watching part of a cricket match. I know almost nothing about cricket, but at least it took my mind off all the pressing concerns I had.
Wednesday morning came quickly, but I felt somewhat better. My mood improved when I saw the IT guy out on the line installing systems, swearing the whole time. Things improved again when the materials manager showed up, and we got the initial stocking order placed with the vendor. In a period of two hours, I had parts on order, packaging headed my way, and a set up to show my customer.
Duncan showed up around 1pm. He's the program manager for the same account, but out of the UK. He also developed the control system that we use for the operation. With his arrival, I finally felt like we were going to be able to make this happen. Perhaps it's not going quite the way I'd like it to, but that's pretty much the story of my life anyway.
We grabbed a couple of beers together at his hotel after work, where we met our customers, who had just arrived from Brussels. The engineer is Spanish, and my counterpart (who I've already mentioned has a techno band and loads of earrings) is Flemmish. We had another quick beer together, then I hooked it back to Frankfurt; it was karaoke night at my pub.
(Pause while you all have time to ask yourselves, "did Bryan just write it's karaoke night?")
Nah. Wednesday night is indeed karaoke night, and it's a complete joke. But, it's my local. My kebap guy got up and absolutely butchered a Robbie Williams song. Another man did a reasonable job with "My Way," but it's just all part of it, really. I joked with Tom the barman about how ridiculous it really was, and we agreed that soon we'd have to get together and hammer out a couple of tunes on the guitar. Or, perhaps we'd lock the MC into the men's toilet and prevent the event from happening.
It probably wasn't the best idea to have a couple of whiskeys on top of the pints, but "oops, oh well." I said to myself as I woke up an hour late Thursday morning. I barely made my train, and got into the office 15 minutes before my customers showed up. I was nervous, but knew that if they were unhappy, they'd certainly let me know straight away, the engineer particularly.
"We're impressed," was the statement both of them made 20 minutes later after we'd walked through the repair area. True, it was only floor space, some esd mat covered benches, and an empty stock room, but the customer was pleased. Result. Relief.
The engineer was somewhat bored for the next 6 hours, but Manuella and I had loads to discuss. SOW, invoicing process, materials returns, call centers, etc. Most of this is hanging together by a thread, so I've got a long long way to go, but at least it's going in the right direction. I'm getting it done, even if it's taking just about everything I've got to make it so.
I was pretty psyched up by mid afternoon, only to get a bit of bad news minutes after the customer left to drive back home. Manuella co-manages the program with a colleague who was still in Belgium. He informed me of a process change that had financial consequences, tons of risk, and gave me the impression that he was going to have to delay the start of the program once again.
My nicotine and caffeine intake at the present moment is just shy of "see you in the hospital in a few days," and with the jolting information I'd received, I was suddenly thinking that I'd be in the emergency room within hours. But, I consulted with my colleague, and the account exec (who also happened to be in Weiterstadt) and with some quick thinking, we've got some solutions, and furthermore, are still set to go live on March 26th for notebook repair in this facility.
Today has been a flash of frantic calls, quick decisions, and about 40 cups of coffee. In fact, everything that you've just read took me about 10 minutes to type up.
Once again, it's Friday afternoon, and the weekend beckons. For the second year in a row, I will miss the Greenville Ave celebrations of St Patrick's in Dallas, and for the second year in a row, that's going to be ok. I'll miss the cutting up, the burgers, the ping pong tourney (a new tradition in the making) and the kilt, but my own local has plenty of debauchery planned, and I'm certainly counting myself in.
Enjoy your own celebrations, whether it be Fallas or St Pat's.
Keep the faith
bryan
sountrack
The Alarm - Declaration
Nitzer Ebb - Join in the Chant
Carter USM - Lean On Me I Won't Fall Over
Cameo - Word Up
No comments:
Post a Comment