November and my first ever trip to Romania. The timing of this trip meant that I would be away on my wife’s birthday, always a popular move. Caught a cab early to the airport to check in, to learn that I don’t have a reservation any more as Amex have forgotten to confirm it. The BA flight is full and I am not travelling on the 9.40.I call the agents who cannot explain the error, and try to book another flight- I have to arrive that day. They call me back and tell me I can get a seat on TAROM, Romania’s airline, but will not leave until 12.30. They tell me that tickets will not be available until 10.30 at the earliest. I know the landside facilities are marginally better at terminal 1 than terminal 2 so go to buy an expensive coffee. It’s only 8.15 but I can see along the way that some travellers are already patronising the cellars of Mr JD Wetherspoon (an English pub chain for the uninitiated).Terminals 1 and 2 are both fairly miserable places to spend any appreciable amount of time, but I made my coffee last, calling my Romanian contact to rearrange my schedule, and made a few other pressing calls, then walked to terminal 2. Tried the “TAROM” desk (run by an agent), who tell me that plans have changed and that my tickets will be available at the gate. The agent writes out a compliment slip saying “ticket at gate- please give Mr xxx a boarding card”. I remonstrate, not believing that after the events of 9-11 one could get a card on such skimpy authority, but sure enough I am issued with one.Through to airside and eventually called to the gate, and given my ticket at last. Flight leaves on time, and the staff are friendly and the service good. One of the cabin crew is amongst the most beautiful ladies I have ever seen.One thing that surprises me immediately is the similarity between Romanian and Italian. I had assumed that Romanian would have Slavic roots, so I am surprised during the safety briefing when I hear something that sounds much like Italian. (Later I learn that Romania is the only country in that part of Europe to have a language with Latin roots).Anyway, with the time difference I finally land around 6pm. I change some money at the airport, with a guy who had made being miserable a profession, and coming through the gate find my driver with a sign. Things are beginning to go to plan. I am too fanciful I know, and the guy is too young, but in his leather coat, with his heavy, muscled build he looks like he could be a former Securitate (Romanian secret police) agent.The drive in shows a lot of construction work and all the signs of increasing Western influence. It’s still 7 weeks until Romania joins the EU, but the McDonalds, Gaps etc are out in force. The traffic gets very bad as we get closer to the city centre, and I am told that gridlock is a regular feature in Bucharest. I check in at my hotel and unpack in my plastic hotel room. I have a conference call later but there is time for a walk. Armed with a map I take a walk around and see some grand buildings, and a likely candidate for a place to have dinner later.As I turn to make my way back, I pass an older man, busking on his accordion. I have to say that accordions are only slightly lower than bagpipes on the list of musical instruments I hate.Clearly busking involves hustling for money in Bucharest and the man follows me jabbering away in Romanian. Even crossing the road makes no difference. It’s not an everyday occurrence but it’s quite unnerving to be pursued down the street by a Romanian speaking accordionist, though I am also somewhat impressed that with his exertions, and despite his talking and running, he doesn’t miss a beat with the music.Finally I escape. A little further down the road a lady bumps into me without warning (we are walking in the same direction). It seems deliberate and to be honest I immediately check my wallet is still there. She starts talking in Romanian, then Italian and finally some English.She launches into this story about how she is lonely, hasn’t got a boyfriend and would really love to have a drink with a nice kind man like me. I am a bit nonplussed by her directness, and I am definitely not going out for a drink with a strange woman on my wife’s birthday of all days, so I explain I have a call to make. “Don’t worry” she says, “Give me some money and I’ll buy myself a drink while I wait for you”. I must admit that I was a little curious, just wanting to know if the sting was just to get some money or whether she really would wait, but I didn’t want to risk that she really was that keen to have a drink with me, so I rather disingenuously exaggerated the anticipated length of my call. So an hour later I sneak surreptitiously out of my hotel, nervously looking around for Ms Basic Instinct but it’s ok- I’m in the clear. I make my way back to the restaurant, and thankfully Psycho Accordionist has gone too. I enter the restaurant. It’s old, empty, a little faded and I guess quite expensive by local standards but it’s fairly cheap for a Brit.I order in Italian and am understood, though I can’t understand their Romanian, but I get everything I ask for and the food is good, if not always tip-top quality.The next day, and the event I am running is in the hotel. Find the rather dingy conference room and have an interesting day. The management team for Romania and Bulgaria is erudite and their English excellent-it’s an interesting debate.In the evening we are due to be taken to a top restaurant. On the coach on the way we pass many fine buildings- Bucharest has amazing architecture- but the really jaw dropping building is the palace that Nikolai Ceaucescu had under construction just before the communist regime was toppled. It is just immense- and really shows the waste and megalomania that diverted so many resources to satisfy personal pride. I really felt for the long-suffering people at this point.We arrive at the restaurant and my colleagues tell me it’s a place which captures the Bohemian pre-Communist days when Bucharest was a buzzing place. My colleagues talk freely about the communist era, and it’s clear that they view this as a dark interlude between a glittering past and a promising future.After gargantuan platters of mixed starters (including much meat) we are brought another set of platters. As each set of platters is brought the lights are dimmed and the platters are brought by torchlight with some waiters clapping (obviously not those carrying trays or torches) as they come. Labour seems to be cheap as there are tons of staff.These platters dispense with any pretence of vegetables and are exclusively meat. I pop out to call home, and on my return another set of platters is announced. Definitely a carnivore’s delight as we have another set of slabs of meat. Guess this was the land of Dracula.During this course the entertainment begins, and again we have a selection of folk singers, musical groups (again there are many so they can’t be expensive).The acts are introduced by a flamboyant large lady who definitely looks bohemian in her wide brimmed hat and feather boa, who it turns out owns the restaurant. However, one aspect of communism lives on- Ceaucescu was famous for his overlong speeches and she definitely shows his influence in her introductions. Two of her intros were longer than the acts.After the folk group are some folk dancers and then a couple doing Latin dancing. The lady in the Latin couple is wearing a top and skirt containing enough material to perhaps just about make 4 gentlemen’s handkerchiefs.A friend of mine calls these “third party costumes” after the English third party insurance policy, which as my friend says, “covers only the legal minimum”.I don’t know if one of my colleagues has a part in this- if not then what is it about me?- but on finishing Ms Handkerchief makes a bee line for our table and I am immediately offered a dance. After my Prague experience with the floaty dancers I have no desire to waddle around attempting Latin dance after a very attractive lady so remain firm in saying no. She seems a little offended.Overall a great night and a real insight into pre communist Romania with some great colleagues.The next day I catch a cab to the office. Being a cab driver is a grim job in Bucharest. The traffic is congested and the 2km journey takes 25 minutes, commanding a 5 Euro equivalent fare. Don’t know how they make a living.The offices are very swish, and I am shown to a conference room for a series of meetings, where I will spend the day. Around lunchtime my the MDs assistant who has made all the arrangements for me, asks me what I would like for lunch and recommends a takeaway pizza, though she says it may take a while as today is a saint’s day (St Michael and someone else) and for many a public holiday. Well St Michael is clearly the patron saint of cold pizza, as about three hours later in the middle of a meeting I finally receive it. I am the only one who hasn’t eaten so leave it until 5 when the meeting finishes, when I eat a slice of the congealed product and try to give the rest away.About an hour later I catch a cab to my hotel. Again it is a grim experience with gridlock and the 2km takes nearly an hour. If I knew the route I would walk. The extra waiting time means a fare of only 8 Euros, so I tip the guy generously (at my own expense).Can’t face trying to find somewhere else to eat so head for the same restaurant. It’s busier tonight, but I still get “my” table, and another workmanlike meal. One distressing thing about Romania I had was the feeling that everyone was trying to rip me off just a little. This time I got caught out. The currency has recently been revalued, but the note colours had not changed. I paid in cash and my change looked ok, but when I put the notes in my wallet back at the hotel I noticed that they had slipped one in that was the same colour but the old currency, and no longer legal. (Even the hotel got in on the act and added a charge to my bill that I didn’t spot). An early start to the airport, again collected by the Securitate agent. I check in conventionally with a ticket this time, and through security.The moderate rip-off culture strikes again. I change my Romanian currency into Euros. The lady takes my money without a word, and hands me some Euros. No receipt, no comment on exchange rate, not a word, but I can’t argue in Romanian. The flight takes off on time (1401km to London) and I leave Bucharest. I wish Romania well and have made some new friends.
A trip to the US to attend a conference. On the familiar Sunday BA 49 to Seattle, and as there were many of us flying to the same conference, there were many colleagues on the same flight. A relatively uneventful flight (or so I had thought).
Landed about on time, and managed immigration/ baggage control. Aileen, a colleague of mine mentioned that she had booked a car and offered me a ride, which I gratefully accepted. On the way in the cab I realized when taking something from a pocket, that my wallet was missing. I think it had slipped out of a pocket on the plane. I was flat broke with no cards. In fact on one level I was lucky as I normally would be alone- at least here I had friends with resources.
Checked in at the hotel (another colleague using her credit card to guarantee my room) and spent two miserable hours cancelling my credit cards and ordering new ones. Nobody loves you when you have no credit.
Down a few minutes late to join Aileen and the others for dinner. Aileen kindly went to an ATM and drew me out some cash, as well as paying for dinner.
Uneventful Monday, though I spent the first few days finding colleagues I could take cab rides with to conserve my limited cash.- conference interesting, and on Tuesday after returning to the hotel discovered I had two new temporary cards, one from Amex and one from Mastercard.
The Mastercard was decorative- a real design icon- but didn’t work- wonderful. Fortunately the Amex one worked though I could only visit places which accepted it.
The conference was great, with many international groups presenting. I particularly enjoyed the Indian HR team who spiced up their presentation with their own Bollywood song and dance routine- beats Powerpoint.
We also did an exercise involving collecting carabiners (the kind of clips mountaineers use for clipping ropes to themselves etc). Not being a great mountaineer I’m not sure how I will use the six I collected. I’m open to offers.
Conference included a big HR Party, including a band who accompanied many colleagues in a sort of live karaoke. Some of my colleagues should know better, and we had some renderings of various songs which I can only describe as unique.
Another evening and dinner with my colleague Anja. It was a chance to test out my Amex card, and to my relief it was accepted. Before leaving, Anja asked if she could smoke a cigarette outside the restaurant. Anja is not really addicted- she just likes one or two at the end of the day, so we sat outside in the mild evening while she enjoyed her cigarette. I was horrified when she told me she had smoked in her non smoking hotel room- as I had seen a notice threatening a $250 cleaning fee for misdemeanours. (She got away with it.).
As we set outside we were approached by a guy asking for a handout. His story was quite interesting, claiming he had left his wife, kids and mother in law in a car with no fuel, and needed $5 to buy a petrol can. I was able to tell him honestly that I had no cash, so instead he scrounged a cigarette from Anja, at which point the urgency about his family miraculously disappeared.
The last day of the conference was a training day and we had a choice of classes. As we were planning to bring these classes to Europe, my colleagues and I had split up to make sure one person was at each one.
I had chosen a class on consulting skills. Bad decision. The primary tutor (an external guy) was dire. When “Being Monumentally Boring” becomes an Olympic sport I have no doubt where the gold will be going. I was polite and stayed for the whole thing, but the majority voted with their feet and only 6 from 25 remained to the end.
Friday morning was exciting. A meeting for the EMEA HR folks, organised by Albert, the HR Director. Albert always has interesting meetings. We gathered at 7am to catch a series of minibuses, which drove us down to the lakeside. There we boarded a series of seaplanes to take us to the venue. This was a slightly nerve racking experience. If you are used to flying national airlines you are somewhat insulated by the décor and don’t often think too hard about safety. On this plane we were much more aware of the plane’s age and the running repairs. BA it was not.
About 10 of us boarded and we were evidently very tense, and there were many black jokes. Ralf showed a magazine with the headline “The right to die”, and Martin cheerfully pointed out that today was not only Friday the 13th, but that also adding up the date (I didn’t follow the method) made it the unluckiest day for 450+ years. Thanks Martin.
Tension rose as we taxied on the water, and there were some screams as on taking off, a wing strut was hit by a flying goose. I owe Maike an apology- you can get cheese from a goose if you hit it with an airplane (see- “In search of goose cheese”).
Anyway we rose into the dawn with spectacular views over the lakes as we flew into the dawn and made the short flight to Kiana Lodge. Kiana Lodge is a conference venue on another lake, and we landed on the water and taxied to the jetty, disembarking to enjoy the dappled sunlight on the waters.
A great meeting, where we took advantage of the fantastic surroundings and held meetings all around the beautiful grounds. A salmon lunch was followed by a talk by a Native American Indian about the local area, the summer residence for the Native Americans after whom Seattle is named. His words were somewhat disjointed, yet I was aware of the depth of history and tradition which underpinned him. Fascinating.
More buses as we drove to the ferry to sail back to Seattle. On the way we passed a native American Indian gambling resort. I was a little surprised to see this- the state of Washington is quite paternalist and seems to ban any stuff that is fun. Anyway judging by the traffic they were going to have a busy time. Maybe the citizens of Washington rebel at the weekend.
A wonderful ferry ride in a blustery wind and we were back in Seattle. I had expected the meeting to last all day so had booked to fly home on the Saturday, so I was staying the night in downtown Seattle.
I checked in at the Westin and walked down to Pike Place Market by the waterside, looking at the stalls- including the famous fish-throwing stalls. It was too early to eat so I stopped in a bar/restaurant for a beer. The bartender was making a big deal about being Hispanic, and was mocking a waitress who had clearly started that day. At one point he called her over. “Know my favourite song at the moment?” he said. “No” she said. “It’s called ride the white chick” came the reply.
I think he thought it was a cool chat up line. I was thinking more of potential harassment lawsuits.
Dinner in an Italian restaurant, one where the tables are grouped around a central cooking area, and you can see your food being prepared. This gave me the chance to listen to the chef swearing as he cremated my main course.
On the way back I heard the sounds of a blues band coming from a local bar. It sounded good so I went in for a beer. I was engaged in conversation by a slightly drunken guy who claimed to work at the Westin. He was pretty morose as he detailed the unreasonableness of his ex girlfriend who would have nothing to do with him, and his regrets at not seeing his son.
OK, I did come in to listen to the blues, but not the spoken version. Still he had material for a lot of songs.
Next day I walked back towards Pike Place to find somewhere to have breakfast (I hate paying hotel prices).
Found a place that claimed to be a Cajun/ New Orleans restaurant and ordered corned beef hash. This is normally a bland affair but these guys took Cajun very seriously and I felt like I was eating a vindaloo.
I mooched around the downtown area, and was struck by the huge number of down and outs in the centre of the city- very sad to see.
I’m a terrible creature of habit so went back to the first bar I had been to the previous evening. Our Hispanic would-be Lothario was not on duty, but I was privileged to be served by The Most Incompetent Bartender On The Planet.
TMIBOTP was amazing. I would have paid admission to see him. His service was a litany of frustrated customers. He showed fantastic ability to jam up the electronic ordering system to require a reboot. He brought steaks to professed vegetarians, whisky to teetotalers.
I asked him politely after an hour what had happened to my lunch. A few swaggering taps on the touch screen and he was able to announce that he had absolutely nothing in the system, a big problem as even he had enough memory to remember that we had talked about it.
When I came to pay TMIBOTP told me my Mastercard didn’t work, or maybe he couldn’t get it to work, so I had to spend more precious dollars in settling the bill.
A brief walk back to the Westin, and a cab to the airport. Fortunately Seattle normally has a fixed fare from the city centre, so arrived, and having settled the bill with a tip had $2.50 left.
An uneventful flight to Heathrow, and trusty Paul to drive me home. I didn’t have any cash of course so had to write a cheque.
And the wallet? This was a long saga. Some weeks late I received a call from BA- my wallet had been found on the plane and two weeks later courtesy of Fedex I got it back intact, including all my cash.
A month later there might had been a sting in the tail, as someone had obviously tried to buy something with one of my cards. I am so impressed with the identity fraud guys at credit card companies. I travel all over the world, and pay for things in places I’ve never been before, but they still spot the rogue transactions every time. However they figured out that buying tobacco pipes by mail order in Wisconsin would be out of character for me- whether this is because I’ve never smoked, or whether they couldn’t believe I would go to Wisconsin, is maybe a secret they prefer to keep to themselves……………..
This trip occurred in September 2006
Dear all
A trip to Prague to present at an external leadership conference. I normally present on my own but this time was due to present with my colleague Maike.
We landed about the same time, and had agreed to meet and share a taxi.
Coming out of the airport I was immediately struck by the change in the taxis. I had last visited Prague about 9 years previously, when taxis were often beaten up Skodas, there were no seat belts, and the driver rarely spoke anything other than Czech. This time the airport taxis were smart, done out in a corporate brand, and with two young ladies in company jackets directing you to the cars. The taxi driver this time spoke good English.
The ride to the Corinthia Towers was fairly smooth, and it was interesting to see how the city has developed since 1997, including the regulation proliferation of branches of McDonalds, and of course the ubiquitous “Irish bars”. (Not very well known, the O’ Janacek family).
Arrived at the hotel which seemed rather remote, so we decided to eat in the hotel that night. The hotel had more than one restaurant, and we opted for the “Italian”. I’m afraid the Czech version of Italian didn’t quite make it, and I always feel frustrated on signing off a bill that you know is way more than you would pay in a regular restaurant.
Off to my room to make some last changes to the presentation, and ready for the big day.
Breakfast with Maike to discuss the presentation flow (again the hotel’s interpretation of bacon and sausages was interesting…), and off to the conference room.
One thing I need to mention is that I had a major problem on this trip. I am prone to very occasional asthma and also eczema (they seem to go together). I am rarely troubled by the eczema but every couple of years I get a major problem on my feet, such that they completely object to wearing any socks and shoes, and swell up in a mass of sores, etc. This week I was having such an attack, and could not comfortably wear shoes. This is not very helpful in a professional environment as being barefoot is not usually encouraged, so the best compromise was to wear socks and a pair of flip flops which I could slip off when sat at a table. I did explain to the delegates my dilemma- I am sure they thought I was very Silicon Valley.
Our presentation went extremely well and was very well received. I think we often underestimate how groundbreaking is some of the work in our company, and see only what could be better at what we do, whilst underestimating how ground breaking it appears to many companies. It was interesting that stuff we take for granted was considered impressive by many peers.
One other thing which I am sure helped our success was the observance of Gary’s first law of conference speaking.
This states:
· If you want to stand out for the right reasons at a conference, make sure your presentation actually addresses the topics used to advertised your speech.
Obvious, I hear you say, but as a regular speaker I am constantly surprised by senior people who stand up at a conference and give a standard presentation on their company, without addressing any of the topics that people paid money for to hear them discuss. I always structure my agenda around the items that were in the promotional material to drive home the point that I am talking about the things they signed up for. It’s amazing how this single thing can make you stand out so drastically.
Of the seven presentations that day, I would say only two followed this principle.
IN the evening Maike and I had a quick beer and post mortem on the day, and took the bus. The conference organizers had organised to take to an allegedly authentic Mediaeval banquet. We were bused to another hotel, which had a large dining hall at the side, to be welcomed by guys in mediaeval costumes. The evening began with music with some excellent playing on reedy woodwind instruments and drums. One thing I was impressed by was that all three musicians could play all the instruments well so every few songs they would swap roles with no harm to the music- they were excellent players.
If Czech mediaeval food was disgusting and inedible then the chefs are to be praised for their authenticity. Tepid soup, greasy unidentifiable stew with dumplings like bricks, the fresh fruit was OK, (were bananas known in the Mediaeval Czech republic?).
During the meal we had other entertainment. In addition to the musicians there were a trio of attractive young ladies in floaty (presumably traditional) dresses performing Czech dances (I assume they were Czech).
After this there was a loud crash, and some other guys in quasi Mediaeval gear came out and announced that they would be sword fighting. “But where is our queen?” shouted one, and dived into the audience to find a suitably regal person.
Back they came with Maike in tow and she was suitably robed, crowned and enthroned (she looked very regal too).
They then had a series of staged battles which were well choreographed and could have been very dangerous if less skillfully executed.
More nerve-rackingly they proceeded to get two guys and two girls to have fencing matches. The lady’s duel was a little one sided as one lady really didn’t want to hurt anyone, whereas her opponent was much more warlike and quickly won.
The organizers then had the winner of the guys’ duel fence against the winner of the ladies’. They caused some amusement by saying that to even up the physical match the guy would have to fence hopping on one leg. Given his bloodthirsty female opponent I wouldn’t have rated his chances on two legs, so he was swiftly defeated.
The evening moved on to more floaty dancing and at this point I needed the rest room, so I disappeared for a few minutes. When I came back I was subjected to a mean deception. On returning my colleague opposite (European MD of a well known HR outsourcing company) had acquired a very silly looking pirate hat.
“Your turn to wear the silly hat, Gary” he said, and being a good sport I obliged.
What he hadn’t told me was that the floaty ladies were targeting the hat wearers for participating in the folk dancing, and I didn’t realize this until I was approached by a winsome young mediaeval damsel. I don’t know the Czech for “I have bad eczema and my feet are sore” so gave up trying the sign language, and followed her out.
The next three minutes were hardly the most aesthetic in dancing history, as I hobbled around trying to keep up with the sylph. Fred and Ginger it was definitely not, more Beauty and the rheumatic limping rhino, but as any helpful teammate would, the Queen whipped out her mobile phone and took a picture for posterity. Because the light was so dim, the photo isn’t very clear, which is perhaps a mercy for us all.
I should have known, you just can’t trust an outsourcer (or your team mates).
From 2006
A trip to Paris for another HR newcomers’ induction class. Nondescript journey until I arrived at the hotel. Went into the Renaissance in La Defense, walked up to reception and told the lady I had a reservation. She looked at me blankly. I repeated my statement.
“Er, do you speak English please?” she said. “Sure. I have a reservation for two nights.” “Sorry,” she said, ”I am Dutch and I can’t speak French”. I was amazed that a hotel would put a non French speaker on reception in a landmark Parisian hotel.
The course was due to begin next day, so I had a free evening. Off to my regular haunts in Courbevoie for dinner. It was an amazing night. Normally on a sunny evening in Paris the streets and restaurants are full. Tonight was a key world cup game for France. In the qualifying rounds they had played poorly and had to beat Spain (a good team) to go through. My French colleagues were not hopeful.
The streets were deserted and the bars and restaurants mainly empty. It was like a ghost town- I had Paris to myself.
I went to my favourite Chinese restaurant, where I was the only customer.
I was amazed by the change in the teenage kid who served me again. You may recall from my earlier account that he was shy and diffident, but 9 months older he was taller, stockier and had acquired some Parisian swagger.
During the meal they opened the street door because of the heat, and I heard some cheers suggesting that France had scored ( The door had been shut before so I didn’t know that Spain had scored first.)
A great meal and this time they gave me a decorated paper fan instead of a pen.
I walked back to La Defense with not a soul in sight. Walking through the deserted precinct of La Defense I had an amazing experience. Walking down the centre of the precinct I was a long way from the buildings and none of these were residential, but I suddenly heard a deafening cheer and a roar of celebration. I don’t know where it came from, but it seemed as though thousands if not millions of people in their homes, with their windows open, were joining in a city-wide cheer. “Guess France are winning” I thought.
Into my hotel room and switched on the TV just in time to see Zidane, the French captain, score to make it 3-1 to France. Even with the double glazing the community roar was again palpable as it rattled the windows.
Next day notable for subdued hungover Frenchmen and lots of empty packets of aspirins.
Successful class, despite day 2 where the air conditioning malfunctioned and temperatures in the room topped 40 Celsius.
Nightmare trip to Charles de Gaulle. Maybe it’s just that I use it so frequently, but I expect to have a bad time and am rarely disappointed. The taxi driver who picked us up told us the main road to the airport was blocked due to accidents, so if we wanted to catch our flights we would have to go via a country route. Went to CdG by the most circuitous route imaginable. Double the (substantial) normal fare and it still took over an hour. Next time I’ll take the train.
Flight delayed (this is Paris) but finally back to the UK.
Next week, a trip to Dublin for a team meeting. I flew out in the middle of the day as I had a family mission to accomplish. Landed without event and driven to my hotel by a very nice lady who shared my surname (she had married into it).
Conversation suggested that if we were related it must be very distantly as we knew no one in common.
Unpacked and made some calls, grabbed a quick lunch and off on my mission.
My uncle Joe was a great influence to me in my youth. He was possibly the first in the family to gain a senior role in business, though he had only an intermediate formal education. As he married rather late in life and he and his wife had no children of their own, he was a very diligent uncle taking us out on educational trips, encouraging my chess playing and also when I was older, giving me summer jobs in the department of the company where he was director. He gave it all up when his wife was diagnosed with a progressive paralysis, moved back to Ireland and became a full time carer, as well as taking in students and lodgers to supplement their income. He is a family legend for his inability to sit still for more than fifteen minutes, and his need to create a schedule even when relaxing.
Joe is now in his seventies and has Parkinson’s disease and also increasing dementia. I had to make sure that I visited him.
Having obtained directions from relatives, I caught the appropriate bus to the hospital and found his ward. On entering I discovered that I was outside of visiting hours, but the nurse took a very relaxed view when I explained I had come from London, and I was shown to his bed.
Seeing Joe was a real shock. He had lost considerable weight and was now skeletal, and his speech was slurred and indistinct, a real change from the abrupt and forceful guy I remember. I had been told by my dad that Joe varied from moments of great lucidity to almost hallucinating.
I said hello and told him who I was, and then a very strange conversation ensued.
In the conversation Joe kept mixing me up with my dad, despite reminders from me. As we talked he told me stories and reflections about me as a teenager, as though he were talking to my dad. I tried reminding him several times that I was indeed the Gary he was talking about, but he kept losing this idea.
It was like being in disguise and getting to hear what someone really thinks about you, because the person thinks you are someone else. (Thankfully it was mainly good!). I also learned a few (scurrilous) things about my dad.
To try and remind him that I was Gary, I told him stories that I recall from my time working for him in the summers. One in particular was very embarrassing at the time.
My uncle was the service director of a company that sold printing machines and part of his department dealt with spare parts for the machines. My job was to provide holiday cover for people who were away. People specialized in their own individual machines from a given manufacturer so I had to suddenly become proficient to talk to customers, who would ring up without part numbers but would expect to be able to describe what it looked like and I would translate this into an order. This was not easy when the parts manuals were often in Czech. It would take me about two weeks to become proficient on one manufacturer’s machines, at which point the regular parts expert would come back ,and I would start the process all over again on a new set of Eastern European products. (Joe said I was amazingly quick at picking up each role; my recollection is that I spent the whole time bluffing).
It was a very mixed up office. There were Max and Vera, living proof that you should not work in close proximity with your spouse. They were very traditional, and Max could have played the part of the Hollywood caricature of a stuffy old English gentleman. The atmosphere was often quite tense in the office on some mornings, as they obviously had arguments before they came to work and came in hostile to each other and everyone else. I always had the feeling Max disapproved of me but with his English “stiff upper lip” could never show it.
I know I really annoyed him over crosswords. Joe always read a highbrow paper called the Telegraph, and would make a photocopy of the crossword so I could also do it over lunch. Once I got the hang of it I could polish off in about half an hour, while Max (another reader) laboriously toiled over his newspaper for the entire lunch hour, usually only half completing it, and of course totally unwilling to ask help from a spotty youth.
In addition there was Michael, a trendy guy from Zurich, (he did the East German machines as he could actually read the manuals) the Spackman brothers, who could have been in the same Hollywood movies as Max, playing the cheerful and slightly dodgy cockneys, and David R, the office joker (more of him later).
The story began when my uncle forwarded a call which was meant for me but which had been directed to him as we had the same surname. (At that time the use of Christian names was largely frowned upon in English business culture). “It’s no good “, Joe said “you’ll have to change your name for business purposes”. I protested that Max and Vera had the same surname. “Yes but they are male and female” said Joe. “And the Spackmans have the same name” I said. “Yes but they don’t get themselves mixed up with me. You need a new name” said Joe. “What about using Gary instead of my family name?” I asked. Max was clearly bursting serial blood vessels at this suggestion. I might as well have suggested that we all wear punk leatherwear as dress code.
“I know” said David. “Seeing as he’s so good at his exams why not call him Einstein?” (I had just taken school qualifications at sixteen and achieved straight As, at that time a very unusual result. David’s suggestion was actually inaccurate as Einstein was not an outstanding scholar at school).
“Einstein it is” said Joe. “I can’t call myself Einstein” I protested, “That would be way too stupid”. “End of debate” said Joe “Call yourself Einstein from now on.”
So I half-heartedly told my next customer that I was Mr Einstein. We hadn’t spoken before thankfully, but he made a joke about my “name”.
We discovered the flaw in our approach twenty minutes later when the managing director of the company came rampaging in, apoplectic with rage, shouting “Who the !*&* is calling themselves Einstein in this department? ”. I had to admit it was me. “Why are you doing that?” he said (though those were not his exact words). “Because I was told to” I replied. In our cunning plan we had forgotten to tell the receptionists of our plan. The client had realized he had forgotten an item and had rung back asking for me.
The receptionist knew no-one of that name and got annoyed when the guy insisted, thinking he was playing a joke, and in exasperation had told the customer “There’s no *!$&*!* Einstein in this company.” She was probably factually correct, but her manner of telling the client had him straight on to the MD in seconds.
Anyway, I got my own name back straight away, and a new nickname for use by all the other staff in the company.
When I reminded Joe of this story he really lit up, and we talked about the characters (David R died crashing his Mini into a tree- rather like the pop star Marc Bolan. He was way over the alcohol limit. Gave Joe a problem as they had to allocate his pension and discovered he had started more than one family, but had only been married to one of the ladies in his life).
After a while Joe stopped and said. “It’s been great talking but you can see there are many other people waiting to see me”. I turned in the direction he was pointing to see an empty corridor. I wasn’t sure if this was poignant or a sign he had just had enough.
Caught the bus back to the city centre and was struck (in my fairly morose state) as to how similar the North Dublin suburbs are to each other. I thought about getting off at one place to look up my aunt, who still lives in the family home, but figured that I would never find it without a map, in a place where every neighbourhood looks very similar.
Back at the hotel , and out to find some dinner. Past Phil Lynott’s statue (no one performing lewd acts tonight) and ate outside on a balmy night. There was quite a nuisance with people interrupting “al fresco” diners with requests for money, but I was in a reflective mood after seeing Joe so was more than usually sympathetic.
My team started arriving in the evening so we sat in a bar and watched a world cup match.
Next day to the office for our team meeting. In the staff restaurant for breakfast, where we found each table strewn with leaflets for a “public scalping”. Several local directors had agreed to offer themselves up to have their hair shaved off for charity (only from their heads mind). The deal was that people pledged money for the person they would most like to see it happen to- so a kind of negative popularity contest.
The 4 victims duly went up on stage and were duly scalped. One guy’s hair was so tough he broke the shaver, leaving himself in the interesting position of having his hair in a variety of degrees, parts of his head completely shaven, some cut short- other parts normal. The hairdresser hadn’t brought a backup. We didn’t have time to stay around to see how that one worked out. Poor guy.
Team dinner in a trendy Italian, followed by a trip to the pub. Benoit our French colleague wanted to watch France in the world cup on the TV and we were all supporting France. A nerve racking game which France narrowly won. It was funny at half time and full time. Smoking is banned in public places in Ireland so Benoit and the others were dashing out for a quick puff. Apparently the Irish have added a word to the language – “smirting”- meaning flirting with someone while you are both smoking outside the pub. Can’t say if Benoit did any of this.
We celebrated the French victory with champagne (what else?) and a couple of beers. With the warm night people were out drinking in the streets into the early hours- I was woken by laughter outside at 2am. Given this was Wednesday night I don’t know how they work next day. They certainly party in Dublin.
Good second day for our team meeting. On the trip to the airport Benoit and I were talking before the taxi arrived. We continued after we had told the driver where to take us. I was surprised when he interrupted our conversation and asked us to speak English. He didn’t speak French and wanted to know what we were discussing. I told him we were talking about work and that it wouldn’t be interesting anyway.
Flight back with Aer Lingus, the Irish national airline. Like many European airlines they have started emulating the budget airlines, so you have to buy anything you want. One welcome addition was the cabin crew senior member, obviously a frustrated cabaret artist, who entertained us with his announcements, and even sang to us. And blessedly, no idiots with illicit child seats and an attitude problem.
A trip to Zurich and Paris, the first one for meeting. Flight to Zurich uneventful, but I was struck by how much the airport seems to have expanded- had to get a train from the gate to baggage claim. Into a taxi and was reminded how hard Swiss German can be to understand if you are not a very good German speaker. Anyway finally arrived at the Swiss office and our meeting began.
During the afternoon a lively debate broke out on a vital work-related topic. Caroline from Belgium had brought a box of Belgian chocolates to share with the team. Sonja, our Swiss member, opined that while Belgian chocolate was good, the Swiss variety was clearly superior. Naturally Caroline did not agree. The debate continued for some time and they finally agreed to settle this with a blind tasting the following day. Sonja called her husband and deputed to him the task of obtaining the appropriate Swiss candidates (he seems well-trained), and we got back to work.
Our day finished, we went into town for dinner. On a balmy evening, we had a pleasant drink in the garden of a trendy bar on LimmatQuai (close to the river), and then off to a restaurant. It was a balmy evening and great to sit outside for our meal. A great evening was a little spoiled for me, when I called home to learn that my teenage son had been mugged on the train coming home from school. It’s probably that I am away too often, but it feels powerless to be hundreds of miles away when these things happen.
Back to the hotel in a more somber mood, and then a midnight conference call on budgets. Talking about budgets until 2am is not the most fun part of my job, but a necessary evil when we have to unite all three time zones which are exactly eight hours apart. I knew too that I would have to repeat this tomorrow night and the following one too.
Finally to sleep, and woke tired. Another day for our meeting, and the big chocolate showdown. I was amazed how much thought Sonja and Caroline had put into the test. We were all blindfolded, and they had cut the chocolate into pieces and fed them to us on spoons. (Apparently a chocolate aficionado would know which was which by the shape of the chocolates so they were cut into unrecognizable shapes. Voting was close but by a vote of 3 to 2 the Belgian chocolate triumphed. Sonja was amazed, and was telling us that she could not believe that anyone could choose chocolate made some months ago over the fresh item purchased only yesterday. As someone for whom chocolate holds no interest, and who has no pretence of expertise, I think it merely proves if you have unqualified judges you will get a random result. I could easily have voted for the Swiss variety 10 minutes later.
One funny thing was that someone took photos and they were circulated afterwards. The Irish HR Director Anna, was very struck by a photo of me tasting my chocolate, and she drew attention to the fact that Caroline (who had administered the chocolate to me) had her hands out of sight below table level, and implied an alternative theory for the look of pleasure on my face. Where are the harassment lawyers when you need them?
Anyway, back to Zurich airport, and a contretemps with Air France. I am so used to e-tickets and turning up for the airport with just a passport and a flight number, that I was unprepared for the flood of bureaucracy. The lady at check in sent me to the sales desk, who wrote something unreadable on a piece of paper and sent me back. The lady at check in was upset that I had did not some information for which I could not see the point ( I exaggerate to make the point but it was something like the dress size of the lady who issued the ticket).
Finally managed to get a boarding pass, made a few calls and onto the packed plane. Whatever else one thinks of Air France, their in-flight food is excellent and I had a very tasty snack on the short flight.
Arrived at Charles de Gaulle, and we landed at the furthest point possible from the terminal (somewhere near Marseille I think). An interminable bus ride to immigration. The sole French passport officer was minimizing the population of France by being painfully slow at letting people into the country. By the time I got through our bags were whizzing round the carousel.
It was a beautiful sunny evening, and the long taxi line was headed by a guy dressed in shorts who was aggressively shaking a tin, begging for money, walking down the line and accosting each person. I hate hard sells and refused to be pressured.
A cheerful driver took me to Massy. In planning this trip I had originally planned to spend two nights in Paris, one to visit the French subsidiary , and the second day at European HQ in La Defense. When I tried to book hotels however I learned that due to the final of one of the European soccer tournaments between Barcelona and Arsenal, hotel accommodation on both the first night was tough, and on the second quite impossible- the hotels charge whatever they like due to the influx of fans which meant that only rooms at 500 Euros a night were available. Hence I decided to stay just the one night and was staying at an hotel Ibis in Massy. Ibis is not the most up market of chains but the choice was very limited.
My taxi was delighted, I was his last fare of the day, it was an expensive ride, and left him close to home, so he was happily chatting about the football.
Arrived at the Ibis to discover it does not have a restaurant, but was happy to see that there were some restaurants just a couple of hundred metres away. There was also a fast food chain called Quick. Quick is a hamburger chain quite common in France, and it’s purpose to make McDonald’s seem like haute cuisine. On holiday in France I once took my family to Quick’s (they had a special offer) , and can effortlessly say it was the most disgusting food I have ever had in a “restaurant”.
Dined at a local Spanish restaurant, not very authentic but the wine was good, and back to my room to prepare for my second midnight call.
The sound insulation between rooms in Ibis hotels is never great, and between 10 and 11.30 I got to listen to the couple next door doing their bedroom gymnastics very noisily.
I guess it is fitting revenge that they after their exertions, got to listen to me droning on for two hours about budgets as they enjoyed their post- coupling moments.
Long day in the office next day and a big presentation, and the very expensive cab ride to the airport. The ride to Charles de Gaulle is rarely smooth, and it was hard work until we cleared St Denis, home of the “Stade de France” (national stadium) and where the soccer was due to be played.
Airport deserted (football fans already through). At immigration, another passport officer was maintaining the French population in perfect equilibrium by making it as hard to leave France as his colleague the previous night had made it to come in. Still, back on BA at least check in was easy.
Uneventful flight back, and on the ride back with Paul listened to the football commentary. Arsenal, the English team had been one nil up and conceded two goals very quickly at the end of the game, ultimately losing. As a supporter of their biggest North London rivals, it was hard to prevent “Schadenfreude” from overcoming patriotism. I didn’t even try.
A trip to Tallinn to meet a supplier.
Tallinn is the capital of Estonia, and a bit of a challenge from the UK transport wise, if you want to fly from Heathrow I live close so I always go from LHR).
Flying from Heathrow I had to do via Helsinki. The flight to Helsinki is not great as it’s really outsourced to Finnair, but landed at Helsinki. I liked the gadget on the plane that feeds the output from a camera from the cockpit into the video screens in the cabin, giving you a pilot’s view of the view as you approach the airport.
A nondescript hour at the airport before connecting with the flight to Tallinn, and the fun began.
The flight from Helsinki to Tallinn uses an old style turboprop style plane with propellers. The reservation staff had thoughtfully sat me in line with these 2 meter lengths of metal whizzing round next to me and reflected on the damage one such device could do to my skull if it came off its fixings.
Anyway the good side of these planes is that you don’t need a main runway to take off so we were immediately taking off and flying the 65 miles across the straits of Estonia (an offshoot of the Baltic), on a beautiful sunny day with the sun reflecting on the waters- quite idyllic.
Barely 15 minutes after takeoff we began descent and I saw a series of ugly Soviet type concrete towers which form part of the architecture of outer Tallinn. Landed after only 30 minutes. Tallinn airport was easy in June 2006- there was one pier and 6 gates so not so hard. Similarly baggage was quickly delivered and I went out to find my “pick up”.
I have to say that Signe is the most attractive person (to whom I am not married) who has ever collected me from an airport. She had a sign with my name on and I said hello. Other taxi drivers I have met have had T shirts or shirts which have left a gap showing their waists, but in Signe’s case this was a planned occurrence and way more attractive than normal.
We drove to the city through a beautiful old area of town, with timber houses, and Signe took me to an apartment which our partner had suggested I use to save on expense. It was a little basic but extremely charming and I unpacked and went out in search of lunch. I had seen this restaurant called “Africa” and thought I would give it a go. As I waited for my food I heard the kitchen staff talking. Maybe the staff originated from African families, but they appeared to owe their origins to East London rather than East Africa, though the food was good.
An afternoon on email (life blood of the company) and then dinner with the MD. Nice dinner in a (sort of) Italian and ready for the next day.
The old town in Tallinn is outstanding. Whereas the outer areas may bear the scars of Soviet architecture, the old town is steeped in history, much mediaeval, and there is a story in every building. I was captivated on the short walk to the office. This itself is in Pikk street, a main thoroughfare in the main town.
A useful morning in the office, and then a walk to lunch. An “all you can eat” buffet with two cokes for two people was 10 Euros total.
Another useful afternoon and a walk back to the apartment. Stopped for a beer at a very touristy bar. Germany were playing someone in the world cup (soccer) and looking very good, winning 3 or 4 nil.
Advice- go to Tallinn in summer. Fabulous energetic people, multilingual, reasonable prices, great service, great food and drink.
Back to the apartment, quick change and walk back to the restaurant for dinner with the Estonian team.
Fantastic dinner with the Estonians. Young, energetic, blisteringly multilingual, enthusiastic- I insisted on paying- they were tremendous.
(I had some feedback next day. The MD, Jan, had talked to Signe and asked about me. Signe’s verdict (allegedly) was “for someone important he’s surprisingly normal”. Sometimes she says the loveliest things……).
A trip to the office next day, and a quick tour of the old town. This was after a 4 am wake up by garbage trucks reversing to collect their loads.
Met by my colleague and noted on the walk out that someone had been sick on the pavement next to the apartment entrance. Guess that’s the world cup.
Tallinn has a very substantial set of Mediaeval walls still intact. It’s like Cinderella live.
A beautiful moment in the Orthodox Cathedral on top of the hill, with the beautiful sung worship and a timeless feel to the ancient chanting. I could have stayed all day.Outside to gaze at amazing views over the city.
A brisk walk down to the lower old town and more history per square metre than you can imagine. Go there.
Had a long conversation with Jan about labour in Tallinn. One thing struck me. In the UK and certainly France the recent EU expansion has led to the rise of the “Polish plumber”, who risk being demonized as incomers. Apparently in Estonia it’s the “Chinese builder” who is the equivalent. There’s a globalisation essay in there somewhere.
On Jan’s advice I called in at a (Swiss) chocolatier and bought some beautiful hand made chocolates. I carefully selected a set (about 1 Euro a chocolate) and they were duly wrapped and packed.
A quick lunch and a trip to the airport. Check in easy and simple boarding to be bused to the plane.
As we taxied the pilot apologised for only taking off five minutes early. BA please note.
I sat in my seat to discover I was sat next to a very large and sweaty man who was perspiring freely (“how does he differ from you?” I hear you ask).
Tried to move to a vacant seat to the consternation of the flight attendant who told me that the weights were carefully calculated and that sitting on the (gloriously empty) seats on the other side of the plane would unbalance it. I gritted my teeth for the 25 minute flight, and watching again the huge chunk of fast rotating metal barely two metres from my skull helped to keep me focused on more important matters.
Landed at Helsinki and connected for London. Uneventful flight. Finally home and delved on my bag for my wife’s chocolates.
Unfortunately due to the heat of the day the chocolate had melted and my 30 beautifully selected hand crafted chocolates had become a mix of white, milk and dark chocolate melted into a shapeless blob.
Shows you what a chocolate philistine I am, but I rather enjoyed my chunk……
A trip to Paris, this time for the launch of a new management development programme.
This was a key deliverable for me so months of preparation were being put to the test. I left on Sunday morning, planning to arrive at the same time as my German colleague Maike.
The early circumstances were not great. Boarded the BA flight, and they announced that the flight would be delayed as the catering truck was delayed. Taking off an hour late, it was only when in the air that the captain told us that the wait had been futile and we had taken off with no lunch on board. Thanks BA.
Landed at 2.30 Paris time and things got worse. Collected my suitcase and went out to find no driver with a car with my name. I was hungry, but felt I didn’t want to leave the area in case the driver showed up , (they didn’t). To make matters worse, whereas I normally make my own arrangements, this time it had been done for me, and I couldn’t jump into a cab because I didn’t have the address I was going to.
Called my colleague Maike, who promised to call our support lady and get her to call me back.
A few minutes later Verena called me, There had been a mix up and she was calling the venue to fix something up and would get back to me. Still at least I knew there was no driver and could go get some food. I strolled down to a nearby bar which sold baguettes and equipped myself with a beer and a baguette. Verena called back and said there had been a mistake, and if possible I would have to wait two hours and get in the car coming to meet the next plane.
There are few places less fun to spend a couple of hours than terminal 2F at Charles de Gaulle airport. The architecture is dated and the whole place has a dilapidated air. I sat at the bar and had a brief conversation with a guy from our French office. I had been wearing my ID to help the driver to recognize me. This guy was an expect picking up family arriving on a flight.
Sitting, sipping my beer I then watched a really strange phenomenon. At another table was a guy who had an acoustic guitar (classical style). He was playing and singing to two other guys at the same table. He played kind of Latin Sergio Mendes type music, and was pretty good. I was very surprised when his two companions got up and left, and he went to sit at another table and began again with different folks.
He didn’t seem in any way to be asking for money and certainly none was given to him, I was imagining saying to his partner, “Must fly, got a gig at Terminal 2” and wondered about the motivation of someone who would spend a Sunday afternoon in such a strange place.
Anyway, the music and a couple of beers helped to pass the time, and eventually the next flight came in and we had a driver.
The venue we were using was an old château near Ecoublay, a small hamlet just outside Paris. The location was remote (deliberately) and part of a chain of châteaux that offer conference services. On arriving at the chateau we were greeted by a helpful lady who explained the system to us. We went to our rooms (very primitive) and then came back to the main house. The deal at these places is that you pay a daily rate and are treated like a house guest. The various bars are stocked with wine, beers and spirits ( and soft drinks) and you just help yourself. We went over the arrangements over a beer and then went to dinner, an excellent buffet. Had a long chat with one of the delegates, an Irish guy called Declan and we became firm friends.
Kicked off the class the following day, the packed audience proving pretty challenging. I did the opening presentation, and then we split the audience. I took the more senior managers to another room where we covered a different curriculum. My group were actually very receptive and interested, and it was clear that Maike was left with many of the challenging folks.
Got through the theory, and got to the point where I brief the senior managers on the “Projects”. Basically both groups get some input on day 1, and the senior managers are asked to deliver a set of projects with the more junior managers as the workers. Some of the projects are deliberately counter cultural. I remember the reaction of a guy called Mitch, a delightful US guy working in our Cambridge research facility. Mitch had picked up the project brief that asks the team to make a large scale work of art. Mitch was in shock and repeatedly said “I can’t believe it, they want me to do art”. Given Mitch had a passing resemblance to Dustin Hoffman it was like watching “Rain Man” as he was muttering the same phrase to himself over and over.
Dinner was excellent. The head chef is a genius, and looked like the exacting stereotype of the fanatical French chef. We had a nice surprise before dinner when Maike and I received an enormous bunch of flowers from our US colleagues as a good luck wish. An amusing moment at dinner. The chateau has `a tradition that the chef announces the menu. He spoke only French, and was translated by the manager (who didn’t speak that much English). The chef began “On vous propose” and announced that the first course involved “fromage de chevre”. Maike speaks excellent English, but occasionally makes mistakes when excited. “Excellent” she said, “I like goose cheese”. I announced to the table that we would begin day 2 with a demonstration of Maike milking a goose.
Apparently there is a confusion in German with two words very similar.
Day two was phenomenal. The project work inevitably leads to real storming in the groups and it was like a small war. The art project in particular were demonstrating all the temperamental attributes of the stereotypical artist, and were falling out big time. Mitch who was trying to be peace keeper, was looking even more shell-shocked as they fought like cats.
Over dinner delegate after delegate asked for “a word” and asked me to “fix” somebody else. The point was they needed to fix each other so the conversations were pointed.
Day three saw a gradual peace breaking out and some really productive work being done.
The final day was fantastic, with some amazing results. The artists had produced a brilliant video, but even funnier was an “outtake” video. The highlight for me had been a Russian guy (I think Sergei). To underpin one of their message the team had asked managers (there were 22 nationalities on this course) to say the words “stay in touch” or “stay in contact” in their languages. Clearly this may be hard to translate into Russian as Sergei had many attempts, each of “War and Peace” length. Maybe that’s why Tolstoy’s books are so long.
The course ended with a celebration organized by the one of the project teams. We had a competition with a series of events, the last being an archery contest using the archery field at the chateau. I quickly realized the safest place to be was tied to a target, as no arrow ever went close to these. I went back into the warm as I could feel a cold coming on.
Over dinner I had agreed to play guitar and we had some singing. I went to bed early as I could feel the cold getting worse.
Friday morning, and a meeting with Maike to review the highs and lows, and then lunch. A nerve racking ride back to Charles de Gaulle. The cab back had to take 4 of us and was leaving later than I would have chosen. Because we were all at separate terminals and I was the last one to drop if you did it logically, this exacerbated the fact that I was late for my flight.
Finally arrived and dashed to the terminal. Tried to get through passport control, to be met with an officious French border policeman. I love the French, but there is nothing worse than a French official with an attitude problem. He wanted to see evidence of my booking, so I showed him the detail on my phone. “No good, it has to be on paper”. I pointed out that my way saved a tree but he was implacable- he wanted the same info on a piece of paper. Really worried I went to BA customer services who checked me in quickly, so was able to get back fairly fast. In the event I needn’t have worried as the additional security meant we boarded very late.
Flight was completely full and I had a middle seat. The occupant of both other seats in my row were already there and flirting madly with each other. I felt their silent resentment at me interrupting their beautiful moment, not that there was anywhere else on the plane I could sit. Sat feeling increasingly feverish through the flight enduring the obvious disapproval of the two lovers. I was now too ill to care.
Got off at Heathrow feeling feverish and really struggling with my asthma. I obviously looked distressed, as a BA guy asked me when I got off the plane asked me if I was ok.
I was unhappy and snapped. “It’s just avian flu” I said. (The concern about this was big at the time).
As I walked to passport control, I figured that this was not the smartest thing to say. Stood there waiting to be dragged off by a team of medics in contamination suits.
Rough drive back with Paul, as my asthma got worse (the air conditioning on the plane exacerbates it). Arrived home at the point of collapse. Funny how my illnesses always happen at weekends.
Dear allMy next trip took me to
Paris. The I am part of a team called “HR 4U” whose purpose is to improve he experience of HR professionals within the company. We had been in the team for some weeks and it had been decided that we might make more progress if we met face to face. My diary is always tricky so I flew out from Heathrow at lunch time and landed about 2pm local time. Came out of Charles de Gaulle and took a taxi. My taxi driver was keen to tell me that he was just back from the
UK having spent a couple of years working on the bread counter at Sainsbury’s in Willesden Green. I am sure that this not only improved his English (though we conversed in French), but also improved his self-defence skills in that part of
London.
Sadly it did little for his understanding of he topography of
Paris and we had several false starts before we finally pulled up acceptably close to my hotel.
I have already described La Defense. The good side is its amazing architecture, the bad side its effective remoteness. I was staying at the Sofitel. An OK hotel but very overpriced. Knowing the prices in La Defense I walked to a nearby suburb Puteaux , and after a brief negotiation in a brasserie agreed they would provide a baguette. At 3 pm in
France a substantial lunch would be considered sacrilege. It was great to see the waitress return from the boulangerie with a baguette and the arrival of my sandwich five minutes later.. There’s nothing quite a like a fresh French baguette- simply heaven.
A walk to the office to connect with email (the lifeblood of our company). A couple of hours at the office and then the walk back to the hotel We were due to have dinner in the hotel later, but before that I walked a kilometer or so to Courbevoie, my haunt close to La Defense, and it was great to people watch and observe the French way of life. I called at a familiar bar, and watched a couple arguing vociferously in French about the guy’s (alleged) cheating, and walked back to the hotel. I love these moments when you have free time abroad and sample the local culture. Business travel is often unglamorous but at other times it’s fantastic.
Despite only 20 minutes in the bar, it was clear on arriving back at the Sofitel that I smelled like a cigarette factory, so took a shower, changed my clothes and went down for dinner.
The party was assembled with Vanessa, Silvia, Caroline, Anja, Catherine, Sonja and Albert. We ordered our food, and Albert, who is the project sponsor, outlined his aims for the project, and the team priorities. The hotel restaurant was fairly open plan and the menu claimed an Italian flavour. I am not keen on big hotel chains and their restaurants, as they are always expensive and the food is rarely better than ok.. My starter, a mix of Italian antipasti was good, but the main course was a “ravioli with mixed meat and vegetables.” This when it was arrived was interesting. The ravioli was singular (raviolo?) and instead of pasta was actually a folded cabbage leaf with the meat and vegetables inside. All of these had been cooked to the point of being ready to dissolve.
Despite the food we had a great conversation and team spirit was high. We had a last nightcap before heading to our rooms.
Up early next day, and we all eschewed (love that word) the 24 Euro breakfast (what a rip-off Sofitel) and went to a traditional French breakfast restaurant, (Starbucks) for our petit dejeuner.
Thence up to the team meeting. Albert was not participating in the meeting, so I was in the rare situation of being the only male in the meeting. However the ladies were mainly gentle with me (though Caroline has a wicked sense of humour- she is so funny, and I came in for her brilliant mockery on occasion). We had a really productive discussion analyzing what were the issues facing the HR community, and there was a lot of energy and ideas. One idea that stuck and resonated was my mention of “cheap fun”. This was never my idea, having been coined at Sun, where we had had a programme of managers being able to charge $10 a head to expenses to run a cheap fun event every quarter. It’s become a team in joke ever since.
After lunch we took a break and walked on the esplanade looking down the great avenue of the Grand Armée towards the Arc de Triomphe (the modern “Grande Arche” at La Defense- a spectacular building, has been built to line up directly with the older Arc in
Paris itself.). Anja (team leader) went back into Starbucks and bought a mountain of cakes- more cheap fun, though I don’t eat sweet things personally.
Anyway a great meeting , and then I caught a cab with Anja to Charles de Gaulle. Had some trouble persuading the taxi driver that she was a colleague and not my wife, (not really clear why), but we arrived at our separate terminals without incident. I sat in the Air France lounge at Terminal 2, witnessing a strange phenomenon. My flight was scheduled some 2-3 hours later, so the previous flight hadn’t arrived, let alone taken off it was (full though so I couldn’t go earlier). All the boards showed that there had been delays at Heathrow due to storms. The flights were late and it was clear that later ones would be delayed, but the airport persisted in the fiction that our flight would still miraculously be on time. Anyway eventually they abandoned the pretence and we limped back to Heathrow landing at 10pm ( 11pm French time but we gained an hour by changing time zone.).
A couple of weeks later to
Munich. This was to take part in the re-launch of a training course “HR 101”, for new HR starters. When I had joined, this had been one of my headaches- the class had been run once before I arrived, and it had been badly received. We had been through an extensive redesign, with some tough critics and this was make or break.
Landed at Munich airport and took a cab to our office, This is in a town called Unterschleissheim, just outside of Munich, and has to be one of the quietest of quiet towns. Interestingly the driver was very uncomfortable in German, and I quickly established he was from
Cameroon. He was quite happy to talk in French, but it felt strange to be doing this in
Germany.
A useful day of meetings before meeting some of the delegates the evening before the course in our hotel in nearby Freising (very slightly less quiet than Unterschleissheim). Although we had invited them to meet for drinks, only two folks from
Holland, plus my French colleague Benoit, actually came. We walked to a very good local restaurant, and were later joined by Anja (my alleged wife) and had a great meal.
Next day was the big test, so in the Russia room we welcomed our 23 delegates from everywhere from Eastern Europe to
Johannesburg. The first day went well, though we still had some work to do on keeping the length of the presentations to time. I became the timer from hell. There was a whiteboard at the back of the room and I started writing on it at the appointed intervals, in full view of the speaker, the time remaining for each presenter e.g. 30 minutes left, 15 minutes left, etc. The audience laughed and started announcing the time left. We could have been there longer otherwise.
We finished the day about on time, but the delegates were clearly tired.
One of the complaints about the earlier course had been that there was no social activity to help delegates to get to know each other and network. To help this process as well as organizing a group dinner I had written a team game that could be done during dinner. I’d written a spoof mystery based on a pastiche of the “Da Vinci Code” and substituting senior HR team members as characters. In preparation I had re-read Dan Brown’s book and am firmly of the view that my 3 pages have more plot. I handed out the briefs with some reservations that the delegates might be too tired to make a success of it.
Before I carry on with this story, if you will indulge me, I just want to go back further in time to give you a little (hopefully amusing) history.
HISTORICAL INTERLUDE.
I first came across the idea of the “creative presentation” alternative when my wife and I were able to go on a lavish weekend away provided by Unisys as a reward for excellent performance (“Chairman’s Elite”). Over dinner one evening there was a professional “murder mystery” performed by actors. The idea that I was impressed with, was that they set up the mystery with two ways to win. If you wanted to be the detective then you could come up with the right answer, but if you were no good at such things, you could still win, as there was also a prize for the most creatively presented solution, however wrong.
At our table that night we had consumed too much wine to detect (or care about) the murderer, so we went for the wild presentation, winning with a spectacularly tuneless attempt to sing our solution in four part harmony.. maybe they gave us the prizes to shut us up. I’m not sure that giving us more wine as prizes was such a smart plan.
Anyway, when later I first became Director of Learning and Development at Unisys, we were having an HR conference with our worldwide HR heads from
Philadelphia coming over to take part. My boss Tim, asked me if I could do something by way of evening entertainment, so I wrote my own murder mystery, and had fellow European HR leaders doing incredibly bad overacting in between courses (they were very talented at doing this).
There is nothing like working in an organisation where people are very competitive. The teams were incredibly feverish and single minded and dinner was almost forgotten (and me ignored) as they worked to make their presentations. I can still remember some of them, including a mixed group of HR directors doing a choreographed version of Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” with excellent choreography, and another where the victim was resurrected after 3 days (been done before I think).
Afterwards I was persuaded by a colleague to prolong the entertainment using a “con trick” that we did for entertainment sometimes. By this stage I had been away with several colleagues running classes for some years, and we had used this trick for entertainment some evenings. I’m not going to tell you all about it, but basically this trick involves someone claiming to have psychic powers. Due to these powers they can leave the room and while they are out someone touches one of a row of objects. The psychic comes back in, hovers their hands over the objects and then can identify which has been touched. The trick obviously relies on an accomplice seeing which item has been touched and passing an unobtrusive signal to the “psychic”- I am not telling you how. We had perfected a version of this (we spent many nights away) in which I was the rational scientist who denounced the whole thing as rubbish. This usually was very effective as ruling me out in peoples’ minds as the accomplice, so whilst being “proved wrong” I could have great fun randomly accusing innocent people who might have scratched their nose at the wrong moment. Anyway, on this night somebody decided that we would play this trick on the Worldwide leadership team.
Now one last piece of background. The centre where we held the conference was a beautiful company-owned management centre in St Paul de Vence near Nice. As well as having great facilities, tradition was that when they went home, the bar staff would hand the keys to a Unisys person who would lock up when everyone was finished. You will be shocked and horrified to learn that I did regular bar duty on such occasions. This presented a new opportunity.
There is a famous short detective story by GK Chesterton, where a man is stabbed in his house and everyone denies that anyone approached the house all day. The detective successfully realises that the murderer is a postman, who walks up to the house in broad daylight, but no one notices a postman approaching a house and he blends into invisibility.
In the same way I became the invisible accomplice. I was on one side of the bar polishing glasses, dispensing drinks and passing the signal (not very subtly), but I was invisible.
The other innovation was our new psychic, a dear friend called Hansha. Hansha is of Indian Hindu origin, and showed a scary capacity for lying shamelessly, explaining it all as being linked to her religion.
“Psychic Hansha” was unstoppable, Our head office colleagues wanted to test whether it was only metal objects, but Hansha could detect using glass, metal, coins , stones, you name it, they even tried areas of pattern on the carpet. Several of our European colleagues who knew about the trick were not making a good lob of looking very serious- indeed one colleague Phil K, never a man to mince his words, described them rather loudly as “bankers”. At least I think that’s what he said. A less qualified person would have said they were mocking.
Anyway the spirits communicated with Hansha until 2 in the morning when they became bored.
(Some months later at the same venue we did the trick again. This time we were facilitating a customer event (different “psychic” this time), and the audience were a set of police chiefs from the UK. This was particularly fun. Policemen are spectacularly untrusting of human nature and knew they were being fooled, but they couldn’t work out how. One particularly devious Chief Constable from
Lancashire tried touching an object when he thought no one was looking. Unfortunately for him he was focusing on people on the other side of the bar. The invisible barman saw him and the “psychic” was just as accurate)
At the HR conference though I came unstuck the following morning. One very senior VP was telling my boss about the amazing psychic occurrences the previous night.
“Was
Gary there?” asked Tim cynically. As word went around the leadership team I could feel my name slipping down the succession plan. Sometimes cheap fun can be career-limiting.
BACK TO FREISING
Anyway, we are back in the upper room at Freising, in a traditional German restaurant (“Pasta and Co”). I’d been worried when I had handed out the briefs that the delegates were too tired, but soon their competitiveness kicked in and as dinner progressed the teams were getting more frenetic.. Some great fun, one team miming their entire presentation (try miming
Barcelona which was part of the answer), one team all mysteriously getting pregnant (not sure why), and the winning team going for the enthusiastic and robust singing solution. The prizes (Teddy bears of course) were distributed, and duly appreciated.
After this day 2 was easy. The class was a great success and a big headache removed. Funny experience going back to the hotel after day 2 . I was travelling with my French colleague Benoit and a delegate from
South Africa who was also not returning until the following day. Benoit was excited as our cab driver (actually from
Croatia) also spoke Italian, so Benoit was conversing with the driver in Italian, I was talking with the driver in German, and with Benoit in French. Our colleague Nandi was confused. She spoke several languages other than English, but Xhosa and Zulu aren’t spoken much in
Munich. Benoit asked the guy in Italian if he spoke French. “No”, he said in Italian, “I wanted to but I had to learn bastard German didn’t I”. Charming as he lives a better life in
Germany.
I was staying overnight to do review meetings with team members next day. Hence Benoit and I were out to dinner again. I wanted to see if there was another decent restaurant so we went down a side street from the main square. A short walk brought us to what looked like a restaurant (it said it was) and an Italian flag suggested good things. The windows were covered in net curtains so you couldn’t see inside, so we walked in.
What a disappointment. The place was really a bar which served food. There were only 3 other people in the place. A teenage couple were, as the Americans would say “making out” at a table, with no concern for the public spectacle they were creating. Their aggressive attempts to eat each other’s faces was pretty unappetizing. A solitary guy was reading a book. There was no sign of any server. We sat there in some horror, not quite sure whether to leave. After some time passed, the solitary reader cracked under the pressure and admitted to be the barman, and we ordered two beers. Benoit picked up the menu, but I suggested in French that we shouldn’t encourage anyone to think we might eat there. We drank our beers as quickly as possible, and left, with the barman buried in his book and the teenagers locked in mortal combat with their suckers and tentacles.
In the end we went back to our German restaurant. We had an interesting altercation with our waiter. Benoit had chosen steak and wanted it “bleu”- “blue”- very very lightly cooked (the English would say unsafe and raw). I tried to explain in German.
The waiter’s response surprised me. The Germans have a lovely phrase. Where we would describe a dish as “Italian style” the German phrase would be “after the English art” (my translation). The waiter when he read back the order said “one steak after the English art”. I was horrified. The English have a reputation for cooking everything to the point of extinction, so “English style” could mean “cremated” when applied to a steak. I thought it was my German so started explaining, but he was adamant that it should be English style. I thought it was my German so switched to English. He spoke English perfectly, and it became apparent that he was adamant that English style meant “very lightly cooked”. So those of you out there who criticize English food as cooked to death, there’s a man in
Bavaria who thinks we don’t cook our food enough. I wouldn’t like to eat any vegetables he cooked.
Flight back completely uneventful. Wish I could say that more often.
Dear all Another trip to
Redmond, this time for one of a series of “Learning Summits” which brings together learning and development people from around the world. One of the benefits of this part of Washington is that the climate is virtually identical as that of
London, making it very easy to pack the right clothes. In February the weather was very similar, though the temperatures slightly colder (0-2C in London,-5 to -2C in
Redmond.
At the airport I picked up the standard forms for entering the
US at check in and began to complete them. I was very surprised to see that the I94-W seemed to have been changed. You may be thinking “Government changes form” is hardly exciting, but the I94-W is possibly the most curious I have come across (this is English understatement).
If you come from the right country you can complete this visa waiver form and enter the
US without a visa. The form has a detachable slip which is stapled into your passport and removed when you check in to leave the country, so they have evidence you didn’t stay illegally. Don’t ever forget to have this collected as failure to do so can lead to arrest next time you try to enter- I have a friend who experienced this. The form seems to ask for the same information multiple times, but the crowning glory consists of the questions on the back where you have to tick “yes” or “no”, The right answer is always “no”.
Question A ends “are you a drug abuser or addict?”.(tick yes or no) Question B “Have you ever been arrested or convicted for a crime involving moral turpitude or are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities?”
I have abbreviated but there’s a lot more in the full question. I wonder which crimes are deemed not to involve moral turpitude, or how many speakers (including native English speakers) know what turpitude means. I also wonder how many potential criminals are caught out by the cunning end to the question.
Question C in full. “Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were involved, in any way, in persecution associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?”
Unless my memory plays me false they have removed a question which said something like “Are you planning to overthrow the
US government; or assassinate the President (yes or no). There is a story (possibly urban legend), that the late Peter Ustinov on reading this question, ticked “yes” and added the words “sole purpose of visit”.
I am not that brave (or famous). I spent some time speculating why they had removed this question. Maybe some people had lied when answering this one. How unscrupulous.
Another gem is at the bottom of the form with a section “Public Reporting Burden”. This tells you that the time taken to process the form has been calculated as 6 minutes, comprising two minutes to understand and four to complete. I think most people spend more than two minutes figuring out what turpitude means, and I’ve often wondered why this data is considered important. You can even write to two government agencies (addresses are there) with suggestions on how to minimise the reporting burden. Government at its leanest.
Otherwise nondescript outward trip, except that my taxi driver from the airport was a mountainous Sikh, who would have made a great ceremonial guard, he looked so statuesque. Checked in at the Hyatt, usual meal and ready to face the next day. My driver this time was Mikhail, a cheery guy from
Chernobyl. When I talked to him he told me that after the nuclear failure he’d figured that it would be good idea to move (smart guy).
He was very complimentary about the
US and its economic and political stability. One thing that surprised me was that his English, though serviceable, was still less than fluent after 15 years. On other trips I was taken by his brother Ivan, younger and with the same stilted English. The learning event was opened with a speech from a professor Morgan McCall, very big in US academic circles. I may have been unlucky as Morgan had worked a lot with Sun, so it was memory lane for me as he showed the same deck of slides (even the jokes were recycled).
The content from previous events had been really good- this one was more variable. One lowlight was a highly introverted presenter who went into overdrive, speaking at a rate that as a native speaker I was struggling to follow. I looked at the complete blank faces of my non native speaking colleagues…..¦.. The highlight of the event was for me a team game we had to play at the end. You may have seen a variation on this played with Lego. The idea is that you are given some planning time and the proviso that you have to build the tallest tower you can that will stand freely for 30 seconds. You can practice during the planning period, but all materials have to be disassembled and you have to build from scratch with 3 minutes to assemble. In this version we had thin plastic strips with nuts and bolts. We had to go first. Our assembly was well planned and executed, but after completion we came to see the purpose of the 30 second rule. After about 20 seconds our tower buckled under its weight.
It was interesting to see the other groups radically change their designs as they saw our experience. The debrief was interesting, as most people saw it as a metaphor for the way we design our real life projects, over-engineering things to the point of collapse. I think they are right, and would extend the metaphor to our HR community. Dinner on the last night was interesting. I dined with a French colleague. Initially we joined another colleague in a bar for drinks, but went on to eat alone as we had a forthcoming event to discuss. Finding any restaurant that isn’t full to capacity in
Bellevue on Friday evening is an impossibility. In the end we settled on a South-West/Mexican restaurant called “Z Tejas” (
Texas I guess?).. Those of you who remember my chat with Nathan and the (definitely not Inuit) Eskimo some months previously will recall that the Eskimo guy was the manager of this restaurant. This leads me to
Gary’s self evident travel proverb number 1.
- Never eat at a Mexican restaurant run by an Eskimo
Yes, I should have known. The start wasn’t great. We arrived and were told there would be a wait, and handed a small electronic paging device to take with us. (When you are paged this goes off like something out of “Close Encounters” and it buzzes, lights up and vibrates all at the same time. A brief altercation with the bartender, as I wanted to add the drinks to the bill at the table. I was originally told this was impossible, but by surrendering a credit card and a couple of human hostages I was allowed to do this.
My French colleague (rather characteristically) went for real junk food- cheeseburger etc. They were rather good at this (French intuition I guess). I went for quesadillas and burritos, which were awful. Next day (Saturday) I tried to kill some time at the mall as my flight out was in the evening. There was really very little to do as all of the shops sold things I was not remotely interested in. I bought a long coffee and watched the world go by
. I was particularly struck by a guy about seventy who came in. His ensemble of Bermuda shorts, black footless dancing tights, white sports socks and open toed sandals was I am sure very thermally effective, but I feel is still a long way from the catwalk, though if Jean-Paul Gaultier is reading this I claim copyright. On my way to lunch I passed a promotional stand for a local radio station (KUBE). I asked the lady there if I could buy a T shirt for my son. “Oh no, you have to win it” she said. “What do I have to do to win it?” I asked. “Tell us the frequency of KUBE Seattle” she said.
“93FM” I said with confidence. “That’s amazing” she said, “are you a listener? You sound like a Brit”.
“Just an idea” I said, “but you can make the competition a little stiffer by covering up the one you are wearing- make it a bit harder for people who can read”. This is the beauty of the diffident apologetic English accent- you can say things like this and not get beaten to a pulp for being a smart guy. (When I took the T shirt home to my son he looked at it with the disdain he might have shown, had I offered him a ballet tutu to wear).
Lunch in a bar restaurant. On walking the streets it was clear that the whole town was football mad. The local American Football team (the Seattle Seahawks) were in the final of one of the two leagues and hence one game away from the “Superbowl”. The entire town , with the exception of our sartorial pioneer (and me) were dressed in Seahawks baseball caps and replica shirts. It felt like something out of 1984. When I got to the bar it was already packed, and clearly many of the guys in there had already drunk enough to ensure that by the kick off they would have no idea who was who (If that’s you and you are reading this,
Seattle won).
Back to
Seattle airport to discover another security measure. In addition to taking the remainder of your I-94, you now have to go to a machine, swipe your passport, give fingerprints and have your picture taken (you have had to do this for a while on entry, now you have to prove you are the same person leaving as the one who came in). I reflected that the Department of Homeland Security has more recent photos of me than all other people on earth put together. Must cost them a fortune in photo frames, but I hope the pictures cheer up their desks. Nice to think you might be brightening up Dick Cheney’s life. Anyway if you need a recent picture of me you know where to go.
The flight back was the main event. It all looked so normal, we boarded on time, it was looking good, and then, on comes the captain with a cheery voice. I knew we were doomed. You will recall that the temperatures were just below freezing in
Seattle. The captain’s announcement went approximately:
“We have a little bit of a problem”, he said. (“We are really doomed” I thought). “Unfortunately when we landed the plane was refuelled rather full”, he continued . “When the engine is switched on the fuel expands as it warms up. When the main tank is overfull it overflows into spare tanks in the wings . If these are overfull then valves open in the wing and the fuel is dumped. Unfortunately we are overfull and fuel is being dumped on the tarmac. We will have to wait until the dumping stops and the fire department clean up the mess before we can leave. Please don’t be alarmed by the many fire trucks surrounding the plane, but please leave your safety belts unfastened.”. “Great” I thought, “I’m sitting inside a bomb”.
Anyway we sat there for several hours with an array of fire trucks blinking around us. Stressed, moi? I spent the time dreaming up ways of torturing whoever refuelled our plane. The attendants in Club were trying to placate the frustrated passengers with drinks. Due to BA rules, cabin crew in Club can only serve soft drinks or champagne before take off. Two guys on the other side of the aisle were trying to get their compensation in champagne. Take off was over 3 hours late. By the time we had levelled off and the cabin service began it was virtually midnight.
This led to a very interesting phenomenon. Particularly after the delay the cabin crew were trying to rescue the situation by being over attentive with food and drink etc. Normally this would be great but after midnight I really only wanted to sleep and had trouble persuading my cabin attendant that no I did not want a main course, dessert, cheese, liqueur, nor to be woken by him any more times. Eventually when I begged hard enough he agreed to cease the force feeding. Landed 4 hours late in a miserable
London, and my troubles were not over.
For ten years now I have always used a particular cab company to and from the airport. The guy who runs it is called Paul, and we have become firm friends. I used to use companies at random, but when I first used him he established a unique selling proposition.
It was just a few things. He came at the agreed time, his car was clean and it worked, he wasn’t a rabid psychopath or white supremacist, didn’t have offensive body odour, didn’t try to convert me to the Baha’i faith, he didn’t ask me for an advance on the fare so he could buy the petrol to get there. It’s the little things that single you out. My driver that day was due to be Dennis. Dennis is a lovely retired guy who hides his niceness under a grumpy exterior. I have a standing joke with him that it’s Paul’s way of letting me know I’ve upset him when Dennis gets sent. Don’t know what happened but I had him paged and no show. After an hour I gave up and trudged off to get a bus home. Arrived home at 6pm on Sunday evening (5 hours late). Sometimes it’s just not your day.
Dear all,
I was amazed by the response of the native English speakers to my last missive (entitled “Of cookies, curries and teddies”).
The amazing bit was the percentage of you who wrote back saying that on reading that title you had assumed that the word “teddies” referred to the item of women’s lingerie, rather that teddy bears, which was what I meant all along.
Wash your minds out with soap.
My next trip was to
Copenhagen. An ungodly 4.45 am start to head for the airport.
A nondescript flight landing more on less on time.
I have not been to
Copenhagen for many years (only my second visit).
Last time I flew there it was with Unisys many years ago, with my friend Kurt Essenbaek, (a Dane). I recall him telling me on that flight, that the airline we were flying on (SAS),, was short for “Salmon, always salmon), in view of the food they served).When I have flown with SAS this has been invariably true , though they didn’t serve this for breakfast I can report.
My first impression on landing was about how much of the airport floor was covered in “wood”.
Given that I live in a country where IKEA has stores, I was trying to calculate how many boxes of a floor covering called something like “Bilbó” would be required to cover it.
I wondered how many trolley loads it would take to cover this area, and pitied those who would be in the line behind (it takes long enough in IKEA even on a good day). Take my advice- don’t get stuck behind the
Copenhagen airport folks.
I was also irritated by the number of people who were not willing to queue at passport control and strode up to the front of the line. Don’t know what their nationality, but being a Brit I fumed and said nothing.
Took a cab from the airport, and was surprised that my driver didn’t speak good English, as in the Scandinavian countries this is very unusual. He punched the address into his GPS and seemed content that he knew the way.
I was a little alarmed when on reflection I realised that the destination I was going to wasn’t necessarily in
Copenhagen. I had also assumed from my previous trips that credit cards would be automatically accepted ( normal in Scandinavian countries- credit cards are normal and the price is the price- you don’t have to tip).
It was evident that deep snow lay by the side of the road and that winter still had some grip.
I hoped that the £100 I had changed would at least get me there if the credit card didn’t work.
My concern was diminished a little as we drove around the ring road.
Many Scandinavian words look like German words. My English schoolboy lavatory humour was amused by a sign .(The German word for “to drive” or “to travel by vehicle” is “fahren”).
Hence when I saw a sign saying “Fart kontrol 3km” I guessed it was a radar speed check (and sniggered).
I couldn’t however adequately translate “Husk fart kontrol”- a prize for the best answer (Kurt you are excluded for obvious reasons…)
I was surprised when we arrived. I thought the guy driving me had asked for the amount in German. I thought I had misheard, so asked him to repeat.
He replied , and this time I realised that he was indeed talking German. I asked him why he spoke German, and he explained that he regularly drove German tourists in the summer, as they went North for the sailing.
We settled the bill amicably in German, and I was off to the Danish Leadership Institute- a very strong senior manager learning institute- I was impressed.
On leaving the institute, I climbed into a taxi to take me back to my hotel, and went back in time to the late 1970s.
My driver looked like he had stepped out from a 70s disco movie, albeit not quite from the “Disco of the desperate” mentioned last time.
“Feather cut” hair , very open shirt, hairy chest peeping, and yes, medallion. Yuk.
We drove to the hotel, with “Chic” and “Sister Sledge” blaring, and with me fighting the urge to blast out “Ah, ah, ah, ah, staying alive, staying alive” in a falsetto voice.
Just about made it, but it hurt..
The Radisson I was staying in has very small rooms (made up to look like cabins on a boat). It’s just a ruse to justify overpriced tiny rooms.
Spent some hours working, and about 8pm set out to find a restaurant.
On leaving the hotel (which I am sure is the same Kurt booked me into last time), I broke my cardinal rule for eating on business.
When in doubt, head towards the big church spires- usually this means the centre and hence loads of commerce and hence choice.
I thought I had seen some restaurants on the way in and headed down the street away from the spires and realised I was mistaken. Not willing to admit defeat I went into an “Italian restaurant”.
The waitress spoke to me in Danish , of which I speak nothing. Trying to meet her half way I replied in Italian. She looked completely confused (probably my Italian) so we agreed to speak English.
Whilst seated I started my Danish learning campaign.
In my view two of the most important phrases to learn in a new language are “please” and “thank you”, so asked her how you say each in Danish.
She had no trouble with “Thank you”, – “tak” same in Swedish, also “yes” in Polish.
However she thought for a long time about “please” and told me that she could not think of a Danish equivalent, as “Danes don’t talk like that”.
Anyway, Kurt, put me straight; I can’t believe there is no equivalent..
Next morning the “sausages” and “bacon” in the overpriced breakfast buffet were hideous. As the Danes produce such great bacon why does it have to be so bad in their hotels?
Taxi to the office and a really long day listening to presentations.
Several of us shared taxis back to the hotel. A colleague talking about how overstretched he was , said that the need to clone himself was overwhelming. He was greeted with a shower of derision as to why this would be a really bad idea, although we did agree that cloning would produce one person who might agree with him sometimes.
After a team dinner I had to work- I had picked up various issues from the day and wanted to tailor my presentation to recognize these. I worked until about 12.40 am.
Realising I needed an early morning call I dialed for reception. The call was answered promptly and I explained I needed a 6.30 am call.
The guy who answered was very attentive, but ruined it at the end by saying “and you are in room 1715, right?”. “No, I‘m in room 421” I said.
Worried about the call not coming, I made enquiries as to why he thought I was in 1715 and established that he was not in the same hotel. (To “improve” customer service the Radissons in
Copenhagen – there are at least 3- have a system whereby if your call is not answered within a time limit it goes to reception in another hotel. This improves response time, but does rely on the message getting back to the hotel you are actually staying at).
I tried calling reception again, and this time got the third reception (full set).
In view of the importance of getting up on time , I decided to go down to my reception to book my call in person.
On arrival I saw the reason for the unavailability of the guy at reception. There was a lady, I guess about 60ish, who seemed to be a little (ok quite a bit) the worse for alcohol, and who was trying to check in. The guy was asking for a credit card imprint, and she seemed unable to find her cards (or didn’t have any).
After a couple of inconclusive minutes the receptionist was a little exasperated and said he would need to deal with me first.
I explained that I needed an early morning call, and the importance of it being on time.
Next thing I knew there was an arm around my shoulder and a husky voice, alcohol-fumed saying “I’ll give you an early morning call my dear”.
My new lady friend then burst into a song that seemed a distant memory,
“I’m gonna knock on your door, ring on your bell
Tap on your window, too”
Anyway, I made my excuses in typical English diplomatic style and went to my room .
I’m not normally fast moving but I left reception at speed, unaccompanied (and to be fair, unpursued).
I was struggling to sleep. The song was bugging me as I was vaguely aware of it. I tossed and turned trying to remember the singer. Finally, unable to sleep, I got up and logged on to a search engine to look it up.
Two minutes on the internet gave me the awful truth. I had been propositioned by a drunken, possibly penurious fan of “Little Jimmy Osmond”.
Of such things are mid-life crises made.
I am reminded of a comment by Joan Rivers. Allegedly Paris Hilton ( a Hilton heir), gained additional notoriety by her participation in a certain “home video”.
Joan’s comment was “How could she do such a thing – in a Marriott?”
OK I’m not cut out to be a toy boy (though six weeks younger than my wife).
The drunkenness I could comprehend- the poor eyesight- the desire for a room.
But the musical taste-Little Jimmy Osmond- I felt cheapened.
Eventually my natural optimism compensated. I reasoned:
a) As the Jimmy Osmond song was obviously a cover version- maybe she knew the older version so wasn’t really a Jimmy Osmond fan
b) At least it wasn’t the Bay City Rollers, (remember “Shang a Lang” or “Bye Bye Baby”)? If not- don’t try. Trust me.
Next morning awoken by the phone and off to a meeting. I was due to present for the first time to this audience.
My task of being vaguely interesting was somewhat eased by the guy presenting before me. It was nothing to do with him.
The room had no conference phone and a poor broadband link. Agreement had been reached that he would present via MS communicator. This worked great for a few seconds the night before, but two minutes of presentation demonstrated that the broadband would not work for a 45 minute presentation.
To try and compensate a colleague tried calling the presenter ( who was in
Singapore), on his mobile , and placed it onto loudspeaker mode.
A profound idea, but my advice is, do not try to present to a cavernous room using a tiny mobile as your amplifier. Just a thought…..
Anyway my presentation went down quite well, on the basis of being “slightly more interesting than 45 minutes of faint buzzing in the distance”.
The meeting ended and it was off to the airport. A sandwich and a beer while awaiting my flight. Was struck by the huge numbers of people smoking- way more than you see normally- is smoking more common in
Denmark?
Anyway it was time to make my way to the gate, although the flight hadn’t been called.
Arrived at the gate to find the black hole of
Calcutta.
The gate was reached by going down an escalator. Given that passengers descending the escalator had to get off quickly as it was still moving, a complex game of chess was being enacted as the already overstuffed passenger quota tried to accommodate each additional body plus luggage, arriving at a rate equivalent to the escalator speed.
The congestion was akin to my trip on the overstuffed tram in
Dublin.
However the congestion was slightly eased by the complete absence of anyone from the airline. I reasoned that they were either:
- Down buying fresh salmon at the docks
- Collecting another truckload of packets of “Snĩggë –Snöggã” to do a bit more of the floor
Or else
- Watching our contortions on camera and having a laugh
- All three of the above. (given the time they took this is the most attractive theory).
When the SAS folks eventually arrived we boarded finally with no explanation. Danes may or may not say please, but SAS clearly don’t say “sorry”
