Tue 27 Dec 2005
It has been a long day, but in a few moments I would finally get some sleep. Some things did clear up this evening – though not entirely the way I wanted them to it is nevertheless better to know where I stand. I just hope it didn’t show it made me a bit hm… melancholic – let’s put it that way.
With any luck this whole holiday period would be over soon and I would get back to my normal witty, sarcastic, persuasive and organized self.
Wed 21 Dec 2005
I’ve just arrived in Zurich, in heavy snow. I never landed in such snowy conditions so it was quite interesting. As soon as the engines stopped everything went as in a Swiss watch – within ten minutes I was in the terminal building and then, having passed passport control, I have found to my amazement that my suitcase was already waiting for me on the stopped conveyer belt in the luggage claim area.
Having a one hour wait for my colleagues before me I headed to Starbucks where I relaxed enjoying Chai Latte tea and doing my e-mail. I soon found out that apart from the paid hotspot there is free access to the airpot web service where I could track the flights I waited for. This proved to be quite handy as my colleagues’ planes are late.
Tue 29 Nov 2005
Communicating with people is the most important part of my work now. Encouraging, forcing, charming, coercing, negotiating, inquiring, judging, establishing rapport, motivating, reprimanding, understanding, directing, coaching – you name it. It means being in contact with many egos, some of which create the collective “ego” we call “our company” or “our team”.
Sat 26 Nov 2005
In one of my favorite spirit-lifting movies, “Love Actually”, there is a scene when a concerned stepfather finally learns what was it that visibly disturbed his 8-year old stepson, Samuel, for weeks. After many tries the boy finally confesses that he is desperately in love with a classmate, a girl called Joanna. The stepfather, who suspected the kid is mourning his late mother, maybe even taking drugs, says he’s a little relieved as he thought it might be something worse. The boy looks up at him amazed and exclaims incredulously “Worse than the total agony of being in love?”.