What a week. As you guys know, the company I had been working for 3 years was undergoing a global restructuring and about 70 staff members (me being one of them) were made redundant. You can imagine, that quite everyone in the company was upset, not only those who had to leave the company, but also the guys who kept their jobs. The Executive Team told everyone, that this is the one and only time people will have to leave the company due to this restructuring and promises have been made, that something like this won’t happen again any time soon.
Hell yeah..anytime soon. Actually, last Wednesday, again NCsoft Europe was “letting people go” – or, to speak frankly – kicked 50 people out, leaving the European office with only 30 people left. “The European office is transitioning to have a stronger focus in marketing and sales, with many of the existing disciplines being consolidated in our studios on the US West Coast and our headquarters in Seattle” is the reason for the layoffs this time. What they do not say, is that this is, what the Americans always wanted – taking away any power from the European office, controlling every move on a continent they have absolutely and defintely no clue about.
With Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa failing, a Guild Wars 2 which is supposedly going to be released 2010, 2011 and Aion being successful in Korea but almost certain to be a complete failure in Europe and the US (imho) this is actually not a surprise. But unfortunately, being right in his own predictions is not always nice. I feel for my friends who now lost their jobs in the once most awesome company in the European games industry ever as well.
Let’s see – my guess is, that within 6 months, there will be no longer a European office.
Every year a time comes up, when people suddenly start talking about family, love and religion. Every year a time comes up, when people lose their minds and run into shops, buying presents and worrying about if they can find good gifts for their beloved ones. Every year, the madness comes again. It usually starts in the beginning of November and ends in the middle of January. Christmas time. For me, it used to be the worst time in the the year. What is it exactly about Christmas, that makes people act like that? In the end, it is just another day in the year, just another day in the winter, just another day, but on this particular day, and long before this day, people just go crazy.
For me, Christmas used to be a good thing, when I was a child. Christmas was about having holidays for two weeks, Christmas was the time when our grandmother was standing in the kitchen for hours preparing bakery for everyone, Christmas was about having a nice dinner together and mainly – christmas was the one time in the year when our whole family, the grandparents, the other grandparents, the Italians and us where together.
The Italians usually made it to Germany on December 23 in the evening, allowing them to get some final Christmas shopping on December 24 in the morning and helping my mother to prepare some awesome Christmas dinner. Then, we kids usually spent our time together, playing and waiting until my father rung an old bell. We were singing Christmas carols, playing piano and flute together, exchanged our presents and enjoyed the dinner. Next day, we all went to visit the parents of my mother, and and on December 26, my fathers parents. Obviously as a child you are looking forward to presents, but as soon, as we didn’t have this kind of Christmas anymore, I learned what I really missed about Christmas – the family being together and having a good time.
Christmas started to be a nightmare when I was about…11, 12 something. My grandfather was in hospital, dying of lung cancer, and we basically could do nothing apart from watching him die. I remember one time, when we went to the hospital in their home town, Amberg, and me running up the stairs to be the first one to see him on that day. When I reached the floor his room was on, I heard screaming and a very scared nurse told me, that some other nurse had forgotten to fix his bed and my grandfather had fallen out of his bed on the floor. That was the day, when I started to hate hospitals. Well, as you can imagine, Christmas that year was the worst Christmas ever. But the following years turned out to be quite…special. In a bad sense.
The years after my grandfathers death the Italians stopped visiting us. They came a few days after Christmas and spent some days with us. But it wasn’t the same anymore. On December 24, my family (Parents, BigBrother and me) got dressed up and visited our grandmother, as she was alone, and nobody should be alone on Christmas Day, right? Well anyway, we got there, had our dinner, which was mostly steak and bread and a lot of red wine which my mother and me enjoyed in particular (in one year we both managed to drink 3 bottles of red whine just the two of us). And afterwards, we “enjoyed” some bakery, sitting around the table, watching incredibly bad Bavarian television and my grandmother started to cry at some point.
About this Bavarian television – I think, at some point, it made me hate Christmas . Christmas wasn’t joyful, Christmas wasn’t love, Christmas wasn’t being together and having a good time. Christmas…was the worst day in the year, and in television…well you’ll see. Have fun with some carefully chosen samples of joyful cheesy songs we had to endure:
Well this year will be different. This time, it will be in my home town and just the (hopefully) four of us. I’m glad I’ll be at home, but not because it’s Christmas, because I still do hate Christmas. But I am really glad, that I can see my family and this time… maybe we’ll have more fun than three bottles of (really good) red wine.
I moved to Brighton in the mid of September 2005, when the days were already shorter and after work it was already dark outside, it was cold and sometimes wet, like everyone expects English weather to be. But although I do not like walking through dark streets and corners, I always enjoyed my way home from the office everyday. You know, usuallly when you had a hard working day – you are tired, hungry, maybe a little bit angry or disappointed because of something what happened that day in the company, its dark and cold and you just want to get home, have a nice dinner and watch some Poirot movies on your cosy sofa and forget about the world outside.
So why did I enjoy my way home every single day? There was one person who was making the difference. I don’t know his name, I don’t know, why he was doing it – but this one guy, a homeless man in old but clean clothes was cheering me up everyday I met him. He was sitting somewhere in the North Lanes in Brighton, in the street in which you can find the Comedia and the huge Burger restaurant and the shop with the Vegetarian shoes. Somewhere there he was sitting, smiling at people and saying hello to everyone, singing and playing with a small soft toy, a colorful snake. He always had a CD player with him and played loud music.
So imagine – it is dark outside, you are tired and your brain already left your head a few hours ago – and then, when you are walking down the street, you can hear the music. Always some kind of soundtrack. Batman, Indiana Jones, Star Wars – everyday something different, but something you knew.
As we moved flat 1,5 years ago, I had a different, shorter way home and just by chance was seing this man again – and for some reason, though it might be really sad for this person that he is still homeless – but somehow it made me happy to see him again, the CD player and the smile on his face when he talked to people while you could hear the soundtrack of the Pink Panther. Just the soft toy snake was missing.
It may sound selfish, but I was really glad, that some things do not change.
When I was little and my dad just got his shiny, new PC, there was one game I used to play for hours. I tried to remember the name of this game, but it seems that this was too long ago. The things I do remember:
You played a little guy who had to push boxes in designated corners. You could only move the boxes by standing behind them and going forward, pushing them straight ahead. For a change of direction, you had to push the box from another side. It looked…sort of like this:
I tried Google, but it is difficult to get any results when you cannot remember the name, not even a part of the name. So please, if anyone of you guys have played or just seen this game and you know its name – please tell me, I NEED to know the name of this game!
I used to work a lot on Fridays. Actually, for many years I haven’t really been out on Friday evenings, I mostly spent my time working in my local cinema as a bartender. And the funny thing is – I really miss that. Starting at 7 PM in the evening with hardly anyone there, begging my boss for a cheese prezel (sounds weird, but it is actually very tasty), having a cup of coffee, counting the stock and my money, chatting with friends…then in the first break between 8:30 and 9:30 pm, my late and very cheap dinner (salted popcorn and some nachos with cheese) and another coffee or some kind of alcoholic drink a customer ordered and then left it there untouched because his movie started… Good old times. Now when I go to a pub in the night, it is nice actually, but at some point I still feel sort of guilty when I am not working on a Friday night.
I think if I could choose what to do tonight, I actually would enjoy to work one more time in a bar / pub.
Is working in gastronomy sort of addictive? Once you started it seems to be really hard to get away from it and it doesn’t matter how long you stayed away from it you always have the feeling it wouldn’t hurt to just go back and work there for just another evening?
By the way, I am still spending my day waiting… How long can it take for a simple decision? Seriously…
Just a few thoughts I would like to share with everyone:
#1
Crusty rolls. I really like them, especially one with Nuss-Pli in the evening with a cup of fresh…alright England…so almost fresh milk. So you go in the kitchen, get your awesome Nuss-Pli roll and sit down on the sofa, you grab your roll, and the only thing you want to do is to have a bite – and then you have to find out, that the roll is actually too big for your mouth and not flexible enough in order to squeeze it a little…I hate these kind of rolls…really. Why can’t they just make rolls which can actually be consumed by women with small mouths?
#2
I hate having to wait for calls from French guys. Seriously, what can possibly take so long for one single decision? Usually when a woman is waiting in front of her laptop checking emails every two minutes and keeping the mobile phone so close to the body so she just has to feel the vibration, with the hope that she will receive an email or a phone call and get an invitation to Paris… you know…usually…this stuff only happens when a woman is waiting for a man to call her after they had a really awesome date, possibly the first kiss… Should not happen, should definitely not happen when you are hoping to get a job.
Just imagine a bunch of people standing next to each other in a line. Nobody talks, not even looking at each other, just standing there, staring silently at a screen in front of them, waiting for a number, waiting for their number. In this silence, you can almost hear the sweat drops rolling down cheeks and splashing on the dirty floor. Slowly, some of them start moving forward, not crossing the line, just taking one step towards the line, squeezing their bodies just a little bit further, leaning forward – always focusing the black screen with the magic orange letters and numbers.
Minutes pass by, without anything happening. Then, suddenly, there is a movement. Out of nowhere, a shiny orange number appears next to a name, their name, their destination, their goal – and the epic race begins…
First, everyone pretends to be cool, slowly moving forward, walking calm and patient. Then, the first runner begins to sprint, grabbing his suitcase with the right hand, the jacket with the left, perfectly polished shiny black leather shoes which seem to be as new as the obviously newly bought suit make their way through the first obstacle. Runner #2 seems to have some serious lack of training, the pink flannel jogging pants cannot entirely cover the egg shaped expanded bottom – nobody would have ever imagined that a bottom of the size of Australia can be moved in light velocity – and may all gods save humanity of this incredibly tremendousness to be seen ever again.
Now, everybody runs. Tall people, small people, the rich and the poor, the busy and the relaxed, in suits and dresses, in pants and almost non existing skirts, shiny blond and something-which-used-to-be-blue hair, with suitcases and bags, with backpacks and iPhones, with laptops and crying 6 year old kids – everybody runs. Until the first obstacle – the mass comes to a hold, while everybody is taking out their running allowance, a queue is formed. Then, the race continues, around a corner, around human hurdles, to the right, 10 meters and then to the left. The final sprint to the ultimate goal – the first ones gather before one door, the next ones have to run a little bit further to the next door. Small queues of 3 people are building in front of the doors, nobody is silly enough to form larger queues – the results would be devastating.
As soon as everybody as taken his place in front of a door, silence comes back – and again, calm and patient they are waiting. The run is over. The waiting begins. For another 5 minutes, nobody dares to move.
Then, the relieving flushing of a button on the doors. It is over.
The train is ready to be boarded. Welcome to London Victoria train station. Have a good trip home, everyone.
Here I am. It’s 07:18 in the morning – actually at this time ot the day I am still in bed, sleeping, dreaming and cuddling my pillow. Not today. Sitting here with my blanket and a Cherry Coke, listening to music and watching the sun rising. I am tired. Sort of. Still, my brain doesn’t seem to want stopping to think about what’s coming next and what will happen within the next few weeks.
I wish I’d be back in Erlangen, having a nice cup of cafe latte in my favorite coffee shop, the “Sugar in the morning”. Though my best friend told me, that the sugar has been sold and refurnished, so there’s another thing which changed and I couldn’t even say goodbye. Sounds ridicolous, saying goodbye to a coffee shop? Well this one was very special. A very small place in the heart of the inner city with lots of memories in it. Memories of having fun with my brother and some close friends, enjoying a nice breakfast in the morning or just a cup of coffee. I don’t know if it was just the place itself or the fact, that everytime I went there, it was fun, relaxing and peaceful, but the coffee…seriously, the best coffee ever made in Erlangen.
For some reason it seems, that everytime I visit my family back in Germany, another small piece of the city changes. Someday I’ll visit Erlangen and there will be nothing left…changes are good, I suppose, but I’d prefer some things to just stay as they are. Already it doesn’t feel like home anymore. Usually I do not have such problems with changes. Maybe it is because my whole life is changing at the moment. Soon, I’ll have to leave the friends I’ve made here, the aweful, tiny, old English flat I do call home…everything I worked so hard for the last three years.
Hm…for a second I was considering going to the beach, watching the sun rise…but the beach alone is always quite depressing, and… – there’ll be no coffee because Starbucks hasn’t opened at this time of the day. No coffee…which means it will be bloody cold outside and that won’t be fun at all then at the beach.
Reading is a good idea though..thanks Olly, I’ll try that. Reading until I eventually fall asleep – hopefully.
Damn..another wasted day – when I sleep now, I won’t wake up until 3pm. But…I guess it doesn’t matter right now – no job, no need to get up early, this friday is just all about waiting for news and…well waiting for the evening to go out in the pub to meet some friends. Friends I have to say goodbye to, as everyone moves away now.
