Wintertijd

Papa's got a brand new bag...

As Lisa wrote, things have been a wee tumultuous lately. One of the things is that I switched jobs. I'm still with a global supplier and manufacturor of computing, imaging and printing solutions, but I'm no longer active in the sales-department.

I got sick of the sales-process. Selling things seems to be an activity that generally has little to do with sitting down a customer and giving them the straight dope. As a Pre-Sales technician with Veritas once said to me "It's not exactly as though we're in the truth-business, son".

Now I want to be a technician. I like being a technician. And my mother told me not to lie to people. So combining these two made it a logical choice to go back to my old line of work. I'm back in support. Oh sure, it's one of these cool so-called Competency Centres, so I'd only get more complex cases, but still... It's support.

There are more inherent advantages to working in support. You don't have to spend half your life on the road. You work with customers from all over the EMEA region, you get to speak your languages, you get to work from home, and last but not least it doesn't matter anymore where I decide to live in Europe... I can pretty much move anywhere in the vicinity of an HP office. That includes Amsterdam, the French alps, Switzerland, Barcelona and a lot of other cool locations.

Contrary to popular belief (half the office thought I'd be living in Holland in no-time after this change), Lisa and I will be staying in Sweden for at least one or two more years. After that, we'll see.

Another thing that happened is that I got a letter from my car-leasing company that told me I needed to order a new car ASAP because my contract on the old one was only two years. So I sacrificed myself and did what they asked. I really hate ordering brand spanking new cars. ;-)

So I moseyed on down to a couple of dealers, and decided to make a change. I've always chosen practical cars. I've driven a Saab 9-3 Hatchback with a Diesel because of the trunk space and the economics, I'm currently driving a Renault Laguna Diesel for the same reasons. I've always chosen cars with silvery or at least light metallic colours because of the weather in Sweden...

But now it's no more mr Nice Guy. I've decided to order an Espresso Black Saab 9-3 Sportsedan with all the spoilers I could get on there, a sport chassis, 17" wheels, parchment-coloured pluche interior, pimping stereo and all the trimmings I could cram into that car. I'm turning 30 in a couple of weeks, and daddy needs a pimpmobile to make up for it.

It's even got a 150 horse-power Diesel engine. For those among us that don't know what that means... Well, lets say it kicks the living daylight out of the 180 horse-power Turbo engine that Saab has, and it can drag a truck along by the trailer hitch.

It's just too bad I couldn't get Neon on the bottom plate and a low-rider installation...

Posted by Chris at March 24, 2005 11:04 AM