Wintertijd

Training Day I

So I got sent to Germany. For two weeks. Since Papa's gotten a brand new bag I needed to be educated in the ways of the backup jedi, which means a two week stay in sunny B?blingen, Germany. For those of you that don't know the town, and I expect there to be many of you out there that really don't, it's a sleepy town in the vicinity of Stuttgart. The most exciting thing they have here is a KFC and a Mercedes factory with a glass parking garage.

Now the South of Germany offers good cuisine, fairly nice weather and I at least speak the language, but still, a country is only as good as the company you have. Most of the guys in the course are support technicians. From Finland, South Africa, Israel, Czech Republic, India, Austria and Germany. Now I've noticed that the further North you go in this list, the less inclined they are to idle talk and social activities.

So today we're in training sessions that get presented by coders. Slovakian coders. Once you get past the accent, you really can't help but notice that in the technical world there are two kind of trainers. Either they don't know shit and are good at presenting stuff, or they really really know their stuff and shouldn't be allowed to interact with humans. Our variety is most certainly of the latter persuasion.

I'm currently looking at a short, bald and stocky man in Tees and Jeans who is standing with his back to the class, looking at slides and mumbling stuff as he goes through his presentation. He constantly has things in his hands, and he plays with them while feverishly looking at the projection screen as though he's pretending we're all not here.

Furthermore he scratches himself. Either on the back or the tummy. Could have been worse though. Could have been scratching his crotch or ass all the time. His head shines. I feel I would like to wipe it off just to break the monotony. At least he knows what he's talking about, and he's open to discussions.

As I ponder what type of drugs they did when they designed the slideshow, I realise it's going to be a long, long fortnight.

Posted by Chris at April 12, 2005 03:24 PM