New This Week, Part 13

1. Office: Screwing the Boss in Short Employment
Photo courtesy of EverJean
The title sounds odd, I know. In a minute you will know why I chose it. At my office, things had been -- to put it politely -- strange the last months but this week has brought a series of events that I wouldn't have considered possible by any means. So this item of the week is actually a bouquet of things.

Following up on the events that have been going on at the office, on last week's Monday we have experienced a new surge. I came in Monday morning, and shortly after my arrival, Daniel asked Ruby, my new colleague, into his office. He said, "We need to talk." So she went over, and when she came back she was pale and very quiet. I told her that whatever he had said was none of my business, and she replied that she couldn't yet talk about it and had to calm down.

Of course it didn't take long to be told what had gone on. What Daniel had needed to talk about was basically getting back at her for a joke she had made the previous week. Referring to Daniel's wife's e-mail in which she (the wife) had claimed my other boss to have a kid with the cleaning lady, Ruby jokingly mentioned to Andy that she was expecting a kid from him as well. She giggled, and it was absolutely clear that she was joking. Frankly, I wouldn't have thought she was capable of a joke like that but highly respected it.

So summarizing the "office talk" that Daniel needed to have with Ruby, he told her, "You're screwing around with Andy without a rubber, aren't you?" And he went on with similar things like that she had betrayed him after all the support he had given her.

After the rest of us at the office had calmed Ruby down, she decided to go up to him again and let him know she was not fine with his behavior and that she wouldn't tolerate anything like this again. We went with her for her protection. It was very obvious that Daniel was angry, as he called her "my dear" in a very sharp tone, and almost all of his sentences to anyone started with, "Listen!"

To round it up shortly, the rest of the week wasn't much calmer although Daniel and Andy finally came to terms. Before we had talked about the office's insolvency but all of a sudden it was apparently decided to move from that to short employment, a German employment model that allows to keep employees for a certain time even though the sales are not sufficient and there is no money to pay the staff.

On top of everything, Andy quit being our second CEO. Now, Daniel is the only CEO of the company. I am delighted, you can tell. But I understand and highly respect Andy's decision. He is a great visionary, and this move shows it again.

2. New Food: Lebanese Fast Food
Hm...I know there was a second item. I do. But I forgot what it is. Will tell you when I remember. A dear friend of mine showed me a nice Lebanese fast food place in the Altstadt of Düsseldorf where we got two plates of a little bit of everything and sat down on the other side of the block, next to the movie museum and the little artificial pond that looks green because of all the algea. Yum! :)