Strange day ....

This was really a strange day … it really tried hard to annoy me. I have to start in the morning to tell the complete story. This morning i woke up much earlier than nescessary, thus i decides to take an earler train to my customer site. I initally planned to plan the time without margin. But as i was awake anyway, i thought could take out risk out of my itinerary.
But after this decision, the strange stuff started: At first i had to search for my mobile. Of course the bell was switched off, so i couldn´t ping it with my fixed line telephone. It was much to late, thus i had to walk very fast to the very last suburban train to reach my Intercity train. I was on time, the suburban train wasn´t. My 5 minutes margin to get a coffee and a bagel for breakfast was killed by this late train. With roundabout 30 seconds margin i still got my train. All was well …. besides of the fact, it was a Eurocity with waggons from Switzerland. It must be the very oldest waggons. No power outlets and a freefall toilet (the sign “don´t use it in stations” is there for a reason. I didn´t used it anyway but i needed some paper towels). Okay, i was glad about reaching the train. The train reached the city of Bremen without further problem. Okay, i had to change for the train to Oldenburg there. I reached the train, but: There was a long train in our way. We weren´t able to start. After 10 minutes the train was out of the way, but we still didn´t started. Suicide on the tracks. Overloaded tracks in the region because of all the delayed trains. But they promised us to reach all transfers in Oldenburg. Well … this was valid until we reached the location of the suicide. The fire department had to close down the track again for some minutes. Okay, the transfers gone to hell. Waiting for next train. At this moment i lost the half of my additional margin by driving earlier. Okay, i took the next train. Next station Rastede. After stoping there, the train started to drive to next station. Or better: It tried to start … the computer system of the train stopped a few minutes later. It took 15 minutes to get this train running again. Okay, nothing between me and my destination … well … that wasn´t exactly true: Commuters and business travelers hate one of the unique german long words … “Schienenersatzverkehr” or to say it in english: rail replacement bus service. There were ongoing construction works between the villages of Varel and Sande to enable the track for increased train frequency due to the new container port in Wilhelmshaven. The only week with two meetings on two days in Wilhelmshaven … and i decided to do them one of the two weeks this year with “Schienenersatzverkehr”. Cheese …. I finally reached Wilhelmshaven and walked to the taxi stand. There were three of them … until i walked to the stand. All three of them drove away when i almost reached the stand. Okay … i was able to get a taxi 5 minutes later (Wilhelmshaven isn´t New York, there aren´t hundreds of cabs ;) ) Finally i reached my destination exactly 3 minutes earlier than with the high risk itinerary and lost an hour of dozing in my bed for those fscking, damned 3 minutes. I had just a few minutes to step onto the dyke to take a photo that perfectly shows, why i really like the northern part of Germany so much.

Okay … the meeting with the customer was excellent. Besides of one fact: I tried to drink some tee in the meeting. Unfortunately they filled the can with extremly hot water almost to the edge and closed it down totally. The resulting overpressure in the can spilled hot tea on my hand and my notebook. Women, childen and laptops first … thus i´ve cleaned it up before i noticed, that there was a bright, medium sized scaled area at the basic joint of my thumb at my left hand. And you thought, the job of an evangelist and system engineer isn´t dangerous? This day was indeed a really strange day. It tried its very best to annoy me …