Yesterday

There are days that feel like used ones. Somebody already took the best parts out of it and left only the bad ones. Yesterday was such a day. To start my meetings at a normal time in Dresden (normal time for the customers, the fact that i´m coming from Hamburg isn´t the problem of the customer) i have take the 06:30 am flight. Check-in is closing at 06:00, urban train to airport starts at 05:31, so i have to leave at 05:20. I need a little bit less than an hour from deep sleep mode to fully operational so my alarm clock wakes me at 04:30. This isn´t much of a problem for me, as i´m waking up between 05:00 and 06:00 in any case … so it´s just one hour less sleep. Nevertheless i like this hour … and i like to stay in bed drinking tea, reading news and often my first mails for the job are written in my bed.
So i was really upset to find my aircraft delayed almost two hours. Instead of 06:30 this aircraft had an estimated 08:30 departure. At the end it was 08:15 … but didn´t made it better. At the end this led to an 30 minutes delay at my customer, so it wasn´t such a problem for him … it was more a problem for me. Without FTL status i would be more angry. A 10 Euro voucher for breakfast as an excuse isn´t really much money. Every business traveller knows the ridiclious prices at airports. It buys you a latte macciato and perhaps a second one … with FTL status you can at least enter the lounge and have some breakfast (free of charge) there and it´s much more comfortable than at the gate. Especially when it´s gate A28 in Hamburg. A28 in Hamburg are just stairs to the apron in the middle of a large hallway. The most unconfortable gate at HAM. At 08:10 or so we boarded the apron bus … and not much later we were above the clouds. I was still removing slides from my presentation, as due to the delay i had already postponed and shortened the meeting .

The plane on the picture wasn´t my plane … that´s the Continental shopping shuttle directly from Hamburg to Newark. Okay, the meeting was okay … i won´t talk about it here because this isn´t the place to talk about customer meeting. That´s independent from it´s outcome. So i don´t say it was a bad meeting, and i don´t say it was a good meeting. It was okay ;). But i thought long enough about this meeting just to keep my mind busy until i got to sleep. I´ve learned a thing or two yesterday. Back to airport shortly before 02:00 pm. My aircraft was scheduled for a departure at 04:25 pm, so boarding starts at 15:55. Okay … just waiting 2 hours in the DRS FTL lounge with bad coffee, some fruits and cookies. But there was something missing in the lounge …..

They removed the curtains there, so it feels like in a aquarium … there was just missing a sign in front of the lounge “frequentius travellerus vulgaris” and people in front of it staring at you while you eat, work and wait for the time to pass … after that you know how animals feel in zoo. BTW: As the Star Alliance Gold lounge is a different room, you could not look it it … so you didn´t need a sign “frequentius travellerus senatoris”. I know i shouldn´t talk bad about the airport in Dresden. But this airport is outright depressing. Not much traffic. You know traffic is sparse when the next bird on the departure table is your own in 2 hours. And the weather wasn´t capable to make it a brigher day.

But the day wouldn´t be that bad if there weren´t other delays and other hassles. At 15:55 the airline told us that the aircraft got to late to Dresden. 30 minutes additional delay to prepare the aircraft…. back to the lounge. It was nearly half past four when boarding started. I was glad that i changed my seat in Hamburg at the Quick-Checkin-Terminal. It would be a comfortable journey home. At least i thought so. At the boarding i´ve got a new seat. Do understand my “anger” you have to know something about the Dornier 328 (the aircraft on this relation). It has just three seats per row. One at left side of the aisle and two on the right sight. I´m checked in on the left side at one of the last rows to get one of the single seats (originally they booked me at 5F, but you can override it at the checkin). I choosed 11A. But Lufthansa had no mercy. How could i question the infinite wisdom of the german flag carrier. They took away my single seat and gave me the other seat. So i sat dense packed with another passage in my size. On 5F. Fsck. And just a second after realizing that 11A was still empty another passager placed himself on this seat. But, i´m to fast. We (the passenger) entered the bus on the apron after boarding. The Dornier 328 is a small plane, so it´s apron parking in any case. It was cold, my mood just went downhill. And then the woman of Gate 7 came to the aircraft and told us: “Sorry, you have to wait additional 10 minutes in the bus. The aircraft wasn´t unprepared … it was broken, so they had the change the aircrafts. Dear Cirrus (they operate the flight for LH) … the business class meals in economy are nice … but i would prefer more reliable planes. At the end all this delays summed up to an hour. I arrived in Hamburg after an hour long flight at a little bit after 6:00 pm.

The only confortable part of this journey was the new urban train. I´ve stepped out the of the aircraft at 06:01pm and was at home at 06:27pm. That´s good … that´s excellent and it´s free of charge for me as i have ticket valid for year for the most of the lines in Hamburg. As i like to sit on the observer terrace of the airport just to look after the planes i assume that i will use it on a regular schedule. With all that time waiting at various location i had some time to think. I´ve learned an important thing yesterday. I´m an avid observer of the world surrounding me. I´m observed the people around me in the airport, in the train. I observed the people in the new shopping mall in the airport. I thought for some time to move to the “better” parts of Hamburg … Eppendorf for example, i even looked for something affordable near the harbour of hamburg. I have postponed it because i was sure at some point of time that we would see credit rates really soon. Yesterday i had an important thought: It was the right decision out of the wrong reasons. A good friend of me was right … i would fell well there … i wouldn´t like it. I don´t like the people walking around in the inner city of hamburg (you know … Neuer Wall or Jungfernstieg) … especially those one with a large heap of arrogance in their eyes. I wouldn´t like to live in the middle of them. Why should i live near of people who hide their empty eyes with expensive Gucci sunglasses. Hide themself in expensive clothing. I don´t need that. I know … only a few people are that way … but i can smell arrogance like sharks smell blood over miles and miles … and i don´t like the smell of it. I hate it. Pretending to be someone else is a sure way to get an Prozac junkie. I know in the following sentence is to much pathos … but i found a simple truth while looking outside the aircraft. It´s knowledge that drives me, it´s the curiosity that drives me, it´s the will to distribute my knowledge that drives me, it´s at foremost the existence of my family and my friends that drives me. Everything else is just irrelevant, redundant, futile. I don´t need a flat in one of this hip parts of Hamburg, half as large and double as expensive as my current one just to be one of them. I don´t need to spend 50.000 Euro for a car just to be one of them. The one for 18.000 is as fast as the expensive one for the trip to the airport. And what´s the rationale for such a car just to place it at the airport parking lot. Whats the rationale for a 4000 Euro chronometer when even the 10 Euro quartz timer is more precise and the 100 Euro radio-controlled clock is a second late in one million years. Besides of having a sign of status? When a person measures me by such signs, the person is absolutly irrelevant for me. It´s that easy. And by the way… my cheap Fossil looks better than a 4000 Euro BreitlingOmegaglasshuette … but that´s my personal opinion. I get more satisfaction from learning something new or seeing the “Wow, this guy is right … i´ve learned something” in the eyes. That´s cool … that is satisfying … just try it on your own. That´s why i like to hold presentations. The people learn from me and in every presentation i´ve held so far (and i held hundreds of them) i´ve learned a thing or two. That´s why i´m blogging. I´ve learned a vast amount of new things from it … and i hope you´ve learned a thing or two, too. But … well … i needed some years to learn this, too …. at 27 i found it cool to drive a 250 PS Volvo C70. You don´t see the cool design of this car … or its motor. You just see the numbers rotating at the gas station. At 30 i thought about buying one of this expensive clocks, but my tendency to loose things kept me away from this (wrong reason, correct decision). And until the middle of this year i thought about moving. There is a deep truth in the way the buddism handles the run for success or wealth. Stopping to run after it doesn´t make you more lucky … it make you less unlucky. Of course it´s great to have luxury … but a few days later you are used to the luxury and you recognize that you have to work even harder to stay at your current level. By the way: The new shopping plaza at HAM airport … well … FAIL! EPIC FAIL! At least for me. Just all this expensive shops selling expensive perfume, expensive clocks and expensive clothing. The usual suspects. The complete plaza looks so pre-financial-crisis. But enough for philosophy, today …. I will close this article now. To add insult to injury i found out, what i forgot the last few months … i found an envelope with my business travel receipts … for 5 months … shit … this will a hell of a walk to Canossa. But to much money to simply ignore it. Fsck. PS: There is another thing i found out on this business trip. For all the people out there sitting to long in front of a computer … at the end the internet is just an empty place.