Back to Work

My time on Kurzarbeit has come to an end. I successfully interviewed today and will be placed as a consultant focusing on testing at Santander Bank in Mönchengladbach. I start work tomorrow.

I'm very excited to be back working. Although I have to admit that when CGI mentioned possible placement last week I thought - oh I wish I had a few more weeks with the kids and Tamara. It was truly fun to be with them and experience their exuberance for life and participate with them in all of their activities.

One funny note. Spencer came to me a bit concerned tonight and asked. Dad, now that you are working in Mönchengladbach, does this mean that you will be a Gladbach fan?

For that we'll have to wait and see. Right now I am a bit of a Werder Bremen fan, but I mainly just like watching well played matches.

Ah, what the heck - Go Gladbach!!!!

Lowering Expectations

I have now realized that my expectations for a happy commute, understanding my colleagues, speaking good German are just way to high. Not to mention taking care of the kids, loving my wife, and succeeding in my new very large complex project, that is implementing a new methodology (Agile Software Development), and taking care of my callings at church. I think they usually say - let the game come to you, or don't try and force it.

With this in mind I noticed today that the Germans who I always thought spoke such great English actually make quite a few mistakes. The thing that they do better than me (when I speak German) is they keep going and don't bat an eye when they mess up. They stay confident despite their mistakes. I think I can do that, a little bit. Hopefully a small change in perspective will help. It seemed to today.

I also decided that walking a bit further to the first bus and taking some stuff out of my bad is probably better. Relaxing and enjoying the extra 10 minutes will do me some good and multiple fronts. We'll see how it goes, but it's definitely worth a shot.