Lox - Archived Entries for 2006 / 3

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Boarding Pass: [31 March 2006]

As a matter of fact the trip is finished, I am writing from the Business Class lounge of ANA, waiting to be hoarded on the flight to Frankfurt and then from there to Milan.

At least I managed to set up my brand new wireless connection through my USB Netgear adaptor. It is brilliant and I am hoping to get all the proper kit to set up a WLAN in my house soon enough...

Of course by the time I do that it will come out that the protocol is heavily dangerous for health and stuff, but that's part of the game I believe! :)

Gotta go now, next post from Pizzaland!
[2 comments]
Business weeks can be good...: [27th - 29th March 2006]

When I left Italy for this trip I was in a strange mood. I felt as if I didn't care anymore about my job and all the things connected.
After almost 3 weeks of front line fight things have changed, though I never really stopped to think about it, I have acted as usual, incapable of playing soft.

This is actually quite good, mostly because after 5 years I can say that this trip was quite successful, not under the results point of view, there were better days, but under the strategy and relationships with clients side, which is more important if you want to have a hope of building a continuous business relationship.

Yesterday for example we spent 3 hours to speak to the president of this huge company, this guy is so rich that he can afford to own 6 (SIX) racing horses in JAPAN!!
It was very interesting speaking to this person, I wish I knew more Japanese to have a 100% understanding of all the things that were discussed.

Today I have had another "quite Japanese" experience, a classic business dinner with one of our clients/partners, unfortunately this time it was to solve some problems, and though in the end we did as they requested, in order to have a good relationship with this people I decided to grant a condition that is not quite the best for our company.
Taken by itself the decision is stupid, put into context is rock solid.

It has been 5 years that I work in this market, I certainly know how to deal with the problems and peculiarities that Asian markets have, especially Japan.

Still I find intriguing and exciting to be able to connect with this culture almost as if I was a local, it gives me so much more than 1million Euro sale, it's food for my brain and soul.
It happens everywhere I lived, went and go. Even if it's a short stay.

Nothing to do, I love foreigners and different cultures, I wouldn't want to miss these moments not for a pot of gold!

And there's still so much more out there...
[2 comments]
Narcolepsy: [26th March 2006]

Sunday was a bit of a turn down.
I think that much of the stress and tension of the fair got purged off the system today, as a matter of fact I woke up with a nasty headache, not so strong to require pills, not so weak to let it slip away.

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[4 comments]
Hitori no Hanami: [25th March 2006]

Loosely translated means "looking at the sakura blossoms by myself", which is more or less what I have done today, or at least I have attempted to do today.

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Work, work, work: [20-24 March 2006]

Nothing great to report. I have seen John for the last evening before he went back to England, interestingly in the same place where we briefly saw each other last time.
Then it was on to work and the fair, the only thing worth mentioning was having two dinners with Marta, Kutsunugi san and Keiko san.
We worked together for 5 years and now Marta was in another stand, but we managed to take her to all the places that we always spoke about (namely Tabesushi and a Real Kick Ass Kushiage restaurant).
Marta was having a lot of problems with her new job so maybe she wasn't in a great mood, but she liked it nonetheless.

On Friday I said goodbye to Marta and started getting ready for the first weekend by myself of this trip...
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Curly and Snitch: [19th March 2006]

These were some of the nicknames that me and John had during our university days.
We set off pretty early, meeting in Shinjuku as it was our only "day out" before he left for England on Tuesday.

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[5 comments]
Marta and the Hawkins: [18th March 2006]

And so it was, finally I was going to meet John after over 1 year. I guess we could say that we met in October, but it was only for 1 hour and hardly a meeting to take into consideration.
This time our schedules were still in a rather nasty conflict, but we had the chance to spend almost 2 days together, which is simply great.

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Japan 2006: [12th - 15th March 2006]

Finally I arrived to Japan. The flight wasn't all that great, we have had a lot of turbulence over Korea and China, but all in all I arrived safe.
Nothing major to report, work is work as usual, the only change has been Marta, calling at night to complain about the new job, about the person that she is replacing (apparently she is treating Marta in a very bad way), and about the whole thing that seems to be over her head.

I have tried to put off the fire of dismay and depression, but on the other side I had to remind her that I told her in detail what was going to come by accepting that job.

I guess there is so much that one can do or say, after that it has to be a solo effort. The funny (or not so funny) thing is that she is a competitor for me now!!

The knee is doing its job, though I still feel pain every now and then, and fortunately Mr. sleeping pill is working great and I managed to sleep well for the past two days. Tonight I will take the last tab, then I will try to test the system to see if I can do without. I hate taking medicines, especially hypnotic ones.

Nothing major to report all in all, let's see how it goes the rest of the week. During the weekend I will meet John so I am sure I'll have a lot more things to write! :)
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Leaving Vedano: [11th March 2006]

Today was quite an interesting experience for me.

It started pretty early, as Marta had to go to our company around 12 to catch the car that eventually got her to the airport.

A mix of different feelings and emotions were waiting for me, after five years it wasn't me leaving for Japan and leaving her at home but quite the contrary.

We spent the whole night of the 10th packing her things, as usually women do, she over vexed the suitcase and there was a need of some "rationality" in rearranging the stuff that she wanted to bring.

Traveling for business, as far as my experience is concerned, it's completely different from pleasure travels.
You soon start to appreciate the niceness of a very light bag, full only of the strict necessary that will get you through the trip.
I am very methodic when deciding, almost mathematical, dividing by two the number of working days and counting all the free time that in two weeks you get.

It might sound unclean, but wearing the same clothes twice during a trip is a must unless you have someone carrying the weight for you.

Anyways we finished off the last details in the morning and off we went to the meeting point.
Marta was totally taken into the trip mood, nervous, scared, excited and happy.

I pretty much shared the same feelings, though they were directed at her rather than to the trip itself.
Seeing her off, working for another division, knowing that I will not have her in front of me at work as I did in the last 5 years, was quite a big morsel to chew, but I guess that I will get used to it pretty soon.
Life goes on, she is getting a good opportunity, and maybe a little change will make things different in our relationship.

Surely some sort of change had to arrive, so I'll have to play the game and see how it goes.

The rest of the day was pretty boring, packing up my own stuff, in a mechanical way. I have become quite a professional now when it comes to preparing a suitcase; I do it without really putting any heart at all into it, just brains.
In a way it spoils the whole idea of a trip. Having to worry about her a lot meant that I didn't really prepare this trip under the mental point of view, so I was left with my own worries for the reminder of the day.

In the evening I cooked a Japanese curry with some friends, and had a quiet but nice night out drinking and spouting crap as usual.

Then time to go to bed, I will be up early tomorrow for the first leg of the trip that will take me to Frankfurt, then Osaka in Japan.

Let's hope the recent changes in the office don't spoil too much these coming three weeks, usually a business trip it's more of an occasion to get out of the routine and focus on my tasks.

Oh well, I'll take what life is brewing for me, and when I am back I will be two days short of turning 31.

Scary!!
[9 comments]
Chess Game and Quote Fest: [9th March 2006]

As widely announced in the previous post (that marks the record of comments so far for this blog), today I had to go out for dinner with my Boss after the massive argument that we had a couple of day ago.

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[5 comments]
Fight Club: [6th March 2006]

OOOOHHHH boy... where do I begin?

I set up today for work, knowing that my planned actions might have resulted in instant firing in two separate occasions, so you can imagine my state of mind and heart at 7,30 in the morning.....

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[32 comments]
Back Home, Hard Talk: [5th March 2006]

After a crappy 3 days break in Florence it was time to go back home. I couldn't really wait to go back as I needed badly to make things clear with Marta and decide what to do with my future life, if it was going to be again a path to walk by myself, or if it was worth to continue in two.

Well to make long things short the second option is the one where my choice fell.

Marta didn't realize what she was doing to me by accepting the offer with the other division, and we made clear a lot of "incidents" that this choice created.

Nothing changes on the practical side of things, she is still leaving for good and I am left in deep trouble, but at least I feel a lot stronger, ready to get into the fight that I need to start tomorrow, with my bosses.
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Bitter Truth: [3rd March 2006]

The truth is that I am an idiot.

A person that believes in his principles, and that goes an extra length for the people that he thinks are in his "circle of trust", to use an expression taken from "Meet the Parents".

Today Marta will sign the contract with the new division, leaving her position with us at the end of next week.
The replacement is a young girl who knows fuck-all about out job, products, clients and so on.

In a whopping 5 days (only half of the day, 'cause the other half Marta needs to go to attend to her new position), the new person will be instructed to her new job. Impossible task due to the complexity of the work that we do. Then both her and me are off to Asia, for our respective business trips, so nobody knowledgeable of the market is there to look at what this person is doing.

What I am extremely bitter about, apart from the fact that the company decided not to tell me anything official for weeks (I am the responsible of the market, I would have hoped at least for a brief mention to this decision, just to do things in a considerate way), is that Marta accepted the position and accepted to go away for her first trip next week, mentioning that it will be quite inconvenient due to the short notice, but hardly breaking sweat over it.

In a single shot I have had my alleged girlfriend gently inserting a 20 centimetres blade right behind my back, and my company preparing the coffin, ready to go.

The funny thing is that the offer that they made her is quite poor; basically she did me in for a mere 130 Euro (around 80 quid) that she will see only in 6 months time, and the promise of a further raise to that date.
She was selling already in our division already so the change of responsibility is non existant.

I thought I was worth more than 80 quid.

Needless to say that I have spent the last 3 days boiling over this issue, unfortunately I have nothing to do and that doesn't help, but I am afraid that if I was there now it would be extremely compromising for me.

So far March brought quite a lot of crap, and as usually happens in these situation I fear that the worse has yet to come.

[16 comments]
Un-Perfect Day: [1st March 2006]

The first day of Spring is certainly the worst day of the year for me, so far.

I woke up in Florence, which is a good thing, but right after 1 hour I was down misery lane after I have got a call from a colleague saying that in the company they introduced the new sales assistant that is going to replace Marta on my markets.
A little story has to be done here.
I am the market responsible and I have an assistant. The management needs a salesperson in another division and they thought that Marta could do the job, therefore they decided to offer her the position.
So far nothing wrong. The wrongdoing begins when they decided not to tell me anything about it (I do not want to be part of the decision process, but I think that it's fair to at least tell me something before offering her the position), they keep everything secret (though half of the company knew about it already), and then decide to introduce the new person when I AM NOT THERE!!!!
I won't add the fact that this person has 8 months experience, that I am leaving next week to Japan and also Marta will be going away, though she has a whopping 5 working day to teach her everything that we did in 5 years.
Oh, did I mention that she can teach her only half day because the other half needs to be spent in the office with the person that she is going to replace?

It's clear that they want to put me in a bad working condition so that I will resign, they cannot fire me as they 'd need to pay me dear money if they did.

To follow the marvellous start of the day I went to the physiotherapist to take a look at the knee. Basically I have developed a nasty inflammation of the kneecap tendon, meaning that I have to stop every form of training until it heals.

Finally I bought a new computer. Spent quite a lot of money on it, was planning to post a picture with all the specs, you know, those things that nerdy people like to do.
Well, after assembling it up it won't boot. It just returns a crap POST error and it just lies there.

We say in Italy that "Il buongiorno si vede dal mattino" (you can tell a good day from the morning start). Well if I enlarge the concept to spring then it's going to be a tragedy for me.
[3 comments]

Lox, Lorenzo... ME!!: A little introduction about the author and the blog itself. Plus contacts and CVs... You never know!
Pictures: A Selection of the best pictures that I have taken all over the world during the years, all nicely indexed by year and geographical area. Jolly good!
History of this Blog: A collection of all the articles that I have wrote so far, divided by month/year.