Hey, Newbie

The days where I'm like, "Wow, Germans sure do stuff diff'rent from us 'Mericans..." are few and far between. More often than not, I simply have an "Alriiiight...mental note to self"-moment. When in Rome...and all that jazz, right?

I've been at the new job for around 2 weeks now. It's a fast-paced and chaotic environment, considerably more so than at FHHM (which says quite a lot, actually). I'm in the process of making preparations for a trade show at the end of May, so I've had a lot on my plate.

My first impression?

I start late. 9:30am to be exact -- which is like 1 to 2 1/2 hours later than the rest of the nerds, but half an hour earlier than my last job. Does it really bother me though? No. Because there are limits to my productivity, dammit. With the right motivation and a good night's sleep, however...I could probably be convinced to start at 9am. Any earlier and your pushing your luck.

My second impression?

Engineers like to shake hands a lot.

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Every morning after my arrival, I spend a good 10 minutes, getting my hand heartily shook by...oh...every single other employee in the building. A simple "Good morning" apparently does not suffice. Colleagues literally walk into my general work area, start talking, notice my presence, stop talking, walk over to me and shake my hand. Every. Morning. Not just me...but with each other, as well. And these people have seen each other every day for who knows how long.

So now, every time I walk into a room, I have this weird feeling that I, too, should shake everyone's hand. Not just the first time I see them during the day, but like whenever I see them.

I'm used to the whole run-of-the-mill, German way of announcing your arrival every-freaking-where you go: work, the doctor's office, getting into/out of an elevator, etc. Except for public transportation and in line at the supermarket. Those places seem to somehow fall outside of the laws of space and time altogether. That's another story though.

Third impression?

I'm not a genius of any kind, much less a "marketing genius". But I can tell you this: marketing in the rap game vs. marketing in the airplane biz? Two very different things. Forget apples and oranges. It's like apples and robots. If you're interested in promoting your rap group and whatnot, then you can like start a "record label" (and here I use the term "record label" very loosely -- suggestion for a name? Any noun + the word "entertainment"). You can make a fuckin myspace page, put out a free mixtape...get a "street team" (read: you and your homie who makes them hot beats in Fruity Loops or Garageband) to hand out flyers outside a bigger concert. Send your shitty demo to everyone, everywhere in the history of time... and pray.

But how do you market something that is less of a thing and more of an idea of a thing? Boys and girls, I work for a company that provides solutions (albeit innovatively) for airplanes and such.

It's nice work if you can get it...?

but sometimes I wish we could just crank out that mixtape and call it a day...