I had talked to my contact, Joachim (he goes by Achim), the day before and we agreed that I would take the 7:37am S6 train from Cologne to the Leverkusen ChemPark station (arriving at 7:53am). From there I would walk the short distance to building B151 and meet our colleague Peter around 8am at the main security gate to obtain my visitor's badge. I got up around 6:00am and went downstairs for breakfast around 6:30am.
Breakfast is an all-you-can-eat buffet with a wide variety of breakfast foods. They have pancakes, waffles, bacon, eggs, sausage, hash browns, yogurt, granola, muffins, cheese, a variety of meats, a variety of juices, fruit, and more. To say that I've been hungry or wanting after breakfast would be a lie.
I departed for the train station at 7:15am and arrived at my platform (furthest from my hotel) with plenty of time to spare. Watching the activity at the train station is fascinating. There are 11 platforms and trains are constantly arriving and departing, some within minutes of each other on the same platform. There are long distance trains (the fast ones mentioned in my Day 1 post) and regional trains (also mentioned in my Day 1 post with a hint of bitterness). There are shuttle trains, like the one I will ride to and from the office for the next 3 weeks, and there are trams (the equivalent to our subways).
On the platform that I'm waiting on there are at least 4 other lines that come through. I'm waiting for 7:37, but at 7:31 there's a different line and 7:25 is a line going somewhere else with yet another coming through at 7:19...and they're all precisely on time.
So, back to the recap of my day, I arrived at the main gate and Peter came out of the security office to greet me. I had never met Peter in person before, but from his greeting alone I can tell that he's a great guy and was happy to have me visiting Germany. After obtaining my visitor's badge, Peter and I went up to the 1st floor (which is what we call the 2nd floor in the US) in B151 and I met the others...Joachim, another incident manager, was my chaperone for the day. I met some of the other incident managers, Tobias, Stefan, Sasha and Andreas S. and some of the other members of the team, Wolfgang, Wolfgang L., Alfred, Shailesh and Manas.
Here's a view of B151 from the train station. The brownish green roofs you can see in the bottom-right are bike racks. People take the train to the edge of the ChemPark and then ride their bike to their office and vice versa.
The first order of business was the Singapore Operations Meeting which is held at 8:00am every day. This provides a quick review of any major incidents that occurred globally. At 9:00am we all attended their Daily Operations Meeting, just like Mike and I hold in the US each day except this one is held in a video conference room on the 3rd floor (4th floor for those keeping track at home) and includes India and Poland.
Achim was in charge with Andreas F. (the team lead) away and made sure to include me (primarily by translating the German conversations) as much as possible. At some point during the day he and I attended the global change advisory board meeting...organized by Andreas S. and held entirely in German. He started the meeting off in English to introduce me...and then switched to German forthe rest.
I surprised the entire room when I offered an update on a change they were reviewing that impacted Brazil. From my role as an Incident Manager for the Americas I was aware of the situation. They seemed to appreciate the information even though it was in English.
After that Achim took me to the cafeteria where I had a chicken tortilla chip and rice something or other. It was pretty good, even if I wasn't entirely sure what was in it. The cafeteria is a little odd in that you have to have a "cafe card" with money on it...this is the employee badge for regular folks. Since I am a visitor my card is not eligible for this option. That makes it a little difficult to obtain lunch. Achim had some paperwork that allowed both of us to get temporary, one-time use cards. We ended up having a short lunch outside in the sun before bringing sandwiches back to our colleagues who were stuck working an issue.
There was a relatively serious issue occurring with one of our SAP servers that had a few of them occupied all day. I ended up back with that group, after bouncing around on other things with the rest of them, in the late afternoon and didn't leave the office until 6pm. (Heck of a first day...)
By the time I got to the train platform (around 6:10pm) the 6:07pm train was long gone. I sat down on the bench to wait for the 6:27pm train. By the time I made it back to Cologne I was beat. I ended up having dinner at the hotel because I had no energy to search for a good place to eat nearby and honestly didn't want to stumble through the ordering process with extremely broken German.
Since it was so late and I was exhausted dinner was a burger at the hotel bar. It cost 20 Euros, but it was worth every penny to have a quick bite to eat before going to bed early.
Breakfast is an all-you-can-eat buffet with a wide variety of breakfast foods. They have pancakes, waffles, bacon, eggs, sausage, hash browns, yogurt, granola, muffins, cheese, a variety of meats, a variety of juices, fruit, and more. To say that I've been hungry or wanting after breakfast would be a lie.
I departed for the train station at 7:15am and arrived at my platform (furthest from my hotel) with plenty of time to spare. Watching the activity at the train station is fascinating. There are 11 platforms and trains are constantly arriving and departing, some within minutes of each other on the same platform. There are long distance trains (the fast ones mentioned in my Day 1 post) and regional trains (also mentioned in my Day 1 post with a hint of bitterness). There are shuttle trains, like the one I will ride to and from the office for the next 3 weeks, and there are trams (the equivalent to our subways).
On the platform that I'm waiting on there are at least 4 other lines that come through. I'm waiting for 7:37, but at 7:31 there's a different line and 7:25 is a line going somewhere else with yet another coming through at 7:19...and they're all precisely on time.
So, back to the recap of my day, I arrived at the main gate and Peter came out of the security office to greet me. I had never met Peter in person before, but from his greeting alone I can tell that he's a great guy and was happy to have me visiting Germany. After obtaining my visitor's badge, Peter and I went up to the 1st floor (which is what we call the 2nd floor in the US) in B151 and I met the others...Joachim, another incident manager, was my chaperone for the day. I met some of the other incident managers, Tobias, Stefan, Sasha and Andreas S. and some of the other members of the team, Wolfgang, Wolfgang L., Alfred, Shailesh and Manas.
Here's a view of B151 from the train station. The brownish green roofs you can see in the bottom-right are bike racks. People take the train to the edge of the ChemPark and then ride their bike to their office and vice versa.
The first order of business was the Singapore Operations Meeting which is held at 8:00am every day. This provides a quick review of any major incidents that occurred globally. At 9:00am we all attended their Daily Operations Meeting, just like Mike and I hold in the US each day except this one is held in a video conference room on the 3rd floor (4th floor for those keeping track at home) and includes India and Poland.
Achim was in charge with Andreas F. (the team lead) away and made sure to include me (primarily by translating the German conversations) as much as possible. At some point during the day he and I attended the global change advisory board meeting...organized by Andreas S. and held entirely in German. He started the meeting off in English to introduce me...and then switched to German forthe rest.
I surprised the entire room when I offered an update on a change they were reviewing that impacted Brazil. From my role as an Incident Manager for the Americas I was aware of the situation. They seemed to appreciate the information even though it was in English.
After that Achim took me to the cafeteria where I had a chicken tortilla chip and rice something or other. It was pretty good, even if I wasn't entirely sure what was in it. The cafeteria is a little odd in that you have to have a "cafe card" with money on it...this is the employee badge for regular folks. Since I am a visitor my card is not eligible for this option. That makes it a little difficult to obtain lunch. Achim had some paperwork that allowed both of us to get temporary, one-time use cards. We ended up having a short lunch outside in the sun before bringing sandwiches back to our colleagues who were stuck working an issue.
There was a relatively serious issue occurring with one of our SAP servers that had a few of them occupied all day. I ended up back with that group, after bouncing around on other things with the rest of them, in the late afternoon and didn't leave the office until 6pm. (Heck of a first day...)
By the time I got to the train platform (around 6:10pm) the 6:07pm train was long gone. I sat down on the bench to wait for the 6:27pm train. By the time I made it back to Cologne I was beat. I ended up having dinner at the hotel because I had no energy to search for a good place to eat nearby and honestly didn't want to stumble through the ordering process with extremely broken German.
Since it was so late and I was exhausted dinner was a burger at the hotel bar. It cost 20 Euros, but it was worth every penny to have a quick bite to eat before going to bed early.
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