Work in progress
April 1st 1990
No, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke — though it sometimes felt like one. For nearly two years, I had been commuting almost every week to Hannover, juggling flights, meetings, and bad coffee in pursuit of the future of global supply chain software. Quite a mouthful, even back then.
Our company was collaborating with IBM, who had been hired as “consultants” — meaning they got to charge a fortune for translating our practical ideas into something that sounded sufficiently complicated for upper management to nod wisely at. I had plenty of ideas myself, though I’ll admit, some of those long technical discussions could have put a hyperactive squirrel to sleep. Still, I kept up my end of the debate, especially when things veered toward logistics — my home turf.
My official post was in England, where I was the Market Operations Manager for the UK. My weekly routine was something out of a travel brochure for the perpetually tired: Mondays in West Drayton, Monday night flight to Hannover, several days of meetings, and then the triumphant return flight on Thursday evening — or Friday morning if I was feeling particularly masochistic.
By early 1990, however, the British economy was doing its best impression of a sinking ship, and the pound wasn’t faring much better against the mighty Deutschmark. Then came the offer: a full-time position in Hannover, to take over the worldwide market logistics function. It was flattering… and terrifying.
There were, of course, two monumental hurdles.
First: convincing my wife and our three small children that moving to Germany was a brilliant idea. This would be our first big family move — and not just across town, but across cultures, currencies, and culinary expectations (the land of sausages and sauerkraut awaited).
Second: the language barrier. None of us spoke a word of German, and in those days, not many people in Hannover spoke English either. Ordering a simple coffee might turn into a linguistic adventure — or a tragic misunderstanding.
Still, opportunity was knocking — in German, naturally — and I had to decide whether to answer.
▫️The move
▫️The house in Empelde
▫️The office
▫️Returning my company car
▫️1st day at school
▫️Buying a car
▫️Kidney stones
▫️Building a house
▫️Move to Gehrden
▫️Divorce avoided
▫️Making friends in Gehrden
sauvageraie.fr 