Between Poland and the USA

During that Polish project I had the feeling that I have done training more than enough and wanted something else. I got very sick in Warsaw and think in the aftermath that it was stress-related. I stopped working for 2 or 3 months, applied for jobs, went out, and took things rather easily. A friend of mine even dragged me to a modelling agency. I was curious but also very suspicious. Well, see the pictures which they have taken. I was in my late 20ies then.

In those days Europe did not do very well (businesswise for my company) but the US had quite some opportunities for me. One day I got a call, it was the day when I was supposed to get some casting dates, and it was from my company asking me whether I would like to go to the US for work.

I took it as a "hint from above" and happily accepted. I sold my car, found someone for my room and left London a few days later. Final destination: Milwaukee in Wisconsin.

Polish Supermarkets

I nearly forgot to mention one project I was on, and that was that Polish supermarket chain in Warsaw. That was in 1998 and only shortly after Poland finished as a socialist state and "turned western".

An interesting aspect of the job was that we needed full-time translators all the time as nobody spoke any other language but Polish and Russian. That was tough and slowed down the project progress. From its layout, the project was close to the furniture retail one. It was a skills project with optimisation of the management of supermarkets. So, management training was an essential part of it, especially coaching with those translators acting as intermediators. I sometimes wondered wether I coached them or my clients.

I must admit, I did not really like the working environment there. We had a project room without windows and it looked more like the Führerbunker. The hotel was dreadful and food and service absolutely appalling. I was not a friend of eastern Europe then.

It took me a few years to become an absolute admirer of eastern Europe. But those stories will follow in much later blog entries.