I’m working at an international company with offices in several countries around Europe and even other continents like Africa. There is an International area in the Group that centralizes some activities where I’m working for, although in terms of Human Resources I belong to the affiliate in UK. My role is to coordinate some activities concerning the launching of new products in different countries, so far, UK and France.
Some months ago, a new CEO was announced for our affiliate in UK. He comes from the same industry although he has been working on several fields. His fortune is huge, I guess, several hundreds of pounds, so that he could afford to stay without working anymore, in fact he wasn’t working some months ago, but he believed that this new project was a very interesting challenge and he was after this new job. That’s what he said during an interview that was published on a famous newspaper some weeks ago.
Last week all of the employees based on our office at Paddington, we were invited to have drinks at 6pm onwards by him, he wanted to be presented. It was exciting as for me that was the first official event with my colleagues from the office.
I stayed in my desk until 6.30. In Spain if you are called to be at 6, you have to go at least half an hour later. But when I went downstairs almost we were run out of drinks! I had a beer to feel more British. I liked these kinds of events. People have different objectives. One of my friends told us, “we should approach that group of girls”, it means, “he wanted to warm his relation with the typical girl with who normally you can only exchange some sentences every day in the office like “hello, how are you doing?” and this way, to move forward to the next step that might be to go to the pub. Other colleague told me “we should say hello to our manager”. It means, “Let’s flatter our boss, the annual review is coming”. And other didn’t stop looking at a colleague that owned us a document “I’m going to tell something to Roman”, that means “you can not answer my emails but now you are not going to escape”.
In the meantime I was very curios to see new super boss. At 7 he appeared, dress up very casual and he started the speech. Very simple, very close, I enjoyed a lot. It was a combination of strategic marketing lesson plus an amount of motivation. No more than 30 minutes.
Drinks continued but some people started to leave the canteen, today we had Arsenal and Manchester playing champions league. I didn’t care about it, I was very happy yesterday because of Liverpool’s performance. Torres was again crucial in the victory by forcing a red card. I stayed talking with a Polish friend who has a girlfriend from Burgos, that is a good link, isn’t? And we saw how our CEO still was with us. His attitude was like if he was a colleague more and we could see him talking with everybody. We couldn’t miss this chance and we introduced ourselves: I’m Rodrigo, from Spain. I was a little embarrassed because of my bad English but he was really nice with us, without stop talking and very natural. What a difference compared to the top management in Spain! I may have been bad lucky and I’ve been working in Spain only for two companies but I really appreciate the attitude of this gay.
Before saying good bye, he stopped a woman who was passing in front of us as he recognized her as one of the people that raised some questions in public after his speech. In fact she asked him about his favourite film. He answered “The Italian Job” because of his passion for racing cars. It was very fun because she was a little drunk, I couldn’t understand what she was telling us and this time I guess it was not only because of my bad English!. That’s a different culture, I thought, I couldn’t imagine the CEO I had in Spain standing a conversation with a drunk worker. After 30 minutes of amused conversation, we put out our beers, we left them and I came to my beloved apartment in Kendal Street. We were not putt off him.
The back to home from the office is nice, I walk during 10 minutes inside typical English houses, and always is a good time to relax and think about the things that happened during the day at the office. Today I started with two annoying conferences call. But I ended up with a smile.
Some months ago, a new CEO was announced for our affiliate in UK. He comes from the same industry although he has been working on several fields. His fortune is huge, I guess, several hundreds of pounds, so that he could afford to stay without working anymore, in fact he wasn’t working some months ago, but he believed that this new project was a very interesting challenge and he was after this new job. That’s what he said during an interview that was published on a famous newspaper some weeks ago.
Last week all of the employees based on our office at Paddington, we were invited to have drinks at 6pm onwards by him, he wanted to be presented. It was exciting as for me that was the first official event with my colleagues from the office.
I stayed in my desk until 6.30. In Spain if you are called to be at 6, you have to go at least half an hour later. But when I went downstairs almost we were run out of drinks! I had a beer to feel more British. I liked these kinds of events. People have different objectives. One of my friends told us, “we should approach that group of girls”, it means, “he wanted to warm his relation with the typical girl with who normally you can only exchange some sentences every day in the office like “hello, how are you doing?” and this way, to move forward to the next step that might be to go to the pub. Other colleague told me “we should say hello to our manager”. It means, “Let’s flatter our boss, the annual review is coming”. And other didn’t stop looking at a colleague that owned us a document “I’m going to tell something to Roman”, that means “you can not answer my emails but now you are not going to escape”.
In the meantime I was very curios to see new super boss. At 7 he appeared, dress up very casual and he started the speech. Very simple, very close, I enjoyed a lot. It was a combination of strategic marketing lesson plus an amount of motivation. No more than 30 minutes.
Drinks continued but some people started to leave the canteen, today we had Arsenal and Manchester playing champions league. I didn’t care about it, I was very happy yesterday because of Liverpool’s performance. Torres was again crucial in the victory by forcing a red card. I stayed talking with a Polish friend who has a girlfriend from Burgos, that is a good link, isn’t? And we saw how our CEO still was with us. His attitude was like if he was a colleague more and we could see him talking with everybody. We couldn’t miss this chance and we introduced ourselves: I’m Rodrigo, from Spain. I was a little embarrassed because of my bad English but he was really nice with us, without stop talking and very natural. What a difference compared to the top management in Spain! I may have been bad lucky and I’ve been working in Spain only for two companies but I really appreciate the attitude of this gay.
Before saying good bye, he stopped a woman who was passing in front of us as he recognized her as one of the people that raised some questions in public after his speech. In fact she asked him about his favourite film. He answered “The Italian Job” because of his passion for racing cars. It was very fun because she was a little drunk, I couldn’t understand what she was telling us and this time I guess it was not only because of my bad English!. That’s a different culture, I thought, I couldn’t imagine the CEO I had in Spain standing a conversation with a drunk worker. After 30 minutes of amused conversation, we put out our beers, we left them and I came to my beloved apartment in Kendal Street. We were not putt off him.
The back to home from the office is nice, I walk during 10 minutes inside typical English houses, and always is a good time to relax and think about the things that happened during the day at the office. Today I started with two annoying conferences call. But I ended up with a smile.
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