Well, phew! I set out for Johannesburg on Wednesday, after a very panicky discussion. I was going to go for ten days, with the main event being a training and project kick-off workshop for one of our existing customers, with a sales meeting slotted in late on Friday afternoon before a long weekend.
Only, for unforeseeable but perfectly good reasons, the existing client had to postpone the training and workshop. Now, that meant that the sales meeting was the only reason for going. Now, sales is important, but I thought that a 20,000 km trip for a two hour meeting was maybe a tad crazy. Only problem was, that because it had been foreseen that I would be doing it, there was no reasonable means of substituting for my presence. So, after a quick phone call with everyone with about ten minutes to go before my taxi arrived, it was decided that I should travel, as a remote call was not going to do it.
So, flight to Frankfurt, and then to Johannesburg on Lufthansa. (Efficient as ever, I have gotten very used to them over the years, and prefer them to most other carriers.) A day in Johannesburg polishing up a presentation, and a good night's sleep. Next day had another run through of the presentation, and then had the pitch to the client. Having been presenting to the French the week before, who are bordering on the anarchic in presentations, often with several people all shouting and yelling at once, I was reminded of the following joke:
A Frenchman is in an English court, being tried for a crime. His English is not good, and he is having trouble following proceedings. Eventually a translator is brought in, and the judge asks him:
"Mr Jean-Marc Martin, you are accused of the hideous crime of necrophilia, how do you plead?"
When the question is translated, the man falls to his knees in horror and wails in anguish:
"She was dead, Oh My God, Oh My God, I thought she was English!"
Well, let's just say it is a cultural artifact how people will react in presentations.
Anyway, I literally ran out of the presentation as soon as it finished, and walked across to the hotel, where I had reserved a taxi earlier in the day. (I had my doubts about this, as I had tried to book a taxi the night before, but what I actually got was not a taxi for 5pm the next day, but a 5am wake up call. I bet you could have heard the swearing all the way down in the basement. In the end, no problem though. Another thing, if you think that you get stared at as a big white guy in the Tokyo underground, try walking along a suburban road in Johannesburg with your steel trolley bag, and a banking suit on. The drivers look totally confused, and the other pedestrians, who are almost always ethnic Africans, look at you like you are crazy. Maybe their risk estimation skills are different to mine, but anyway it was a five minute walk, and the only fresh air I got all day.)
Taxi to the airport, with a tight timetable to catch the flight. Ran onto the plane, and had a very good flight back with SAA. If you have to go to SA, I would give them a go, very good service, friendly, efficient and jolly good food and wine. So, that was me with 28 hours of flights for a 36 hour stop-over in Africa. Normally things would have been more efficient, but sometimes you just get stuck with it.
Then home, and a very quiet weekend, as Mrs Spaceship and the Smallest Space Cadet of Them All had taken advantage of half term to go to London and see the outlaws.
And this week, I am in Geneva doing not one but two proposals for French speaking banks. Heigh Ho.
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