No Cup of Tea

No, it wasn’t a cup of tea, these last few days. On Monday I started my new job (note: after 4 weeks of doing next to nothing except drinking endless cups of tea in Berlin) and jumped headlong into a completely new environment with a lot of new people, new tools, new words and terms, new rooms and a lot of additional possibilities of losing myself in a big confusing building in an equally big confusing area. To make matters worse this building has at least 3 exits (of course not next to each other). My new colleagues probably tried to be nice when showing me all of these at once on my first day. Unfortunately, they didn’t know about my most of the time absent sense of orientation.

My boss also pointed out the exit for the shortest way out when heading to the train station which was very nice of him. When I wanted to leave after my second day with only ten minutes left before the departure of my train I needed to find the entrance he showed me the day before. Of course I didn’t succeed and had to turn around looking for the official exit, running around the huge building, sweating all over with an unhealthy heartbeat (those of you who know me just a little bit know that I need at least 5 spare minutes on the platform before the train departs otherwise I’m a nervous wreck).

Come to think of it… could it be that this company knew all along about my lack of orientation? And the nerve-wrecking confusing building I now work in? And the even more confusing tools they use? Because the first thing they handed me over (even before I got my own computer let alone my own pen) was a mug (and sweets). A very nice one I must say, although at that point I didn’t know yet about the hidden message of it. Without that mug I would probably never get into my new job, since it really is not a cup of tea (or rather coffee). Every time I start to get lost I look at my mug and feel immediately calmer. It doubles the effect when combined with a bag of sweets or a chocolate bar.

Now that brings me to another unclear thing: why do all these employees drink coffee (out of ugly white plastic cups) instead of tea when probably all of them got such a nice tea mug as well? And isn’t tea meant to be relaxing? I’m starting to wonder whether this company is quite an unhealthy place to be for me: nerve-wrecking building-size, confusing tools, too many exits (that could also be a plus depending on the situation), hidden messages in mugs, too many very sour sweets (the company’s give-away), no tea drinkers, a lot of smokers, windows that can’t be opened, and last but not least very good coffee (which already turned me into a heavy coffee drinker within the first week).

I hope this wrap-up of my first week is not a reason for my boss to dismiss me (he monitors my blogs and recommended with a threatening smile during our first team meeting to only write about the nice things). If I started to list all the positive aspects of my job and the company this text would of course be 10 pages longer. If this text seems to be confusing, no worries, that just mirrors the state of my mind at the moment.