Hard Working Pays Off Tomorrow

Yesterday went pretty well. From our November workshops, we all knew where we were going to argue and for the kickoff, we simply joked about it in preparation. There is some argument from our friends in IT that the previous efforts were not documented to their standards, but from my perspective as their executives signed off on the earlier efforts -- the amount that I care is somewhat diminished. The only way to be successful is to focus on what you can do and what you are tasked to do.

We went to lunch and I had a cheese tart that was sort of like a thin quiche. Technically, I have no idea how they made the crust on top so perfectly. Annoying. You would think that the French chef had some training.

Leaving the office at 7:30, we had to choose between working to get prepped for today -- or going out to shoot some pool with some guys in the office. It was a tough decision, but being the professionals that we are, we decided to shoot pool. Oddly, my skills had not improved by lack of playing. We then wandered over to the British bar "Mr Pickwicks" for dinner, getting in just before the 10:00 buzzer. I had steak and kidney pie -- because as they say, "When in a British Bar in Geneva..."

The fun part of the evening really was the conversation. There were six of of us -- two Americans, one French, one Brit, one Scot and one German. The British guy and I discussed conversation starter phrases. He was dating an American girl and was going to meet some family in Boston -- so I gave him a few choice phrases. For those of you that don't use conversation starters, they operate on the principle that most people are really not interested in hearing your opinion the majority of the time. Therefore, you simply need to ask a couple of questions and usually the person will happily chat on for hours and hours -- and leave with thinking that you were very enjoyable. Key learning if you ever decide to be a bartender.

Anyway -- here are the football conversation starters for the US.
1. How do you think (QB) will do this year?
2. We didn't get much draft coverage over here, how do you think that (NFL Team) did?
3. How do you think that the defense will be this year?

He didn't believe me that it was that easy, so he walked around and talked to a few Americans in the bar. Unfortunately we had not worked out conversation extraction strategies and he was stuck with each person longer than intended.

For Americans, we simply have to say something like "What do you think of the new (country leader)?" or "When do you think the UK will take the Euro?" or "Sorry about Bush".

There was also one just from Brits concerning "Christmas just isn't the same without... (two comedians that are no longer on television, forgot their names).

I may fit in just yet.