Motivation Muck Party

My company boss Tino had taken over in December 1976. I have described him in earlier Blips but in short a Munich born American German who left for Japan at about 4, was educated in USA and was working in Europe for an American ENT medical company as Marketing Manager for Europe when the call came to take over when the previous MD had been sacked.

I had started in summer 1996 and seen him a few times when he did brief visits. We got on well. When he took over, he made me #2 and his right-hand man as Finance & Logistics Manager.

Tino had been told by the USA to get the German operation 'moving'. It was the newest and smallest of the various worldwide sales offices.

To this end he organised a summer BBQ for the entire team spread over Germany and at my house to the south of Munich in the small village, Grosskitzighofen. Well it wasn't actually at our house but at the barn and fields we rented from our next door neighbour farmer, Sepp.

The barn was where our horses found refuge on hot and wet days. We had to clean it out first. Adjoining was our sand school where we set up a beach volley ball court and played - we had some enthusiastic players in the company, notably Monique but Tino himself was very sporty and hated losing anything.

Lots of beer and Schnapps as well as food, Kevin our English storeman doing a fine job at the BBQ next to the farm muck heap. One of our cats joined us for lots of stroking from the girls. Neighbour farmer Sepp also came for a long chat and drink.

It was a really good afternoon and night. A few weeks later, Tino and I had to go to San Francisco for the big budget meeting with the company board and present our numbers for 1998. We went there with big numbers and set ourselves a huge challenge.