You don’t normally let the software developers out of the dungeon, and very rarely let them visit the client. There are a lot of reasons for this, sometimes they don’t dress quite right for the business world, sometimes they don’t have “the social graces”, but a big reason is sometimes they don’t know when to keep their big mouth shut. Well, lets just say that they have a tendency to say inconvenient truths at inopportune times.
To prevent just this exact thing from happening and to provide all the necessary translation both “business to technical” and “German to English” a guide (erm keeper) was provided in the shape of a salesman. The tech guy and the salesman made the trek to Düsseldorf, and worked on the technical issue and after a few hours working on the issue the developer thought he understood the problem. It appeared that a solution was at hand but needed further testing in the morning when the market was open. Thus the boys had the night off.
It turns out that the handler not only fancied English and Irish pubs and knew all the best ones in Düsseldorf. To prove that point, the two of them spent all evening going from bar to bar. It was more of a “scientific survey” comparing the bars in Düsseldorf against those in Frankfurt.
Well all good things come to an end which is probably what the bar owners were thinking as it was closing time. The boys had to make their way back to their hotel, which as it turns out, was a very upscale hotel. The handler who was well experienced at this started to cross the lobby to a very crabby looking receptionist – yet she was very professional when she discovered we were not looking for the bar but looking for a wakeup call. She smiled like a 1000w bulb and was more than helpful.
The only thing left to do now was to go upstairs and go to bed. Of course they could have taken the stairs but there was an elevator and so they took it instead. It is not clear who started dancing but apparently it was contagious as within seconds both were dancing in the elevator as only a couple of hours of drinking Guinness can inspire. In retrospect that should have been embarrassing, as the elevator was a glass elevator, but perhaps their inhibitions had been slightly reduced. Just to make sure that the dancing fever was cured they took a couple of trips up and down in the elevator.
I can only imagine what the receptionist was thinking….