The company, however, had no idea who I was, or what I was supposed to be doing there. This was a precursor of what was to follow that day. I sat in the visitor's lounge for about two hours staring at out of date coffee table books while they sorted out the matter, when the CEO dropped by, introduced himself, talked for two minutes, shook my hand, and walked away. (No one, including me, had any idea what I was supposed to do now.) I wandered around for a bit until I found my desk, (which was one floor and eight rooms away) and realized I had been allotted a temporary desk in the accounting section. I sat opposite the resident accountant, who let loose a barrage of German as soon as he saw me. This, I found later, included a greeting, an inquiry, some advice on sitting in push-back chairs, and a comment on how juicy polish apples are.
And that was it.
Neither of us spoke during the next two hours; he was hammering away at his keyboard, and I was busy (i)whining to myself about not being given a computer and (ii)contemplating calling Prof. Durst and explaining that I might have walked into the wrong building that morning.
No such luck.
Boredom has a nasty way of seeking you out even in the most interesting places, and this was not one of them to begin with. In an hour, I had finished playing with the magnets on the wall, the sketch pens on the table, and staring at the pictures in the German text on steel manufacturing that I found lying on my table.
To sum up, I had nothing to do, nowhere to go, no lunch to eat, nobody to talk to, and not surprisingly, I was feeling a tad bit unhappy about the entire situation. (I learned later that I was supposed to be given material to read on porous combustion, but they forgot to.)
And then I saw it.
I present to you, the lost relic that countless men (might) have searched for in vain, the proof for the existance of an improbability field (Of the Douglas Adams' kind), and most importantly, the icebreaker of that forgettable Monday, a map in ultra high-res glory:
I was about as perplexed as I will ever be when I saw this hanging off the wall, framed and (apparently) well preserved.
Why is this perplexing?
'Ceilon!', I cried. (That was marked on the map.)
Mr. Schmidt at his desk looked up and said (in the tone of one correcting an errant child):
Starting from the beginning:
I spent the rest of the day staring at the map, then went home.
Here are a few more shots of the bizarre oddity. If my camera was capable of capturing at high enough resoutions, Maissur, Birma and other comic respellings would be in the offing for the patient viewer.
Things got better, though. Now the whole incident seems amusing.
Why is this perplexing?
(i) It's a map of British India.
(ii) It's in German.
(iii) It's hanging off the wall of a German company that designs burners.
(iv) It is dated 1855.
'Ceilon!', I cried. (That was marked on the map.)
Mr. Schmidt at his desk looked up and said (in the tone of one correcting an errant child):
'Sri Lanka!'
This was followed by a conversation that is absurd on so many levels, I am yet to comprehend how it could have taken place.
Starting from the beginning:
Me: Ceilon!
Mr.S: Sri Lanka!
Me: Now.
Mr.S: Ten Yearz.
Me: Eh?
Mr.S: Srilanka, Ten Yearz.
Me: Oh, no, no. Thirty.
Mr.S: Wikipedia!
Me: Yes!
(Mr.S hammers away some more on his keyboard.)
Mr.S: 1972!
Me: 35 years!
Mr.S: Nein.
Me: Eh?
Mr.S: Tomorrow!
Me: Eh?
Mr.S: Tomorrow, Ceilon, Sri lanka!
Me: Oh!
Mr.S:34 Yearz, 11 monat, 30 tage, ya?
Me: Ah, okay.
Mr. Markus Shmidt is Polish, speaks Polish and German (no English, duh), loves (juicy) Polish apples and reclining chairs. Apparently. This is him, and the orange chair is where I spent one of the most boring days of my life. (The laptops were not there that day.)
I spent the rest of the day staring at the map, then went home.
Here are a few more shots of the bizarre oddity. If my camera was capable of capturing at high enough resoutions, Maissur, Birma and other comic respellings would be in the offing for the patient viewer.
Things got better, though. Now the whole incident seems amusing.
Another oddity in the same office:
I wonder what this is about.Mr.S teaches me German, and I try to teach him English.
Mr. Schmidt and I are good friends now.
Mr. Schmidt and I are good friends now.
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