8am and on. First calls, first misunderstandings. The astounding effects of misconfigured audio, and colleagues that seem to have moved home office to the bottom of a huge metal trash can. Also: Language barreers. Both customer-specific and natural. (There's always a load lost in translation and friction.)
Wenn die Füße wieder auf Asphalt stehen, Kälte von Klima-Anlagen aus großen automatischen Türen quillt und die letzten weißen Lampen verlöschen, merkt man, dass man wieder in den Morgen gefunden hat. Am anderen Ende der Stadt ketten Handwerker alte, mit Farbklecksen übersäte Fahrräder an das hohe Gerüst, ein Lehrling im Blaumann trottet mit Tüten und Flaschen aus dem Supermarkt quer über die Kreuzung zum Baucontainer. Tauben sitzen auf den Fassaden und starren in den erwachenden Tag wie zu klein geratene Wasserspeier. In den eigenen Fluren herrscht noch jene frühe Stille, in der man am Fenster steht, in ein halbdurchsichtiges Spiegel-Selbst schaut, die Ferne des Horizonts dahinter wahrnimmt und sich, einmal mehr, in all das große Indifferente einzuordnen versucht. Erster Kaffee. Nochmal gähnen. Und dann langsam los. Habt es mild heute!
Later that afternoon: Unsure what to make of it. Too many fragments, too few clues to connect these. Some lights on the desktop, in the twilight of the office, both to keep the grey away and to avoid unwanted information to leak into the ongoing call. Sometimes focus is challenging, especially when most of this is about listening and waiting for trigger words to jump in. Next doors construction site’s getting noisier with the hours passing. No thoughts, few voices in the streets, no people on the sidewalks, but there’s always that sound coming with this very call. Slowly, too slowly moving on.
10am and on. In between calls, in between topics. Again, sometimes complex issues are resolved pondering something completely different with someone completely unrelated in an office kitchen. Also: The joys of merging multiple heads - and the joys of using day-to-day vocabulary in a different context that must feel utterly disturbing to people outside a very narrow crowd.