Happy new Bond's year 007

Yeeee, so there it is, we all get another chance to have fresh new resolutions! Another chance to be more self-confident, successful, friendly, meaningful, affectionate, fair etc. Aim high this year, because the power of magical numbers will make you succeed like you are a movie star in that action movie who dodges all the bullets (and even if the bullet hits him/her, he/she is bulletproof). Yeah, in 007 you are like a James Bond!!!


Just keep this in mind and eventually every challenge you take will have a bigger rate of success. If you are a guy, you get Bond girls, if you are a girl you get Bond. You just have to believe it. Now go since this year of miracles has 364 days left and you still won't get nothing for free.

BTW good that 1st January is over, I always have in mind that what you do on that day will happen during the whole year. So this is the day of the year when I am trying to be that good that it is not me anymore :)

After a while...

It is finally snowing in Slovakia. Almost one week after Christmas, we might get some white powder and go hit the ski slopes this season. It all started all of sudden while I went to see my friend's appartement.

The fun is that it is the first time I took out old car I used to drive - Renault Megane. It was parked in the garage for two months and it still has summer tires on... and there I am, on the fresh snow with these tires feeling like Santa on the sledge.

But fortunately everything ended well and the car is again in the garage and I am next to the fireplace. Wish you all that just nice memories of 2006 will remain.

Life in big city is lonely...

Sometimes it gets so lonely that you are desperate. Today, at the bus stop, I have seen one gypsy guy talking to a girl on a city-light poster :)))
This one:)

Revolutionary HRM tactics

Yesterday evening I went to pay a visit to my friends living in another Prague apartment.
I took a tram at about 9pm at the square where I live now. I went to the second train because those are usually less crowded and I wanted to sit down. Haha, I tried hard to hide my smile when I got on. Inside there were exactly 20 dirty gypsy construction workers occupying all the seats on both sides of the tram. I don’t need to mention the unbearable smell of dust and sweat everywhere the train :-) But I was doing everything to prevent laughing seeing this “crew” :-)
I was lucky and did not suffocate because at the next stop, their leader said “Hajdu!” and they all got off, leaving 20 seats what means an empty train. Plus, warmly welcomed space for fresh oxygen.
Later that evening with my friends we were laughing at this scene and talking about it in terms we all know really good. The team of 20 gypsies was actually on the teambuilding, to be more accurate they were teambuilding a building. This is a new trend in HR, you know. Funny and useless activities like bowling or other bullshit that HR agencies organize are obsolete. People now spend and enjoy together 12 hours of hard physical work, preferably on the lowest level in construction with no decision making powers – because this is what they will do in their jobs! They will arrive home exhausted and dirty because they just meet with dirty people doing dirty things (so it’s easiest to comprehend this while working in mud and dust). Of course that these guys I have seen in the tram were not gypsies but refined and educated Indian youths and all were hired for some IT implementation BPR SAP WTF DICK office job in Czech Republic. Every evening they go back to the slum on the outskirts of Prague, they have a bath in the river, then drink cheap rum. When they go to bed they all know this teambuilding event will finish soon and again they start to wear their suits and ties – but now in their career, they will be unstoppable ;-)

But my evening was niiiiiiiiiice (respect to Borat!). I took a bottle of wine, Zolo had already cooked lasagna... and we enjoyed a peaceful evening thanks to locally illegal substance :-) Zolo is not only a great cook, a great masseur and a great seducer but also a great football player and has some health problems with his knee. So Zolo, we all wish you'll be good soon, cheer up! Plus I want to have a beer with you :-)

PS: I have to say that I nothing against Indians; I met a few during my studies and they were all smart and in some way, funny too.

For marketing you need a marketing personality

Yesterday evening I went out with my colleagues to do some teambuilding. The bowling sucked because of the lanes and no bowling shoes… but the evening was even funnier than I had expected. I was crying of the things my colleagues have been doing and saying. Rule number one is that if you go out with people from MARKETING departement they will do even funnier and sicker thinghs than they do in the office everyday.

Last time they only sent the email with topic “How to introduce yourself on the company line phone” which was just light fun. According to “the rules” you always have to say: “Media group MAFRA, Ctirad Svoboda speaking at the telephone. How can I help you today?”, loudly and clearly and change the name for yours. But anytime you notice somebody from marketing picking up the the phone, you hear them say “Kriz.” (a name) or just “Uhm?” They also wrote in the mail that you should not speak in higher voice depending on the distance of the caller (some people in the office tend to shout when they talk with somebody from another continent or any further than Prague). Their whole email was a joke. There is a woman in the office, about 50 yrs old called Mary, Head of sales, who believes them everything they tell her. She forwarded the message immediatelly to all her subordinates – poor girls and asked them if she really has to say “How can I help you today” ?

Back to the evening. After we finished with bowling (team of marketing departement guys won the prize, shit – they are going to be proud all next week for sure) we went to another pub called Backdoors. Petr (head of Mlada Fronta newspaper marketing and biggest clown) was unstoppable. Two girls ordered coffee with milk and he drank one of the milks from the shot glass just as the waitress was putting in on the table ? He was pippeting her coffee with his drinking straw and showing everybody around that he is not even touching it with his tongue – arguing that he got this skill when he was working with HIV bacteria in the same way. Then he was demonstrating “a mill” with his food (a disgusting trick when you pretend to mill the food in your mouth and it’s coming out). When the waitres brought him his drink and asked “Cuba Libre?” he just said “No, I just wanted a coke with white rum”.

All of these things might sound stupid and not that amusing but if you knew Petr with his sparkling eyes and rascal smile you would be in tears as I was. You might imagine my situation – being unusually silent at the table and asking myself all over again – Are these the same people who I work with in the office?