Venit, vidit...

... vicit. After coming back from a trip in South-East Asia my father had an appointment for a heart check last week. What should have been a kind of normal check turned out to may have been a life saving test. During the procedure the doctors found out that one of the blood vessels in his heart was completely blocked. Immediately the balloon thing was done to extend the blood vessel and they put a little net to keep it open. Well, this event was shocking: my father, 56 years young, doing most stuff right for his health was close to have a heart attack… makes me reflect on my life, my attitude to health, particularly to my own health… and on the other hand that I should enjoy life more actively, just enjoy the moments more consciously. As I talked the first time to my dad as he left the hospital he told me: “Thomas, life is full of surprises, enjoy the moments, all that can be over so suddenly.” I am honest, in general I have this attitude that I do not listen well to everything my parents say but this time it was different, I think. However, I am happy he is fine and I do really wish he will be able to teach his grand children one day Polish.

… non vicit. In the week after the amazing dolce vita weekend in Milan I had an interview day scheduled with one of my favourite future employer. 8 hours travel for 3 hours interview… all about behavioural interviewing: “Please tell me a time you had to take a decision… a difficult decision… a decision and then the circumstances changed… a decision with positive/negative result…” and some cases in between: “Please estimate the total number of shampoo bottles in hotel rooms that are globally sold every year…”. Very dynamic people, nice offices, very international atmosphere and the opportunity to learn from the best… all this points made me consider this company as one of my dream employers. One week after my little dream was over… “We regret that we have decided not to pursue your candidacy.” I still love the company but I am not that happy with the recruitment procedure… though the decision was taken immediately after the interviews it took one week and another request from my side to send me an automatically generated e-mail with the following ending: “Replies to this message are undeliverable. Please do not reply.“ Well, I try to get feedback on my interviews but you can imagine that is not too easy :-). Anyway, now I am back on the application carousel and do preparation for several interviews next weekend.

That were the two most touching and most disappointing events of the past 2 weeks. Well I was also extremely happy to hear that for the first time one of my pictures made it into a magazine: GRUS (check out page 18)… thank you Nora, I do really appreciate that and you know how much it means to me… Besides that I was writing on my thesis, did some interviews with sourcing consultants, reflected on the critical elements of supplier development, went to the career days fair to see and be seen, got cheered up by my ex girlfriend and had a great night out with my Italian (& Russian) friends when Amedeo visited Zurich.

P.S. I had the opportunity to shoot with my brother's latest weapon: Nikon D200... see the results: "after the storm I", "after the storm II" and "garlic is getting wild" and I can't wait till I get a new camera...