Sunday in the building by the highway

  Madrid, Spain
Sunday, March 25, 2007

No rest for the wicked.

Somewhat jet-lagged, definitely tired, and with one colleague suffering from a migraine, we nonetheless tackled this Sunday with energy and the drive to get things done. After all, we're here for work, and today was our "setup day" -- prior to the 7 days of training we will be conducting, starting tomorrow morning.

The breakfast buffet at the hotel -- lots of cold cuts, breads and pastries, runny scrambled eggs (the way I like them!) -- reminded me of the German breakfast buffet at the hotel where I stayed near Munich a few years back. Expensive breakfast, though -- we won't be able to do that every day...

We asked for a taxi with a large trunk for "The Beast" - aka the Shuttle server box: unwieldy, heavy, it is a beast. A very nice taxi driver was able to find the location of the training center; I wasn't overly concerned, but I understood as soon as we got there why I had had trouble finding it on a map, and where the taxi driver had hesitated a moment when I gave him the address.

Our client's building is located in a new "light industrial" area. In other words, a few nice modern office buildings, all recently built, right next to an elevated highway. The Hotel AC Feria, suggested to us by the client, is right next door. A rather depressing place to stay, mind you, unless one favours loud highway noises and views of construction sites. I was very glad we had taken a cab, seeing that the subway station was a fair distance away, and The Beast would have become a Monster over that distance.

Our client's building, left of the highway

We were met at the door by Augustin the Security Guard, there exclusively on a Sunday for the purpose of letting us in the building and the training room. Nice, modern facilities, though not perfect for training. But certainly good enough - in fact, better than what we have at the office.

First brief moment of panic: we can't log on to the training machines, we don't have passwords. &^@*&#!!! Well, that has the potential to suck! But Augustin happens to come by, and tells me our client gave him the password to give us. Excellent! The password works, and we start to do our thing.

Augustin and I both talk with the client on the phone a short while later, and she confirms she will be coming in. In the mean time, password in hand, we start setting up and checking each computer. Windows is (of course) in Spanish on each of these machines, which doesn't cause us too much grief, but does make things a little more challenging. Tackling world markets is fun, but one has to remember that there are going to be certain challenges that North American-based consultants must be equipped to deal with.

Our client shows up -- very friendly (Spanish kiss/kiss on both cheeks, à la French-Canadian, except we don't tend to do that the very first time we meet a business contact!), and wanting to make sure we have everything we need. There are a couple of items she needs to help us with, but it'll have to wait til tomorrow 8am, when IT is there and more folks are around. Nothing tragic on that front.

She leaves, and that's when things get interesting. We find that some 3rd party software that we need on these machines is missing. OK - that's easy. Go to the 3rd party's Website, and download the install file. So far so good -- we quickly have a "system" going where one of us downloads and installs, and the others test.

Hum... "it doesn't work" -- the version of the software available on the Website is not the version we need, and that version is no longer available. Only one solution: phone Canada. I wake up my IT colleague at 6am and request that he send us a file, which he does right away.

Uninstall, re-install, re-test. Better -- but not quite done. Another piece of 3rd party software to be installed, followed by more testing.

The client's project manager (let's call him "Fab") arrives, directly from Paris. He hovers, wanting to make sure that "this time", we're *really* ready for this training. Hey - we're as ready as we're ever going to be, but it's software, we're half-way around the world, we're working with Spanish Windows, communication with local IT has been a bit challenging, and... did I mention it was software?

Around 3pm, we've successfully wrapped up our testing. Next major concern is my colleague's migraine, which seems to be getting worse. He's supposed to lead training tomorrow morning...! He knows it, and there's no point emphasizing that we're counting on him.

We're all hungry, but the options for food in that area on a Sunday are extremely limited. Fab had tried to get information from a Spanish manager who was in the building. He ended up pulling me into the conversation, since my Spanish skills outweigh his by a full 100%. Which still doesn't say much for my Spanish. This Spanish manager spoke to me very slowly in very comprehensible Spanish -- very kindly, he offered to take us to a restaurant in the city if we couldn't find food at the hotel. We promised to call him to let him know.

Heading over to the hotel, we found it modern, clean, nicely designed, and disconcertingly empty. Wow. Am I glad we're not staying there. The restaurant is closed on Sunday, so we had sandwiches at the bar.

After a bit of chit-chat, we parted with Fab, and headed to the subway, a few minutes' walk away. We boarded the spotlessly clean and brand-spanking new subway car, headed towards the city, and reached our station about 20 minutes later. Door-to-door, with all the walking involved, about 40-45 minutes. Still better than staying by the highway, if you ask me...

No dinner tonight - just work, and sleep. I took a short nap, but I'm still tired and jet-lagged, it's hard to wake up and do work now...

Wish us luck tomorrow!