A New Challenge!
RIETER had to retire me because I passed my expiry date by 3 years and the bad economical situation forced RIETER to send many into early retirement. I had to find a new job! The obvious choice was JOSSI SYSTEMS AG., but due to the prevailing economical situation, it was for a long time not clear whether this will work out. Fortunately, just in time, the situation changed for the better and I got my contract and I remained for the next 5.5 years with the Company. Until 73+, this, of course, is very good news since my wive would not like to have me hanging around at home! Also the meager pension due to decades working overseas on my own and neglecting my AHV, would make a retirement very difficult! My new job at JOSSI is pretty much the same as with Rieter. Same product, same markets!
Jossi Systems: 01.06.2010 - 30.05.2014
Uster Technologies: 30.05.2014 - 30.05.2015 my retiry date
India, Turkey, GUS, South East Asia, including South Korea and Japan.
Overall I'm very pleased with this new assignment. A vast "playground" with room for expansion in the future, but ended a bit different due to up creeping health problems!
For the first time I tried the flight via Brussels to Chennai (Madras), with Jet Airways and from there with Kingfisher to Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu). Not bad. Here I met, after 4 years, my old friend Michael Kristoffersen and we had to celebrate the occasion! He is crazy as ever and both had, next day, a hard time! He is now on it's own, producing and selling "Tiger Rings". I wish him all the best in his new venture!
At last the waiting is over and the action started again! Exhibitions where never my favorites, talking or standing around a lot and mostly too hot! This ITMA proved to be quite pleasant, the weather changed: a lot of rain which cooled it down. During the first three days we had a lot of visitors on our boot and time passed quick.
Just before the exhibition we visited the WORLD EXPO 2010, another huge event taking place in Shanghai. It was a mixed experience! Long, very hot walks, too long queues to consider entering Pavilions of interest. A boat ride across the river, stretches in buses and other means of transport made it nevertheless a memorable experience. In the evenings, we mostly enjoyed the on going World Cup: witnessed the departure of Switzerland, France and Italy in company of a cold beer. This was comforting! It's always refreshing to see that there are other looser around. The way back to Zürich was a long one, I had to wait 12 hours in Dubai since the morning flight was over-booked . This is certainly not the way to spend a birthday! Fortunately I found an oasis (I always do!), with plenty of cold beer and smoking permitted! In this way the time passed quick. Later I met Ashraf, the service engineer from Pakistan on the way to the Jossi Training Course! The world is small!
This was a short trip to visit a Ginning Mill near Alexandria. Omar was my host and we had a good time in spite of the Ramadan! Unfortunately no time for sight-seeing. In short, business as usual. The relative moderate temperatures of 36 °C and low humidity was a welcome change to the lousy Swiss weather!
The trip was as usual long and uneventful. The Baggage did not arrive in Seoul, this was a bit annoying but it was delivered to the Kobos Hotel by midnight and I was ready for action. We visited several customers and Mr. Paik was a cheerful companion on all train, bus and car journeys to our customers. The only problem I encountered was eating on the floor. Getting graceful to the floor was awful! Eating was easy but "sitting" and getting up, "Hyppo-Style", not!
From Seoul I traveled back 5 hours to Hanoi. This is a very nice place. The Mövenpick Hotel was only 5 min. from the Exhibition Hall
where I assigned to the TIMTEX boot. With me was Thomas Bachmann, an old friend from Rieter, now working with Xorella. We had a pretty good time in spite of of low customer attendance which made long and boring.
After a long waiting time at the Hanoi airport we departed 03:00 and landed 4 hours later in Seoul. Due to the delay I was running out of time to catch the plane to Fukuoka (Japan). I had to go through Immigration, fetch my luggage, and check-in again. Long lines before the immigration boots forced me to be a bit rude and bullied my way to the front. Than a long delay at the baggage belt made me very jumpy.
Luckily I managed to check-in just in time to board the aircraft and landed at 10:30 in Fukuoka on the island of Kyu-shu Island. The city surprised me. Very nice! Walter Kiechl arrived late the same day from China and next day we ventured out to the customers situated on the island. Justin and Yu where our guides from our agency. From Kagoshima we took a plane to Matsuyama situated on the Shikoku Island of Japan. There "Nariaki San" took over. After our assignment we flew to Osaka and next day and back home. Next stop Coimbatore (India)
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