A new monthly feature from Wolverine, short stories from staff on all the adventures we have had here at Wolverine Supplies. How we came about to becoming a Wolverine and the adventurous path it has set us on!
January 1st, 2020 Edition
RYAN
I.T. DEPARTMENT
Hi everyone, being longest serving employee, I was asked to write about my experiences here. After 15 years, I wasn’t sure where to start so I decided to start at the beginning. Not the very beginning, as John loves to reminisce about a young man, a job interview and well disguised ditch. That is another story all together. This one starts about 3 months after I joined the team. In those days there was four of us in the office, John, Pat, Trish & myself.
It was the start of April 2005 and John was working with a company in Germany called Theissen Training systems. This was a very exciting time for me because they developed target systems that were computer controlled. This combined my 2 loves, shooting and technology. There was only one problem. Everyone who know how it worked and how to program the targets were in Germany. After what I considered to be a very short period of time John came up to me and asked if I had a passport. I did not. At this time I think it’s important to inform you that I grew up on a farm outside of a Prairie village of Sinclair Mb. I say village because technically there weren’t enough people to consider it a town. We had the local general store, a café, gas station and an elementary school. The point is, apart from one trip out west with my family I had never been more that 300 miles from where I grew up and now I was off to Germany. It didn’t take me long to get my Passport in order (as government agencies go they were pretty good back then). And within a few weeks I was on my own to Germany. Pardon the language but I was S#*Ting bricks.
The travel there went pretty smooth by most standards, I managed to get there with all my luggage, I didn’t miss any connecting flights and I managed to stave off any panic attacks. The factory was in Düsseldorf, and I was greeted at the airport by our sales rep, I believe his name was Michael, and we were off to HQ where I could learn about all the amazing things these remote controlled targets could do. After a few hours of filling my head and my note books Michael dropped me off at my hotel. He apologized that he could not show me around the city as he had a prior engagement. It was time for my first lesson in cultural differences. I ate at the hotel and the staff there were great and they spoke English, which is fantastic since I don’t speak a lick of German. I had a lovely meal and waited patiently for the bill to be brought to the table. A few minuets when by…..then a few more…..then a few more. Before I knew it an hour had gone by. Where the heck was my bill, I wanted to leave. So I had flagged down the waiter and asked him what the hold up was. He looked at me like I had two heads, then brought me the bill. Later, from Michael, I had learned that in Germany it was considered rude for the waiting staff to bring a bill before it was asked for.
Even after a couple hours for my first official meal in Germany, it was still early and I had several hours to fill before bed. What to do, new city, I don’t speak the language and I’m not familiar with the customs. I know I will head downtown and see what the city has to offer. So I found a map in the lobby, and grabbed business card off the front desk and off I went. After a few blocks I managed to find a train station that (judging by the pictures) it would take me to downtown. Everything was automated so all I had to do was figure out how to get a train ticked from this machine where the instructions are completely in German. SIMPLE. After staring blankly at the machine for about 5 or 10 min I met my first official local. A nice young lady tapped me on the shoulder and asked me something in German. I apologies in English and to my surprise she replied in English. I explained my predicament and she kindly offered to let me ride on her ticket, as she too was headed downtown. While on the train she apologized for her poor English, as she hadn’t spoken it since high school. I was blown away. One, her English was perfectly fine. Two, I’m in her country, if anything I should apologize for not learning her language. And yes, in true Canadian fashion I did. Once we arrived downtown she was showing me around downtown we came to the river, The Rhine, Across the river I could see that there was a fair going on. I pointed it out and asked what was going on. She turned a red and said if I go over there and a man grabs me and askes a question I should just say “no, no, no” and walk away. This obviously piqued my curiosity. Why on earth would men pestering me at the fair. I mean over and above regular carney fashion. And why did she turn red when I asked about it. This is when I added a new term to my vocabulary. “Pink Monday”. Pink Monday is when the fair is almost purely made up of the homosexual community. OK, not going to the fair. Had I not met the young lady this might have been a very different kind of story. After about 45 min she had to take her leave, as she was meeting up with some friends. I thanked her profusely for helping me out and giving me a quick tour. She gave me some last min tips on what to do and not to do and she was off.
After wondering around aimlessly for a while I noticed it was getting pretty dark, and I realized that it was waaay later than I though it was. I also remembered my tour guide telling me that I should not be around after dark, especially if I was alone. Not exactly sure how, but I managed for find a cab and pulled out the business card from the hotel and pointed to it and asked if he could take me back there. This is when I found out that the card I grabbed was a generic card, and there were 4 hotels with the same name. Well bugger, after a bit of back and fourth about how I got here we figured out which one was mine and he delivered me safe and sound.
Day two, I was up early and went down to breakfast, which went far better than the previous night. Michael picked me up and I spent the better part of the day learning about how to get a tank target to move across the range and pop smoke when hit, or set off lights. At the end of the day Michael took me out for supper downtown again and regaled him with my previous night adventures over a warm dark pint at Kurzer Brauerei. A pub with an onsite microbrewery. After a lovely meal and a few story swaps he dropped me at my Hotel and I called it a night. The next day was my trip home. By this time I was a seasoned traveler(although looking back I would say I was more lucky then seasoned). The trip home was uneventful, and while I will always appreciate the opportunity and the experience that Wolverine gave me to travel abroad, I was happy to be back home. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Cheers!
Ryan
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