Vee Vere Speaking Of Daisies, Ya

Since I have no funny stories I have to resort to stealing them from people I know.

Speaking of which, someone I know is currently working with one of customers in Germany. He is often part of the same lunch group as me and almost as often exclaims "Oh, here we go" when the conversation, almost inevitably, veers off the tracks of normality and into the weeds of uncertainty.

Here's how things are going for him:

I'm beginning to miss the lunch talk, never thought that would be possible. All the system test guys talk German all day long, except when they're talking to me or the Indian contractors. So at lunch they talk German and then look at me at the end of the lunch hour and then tell me what topic they were talking about the whole time. There's also a pecking order for lunch. Apparently I can't say "hey, let's go to lunch". If I do, the answer is always "not yet". I have to wait for my host to get a phone call from his manager telling him it's lunch time, and then he calls me and we all meet in the lobby. Every one has to wait in the lobby until the manager shows up for lunch, or until he calls and tells everyone they can go without him. At the end of lunch, the manager is always the first one to stand up and leave.

Or sometimes they don't call me at all. The pecking order is such that the person who has just been asked to go to lunch by his superior then has the option of asking somebody below him to join, or not.

[stolen with permission]