Last Days at DB

Sorry everything's out of order. This one was written on August 21st, after my last day at work.

I’ve now officially finished my internship at Deutsche Bahn. Officially as in they’ve already deactivated my account when I tried to check my Lotus Notes email one more time at 3pm today.

Let’s start with Monday. I brought my DB toaster to work since it’s the wrong voltage and probably would not fit inside my suitcase. My family already has a toaster that I won at a raffle ten years ago. So I showed Oli and the new girl and put the toaster in the kitchen. At lunch time, Maika asked Oli if he had seen the DB toaster (or something like that. I still can’t understand a whole conversation but apparently toaster in German sounds a lot like toaster in English). Oli told her it was from me. She fiddled with the old toaster that was on the lunch table. I had never noticed this before or else I would’ve put the toaster on the table instead of the kitchen. She then went and got the DB toaster and replaced the old one with it. I tried to tell her that it puts the DB logo on bread but I used the wrong words. A lot of German and English words sound alike and if you use the right ones, people can understand you. So instead of ‘picture’ and ‘bread’ I really should’ve said ‘logo’ and ‘toast’. Anyway, Oli understood what I was trying to say and explained this to Maika. Maika wouldn’t believe him at first and he’s like, “look inside!” She did and was really impressed. She wanted to toast the secretary’s bread right then but it wasn’t the right kind of bread. When the secretary came to eat her lunch, Maika told her all about the toaster.

So that was the highlight of work on Monday. I had to wait until 6pm to meet with my boss. He knew I was leaving soon but didn’t realize it was the next day. I guess people don’t usually leave on Tuesdays but my flight is leaving on Thursday so there’s not much I can do about that. Anyhow, we went over all my projects and apparently I’m the first intern he’s had. So I guess he didn’t really know what to expect either.

So today (Tuesday) was my last day at work. I thought my coworkers knew because they were definitely talking about me in the morning. And I thought they could’ve guessed when I was cleaning out my desk but I’m not sure they did. I mean, they knew I was leaving soon but probably just weren’t sure when. Anyhow, I was busy in the morning going over all my projects. After lunch though, things slowed down because you can only read something so many times before falling asleep. And no matter how many times you refreash Gmail, there’s a limit to how many emails you’re going to get, especially when half of America is still sleeping. Anyway, the secretary was really surprised when I returned my card to her. She said, “Tomorrow, no?” That took me a second or two. I proceeded to say “auf wiedersehen” to my other coworkers. They thought it was cool that I was saying goodbye in German. I told my boss that I wanted to learn German while at Cambridge and come back to Germany after. He said I’m welcomed at the office and just give him a call. Not sure if he really means that but it would be cool to work at the same office again next summer. No, this wasn’t the most interesting summer job ever, but I really didn’t do it right the first time and I want to do it again. If I can work there again but able to communicate with my coworkers, it would be so awesome.

I mean it really sucked not being able to say anything at work. I think it’s customary at DB to bring in cake and make coffee on your last day. I thought about doing this but realized that the point of it is so that you can chat with your coworkers, talk about your time there, thank people, etc. And I can’t do that. Not like “won’t” or “don’t want to” but “cannot” as in “I don’t know enough German to hold a conversation.” So it would’ve been pointless and down right awkward. Which is why I’m glad I decided to bring in the toaster. Now they can make toast with the DB logo on it instead of having cake and coffee.

It was a bit sad that the two people who I actually interacted with in that office weren’t there today. Well, Bosner was there in the morning but he left sometime before lunch, I think. So I didn’t really get to say goodbye. And Jean wasn’t there at all. She asked me when I would be leaving last week and said that we’d see each other before that. But she travels around a lot and just couldn’t make it. I’ll just write them both an email to say thank you.

I met up with Carolyn after work and we walked around aimlessly until we got to an Asian restaurant that served Thai, Vietnamese, and sushi. It was good food. We both got mango lassi which is a yogurt-like drink. I got chicken pad thai while she got a noodle dish. Great food. Neither of us had much waiting for us back at our apartments so we just basically talked about random things and killed time. It was good. I’m glad I wasn’t just sitting in my apartment all night, all alone. Gosh, I don’t know what it would be like to live by myself. Must be lonely.