It was 8.30 sharp when I arrived at the office entrance. As I did not have a keycard to open the big wooden door I had to rang the bell. Nobody answered.

I waited for about twenty minutes when an alternatively looking guy with long hair walked up the stairs to the entrance where I was waiting. “Morning, dude! You must be the new Benelux MD”, he said. “Indeed”, I replied. He opened the door and told me that most of the people only started around half nine in the morning and often stayed till late. I wasn’t used to having this rhythm but thanked him for this valuable info.

I walked into the room on the third floor where the team I had to manage supposed to sit. I choose to sit at a desk at the window overlooking the entire floor and opened my MacBook. My inbox was filled with emails with login credentials and I became a little nervous when I got a popup notifying me that the Benelux team meeting was about to start in an hour. This would be the first time for me meeting the team where I had to tell them how I was going to be their leader.

A few minutes past ten the Benelux team gathered and we went into the Black Room. The Black Room was my favorite meeting room as it could have been part of the set of Mad Men and had the look and feel of a typical British smoking room. We all sat at a long table when I started the meeting by talking about myself and I suggested to have a quick introduction round. So we got Luke: a handsome guy who ticked all boxes for being this stereotype of an extreme sales hunter. His cognac-leather shoes were shining like a mirror and he admitted to be addicted to candy and Red Bull. Luke was this kind of Duracell bunny that started the day with a bizarre energy level but ran out of steam during the day.

Richard already worked for PersonAd for a couple of years and was the most senior account manager in the company. He took care of key accounts and actually hoped to be promoted to manager of the team, but instead I was hired. Richard looked a little overweight and had a constant grumpiness in his tone of voice.

Then we had Otto who was probably the most special person in our team. He was diagnosed with the Tourette syndrome and every now and then threw in some swearing words. He was hired as a sales manager but proclaimed himself a director because he was convinced he was the most senior sales person in the team.

Mouna, a female accountmanager with Turkish roots, was characterized by her “whatever”-attitude as she was often answering giving duckfaces and not being that interested in PersonAd’s clients. When she was not polishing her nails she was sending messages on her iPhone.

The youngest member of the team was Stefan. A neat guy who just came out of university and was into the techno scene. Most of the time he was having headphones on with pumping beats, moving his head up and down. PersonAd was his first real job but he didn’t really seem to like it that much is what I found out later.

Not to forget Thijs: a true hipster with a perfectly groomed beard and big holes in his grey skinny jeans. His outfits were like as you would see in magazines and his naughty smile made female clients instantly fell in love with him.

I suggested bi-weekly one-on-one meetings where Richard said he was not interested and Mouna gave me a duckface. The rest agreed with a casual “sure” and Otto mumbled something like “screw this shit”. I promised the team to present my strategy in the next team meeting next month. The rest of the first week at PersonAd I spent my time mainly on drinking coffee with new colleagues and figuring out how the technology of the platform worked.

-

The sound of a night owl waked me up at 5.00 on a Monday morning. It was the alarm clock of my iPhone and it was still dark outside when I opened the curtains. I disconnected my phone from the charger and ordered an Uber to drive me to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. The app showed it would take around 6 minutes for the grey BMW to arrive at my place. I quickly got myself an Italian shower and dressed up wearing a company branded t-shirt and Nike Air Max sneakers.

I had to hurry when I arrived at the airport departure hall while the displays of the Vueling flight to Barcelona already signaled “BOARDING”. Luckily the security check went smoothly so that I just in time arrived at the gate. When I walked into the airplane I suddenly heard somebody shouting “asshole!”.

Good morning, Otto.

I took my seat next to him and waved to Luke who was sitting behind us chewing on gummy bears.

“Please fasten your seatbelt for take off.”  

Barca, here we come!