My Die is Cast
German layovers relax me. Good food, good people watching, efficiency, civility, and the unfettered opportunity to read. Or write.
As I begin this post, I’m in Flughafen München on a 4-hr layover sheltering from the airport’s surprising bustle on my first trip back to Europe after the 18-month COVID hiatus that we’ve been all been subjected to.
To be honest, the pandemic didn’t impact my life as much as most. As an exec in a fully remote startup, my work days didn’t really change. If anything, they got more exciting. So I extended my retirement date yet again and helped broker the sale of Drops, the company I was working for at the time. After helping facilitate the company’s initial transition, I finally said my farewells in May.
It’s been four and a half months and many of my friends are betting on when I jump ship— as I did from my last retirement attempt. So when I accepted Drops’ invitation to interrupt my Italian vacation and join the executive team at a strategic planning session in Amsterdam, a few friends guffawed: Here we go again.
Personally, I knew I wouldn’t be tempted, but I didn’t know how utterly disorienting the experience would be — how completely I’ve moved on in just a few short months. It wasn’t the work sessions that were jarring. I thoroughly enjoyed reconnecting with the executive team, both old and new. I was also engaged by the strategy discussions, though it did take my business brain a few cycles to click in.
No, it was the hipster hotel we stayed in that was now so foreign to me. I used to be charmed by the form-over-function decor so common in hotels that cater to tech startups: pool and foosball tables crowding the lobby; eye-catching vignettes of unsittable furniture; clever witticisms on every napkin, mirror, and card key that so often diminished the witticized object’s intended utility.
But this time, I rolled my eyes at the disco-themed elevator’s complete with a Rubik’s Cube floor of flashing colored lights and built-in microphone in case a guest wanted to break out in amplified song on short ride up to their tiny rooms decked to the hipster nines with Crosley turntables and retro push-button phones (rotaries would have sowed mayhem).
Fortunately, like many micro-hotels, the bathrooms were the sizeable exception — a spa-esque yin to the room’s speakeasy yang. I embraced its refuge. As I drooped limp under the giant rainfall showerhead, I stared the equally large tiles of mable at my feet. But instead of admiring their minimalist beauty, I thought how easy it would be to slip and fall. Nor did I immediately laugh this off as what it was — an anxious musings of an aging boomer, but rather I followed it further, imagining that such massive slabs of polished, unetched stone would carry immense liability in the US. By the time I had finished showering, I was in a full-on dither.
The next morning, as I prepared to leave, I did enjoy a turn of one of of the albums left at my disposal — The Cure or The Clash, something sufficiently ’80s to trigger a bout of nostalgia. But I did so just to cover up the noisy maid next who’s clamor resounded through the hotel’s paperthin walls (investing in noise insulation is so 20th century! Vinyl records on the otherhand, …)
I saved my final hours for lunch with a friend from a previous startup who now lives in Amsterdam. Of course, given our shared history, we discussed that company’s challenges and opportunities. But I found myself more interested in hearing how he and his family had adjusted to Amsterdam, their travels throughout Europe, and what his plans were for his impending retirement (don’t worry, Prezi, it’s not for a while).
After he dropped me off at the airport, I masked up and prepared for onslaught of pandemic travel precautions. I recalled my morning’s final conversation with Drops’ new head of marketing. We were chatting about a social media campaign she has in the works when she turned to me and said, “Do you remember back when blogs were a thing?” I thought, In fact I do, and decided to write this blog post*. Or rather long-form content — I think that’s what the kids are calling it these days.
OK, I have to admit — the hotel’s card key quote did give me a chuckle.
*Note: As this is the first trip in over 30 years I’ve taken without my computer, this post was written in the Medium iPhone app with limited editing functionality. I plan to correct what I expect to be myriad typos and formatting issues when I return stateside in a couple of weeks.
Postscript: After my Amsterdam excursion, I met my friend Diane in Venice, where we stayed at a decidedly unhip hotel in the sleepy Sant’Elena neighborhood. We strolled the city’s canals, binged on cicchetti, purchased a replacement lamp shade for a Fortuny sconce I had bought at the very same store a quarter of a century prior, and attended a wedding for another former Drops’ exec who was tying the knot with his childhood sweetheart. It was a magical ceremony flanked by thought-provoking conversations on topics that spanned far beyond business endeavors to the broader global and generational interests that we attendees represented. When a fellow entrepreneur asked if this retirement attempt was going to stick, my response was immediate: Absa-f’n-lutely.
