Facility Management

One of those post-1980's words that have enriched our everyday lives and made us seem more managerial and important. In my youth, I seem to remember the job of an "Executive Facility Manager" being called "Caretaker". With a decade or so delay these Anglo-Saxon terms are now firmly adopted in German business talk. The job in German used to be called "Hausmeister". (Link only works if you understand Bavarian humour and Saxon dialect)

I have been out of business life for nearly a decade but sometimes Angie would come home from her Munich office with the latest "in" expression which had me scratching my head. One that really threw me for days turned out to be "Jour fix", the French also trying to force their way into the slick commercial world.

Today, and so as to be clear, I use the International Organisations for Standards (ISO) definition, we were "the organizational function which integrates people, place and process within the built environment with the purpose of improving the quality of life of people and the productivity of the core business."

In plain speak: we had been invited on Friday by Angie's eldest sister Brigitte to a last-minute BBQ to celebrate her birthday. A small family get-together with her two daughters, one 6 months pregnant, the to-be- father, his parents, the middle sister Siglinde and husband and the two of us. Ten people in total. As Brigitte doesn't have a suitable garden for such an event, she had planned it at a flooded former gravel pit used as a bathing lake near her home in Kaufering about 30 minutes from here. To start at 3:00 pm with coffee and cake, then BBQ  and then a sit around a campfire ..... Sounded a great idea if seven of the ten had been 40 years younger and there wasn't a young pregnant Mum-to-be. Carrying all the gear from cars over stony ground trying to either protect half the things from getting cold and the other bits from getting warm, chairs, blankets, grill ......... wasps attacking the food .......

Friday night Angie and Siglinde, in a telephone call, came up with the idea of doing it at our place and tried contacting Brigitte who didn't resurface until Saturday evening. She agreed it would be a good idea but it wasn't until this morning that we finally heard all the invited guests also agreed.

So quickly we prepared the "facility" and in the afternoon Brigitte appeared with a station wagon packed with everything except the kitchen sink. Paper kitchen-towel roll, aluminium foil, beer, meat, salads, garlic butter, wine, bubbly, soft drinks, hard spirits, charcoal ....... the whole works.

And it turned out to be a great day. It was father-to-be's first visit to our house and the first meeting of his parents with most of the clan. We all really got on together so well. A bit of chat, coffee and cake, swimming, drinking, BBQing, starting the camp fire, sitting around laughing and chatting until the Mum/Father/Grandparents-to-be left at about 10:00 pm and the remaining six of us continued until 2:00 am and probably only due to the smoke inhalation when in a drunken, squinted eye moment,  I collected some damp wood from the dark pile behind the house. Offers of a warm bed were not taken up as both sets had to still do things on the way home - collect son's car trailer in Munich and the other drop of the car for booked car service!

At 2:30 am after a minimal amount of clearing up, went to bed but knowing that at 7:00am an always over punctual huge lorry would be arriving with 6 tons of wood pellets for our central heating and the bunker needed to be cleared up!

I wasn't to get much sleep but frankly, after such a wonderful evening, it didn't trouble me at all.

Thank you, Brigitte, for the invitation, food and drink, great company and a good time. And of course, all the others who also contributed with more salads, coffee machine and their presence.