For a few weeks there were below-zero temperatures in Berlin and Brandenburg that reached as far as -17C.
In longer-distant past years I hadn't heated my room at all in these circumstances: I could barely function because I felt so cold, and walked around in a blanket for weeks. Fortunately this time has ended (although it did give me a far greater historical appreciation of the presence of coal in the Berlin Airlift after the Second World War) and I've been feeding the stove with coals pretty constantly.
A trick that Papa taught us is to prop up coal bricks in a fire so that only one end of the bricks touches the fire, gradually burning down over time instead of blazing up at once. Being a maximalist, he'd use five or six coal bricks for this, while I range from one to three. Either way, it's a good way to make sure that I can sleep or get lost in a fog of work ... and still see embers in the stove by the time I wake up literally or figuratively and think of the stove again.
Aside from tricks for tending fires, another Canadianism that I have retained is a wholesome fear of stepping out onto 'frozen' waterways. A good course of reading Jack London in childhood makes one less likely, I think, to venture out onto unproven surfaces in the wintertime; but other Berliners have been more enterprising about it, not always with good results.
With great dramatic irony, the hyacinth bulbs that Mama has been raising on the windowsill were happily sprouting and heightening in the middle of the cold, as if it were the middle of spring. Now the first flowers have appeared amongst the spear-like leaves.
Anyway, then this week the Great Thaw set in. The snowmen that my youngest brother constructed on the windowsill outside his room began to thin out, bend and topple in agonized Dali-esque fashion, a little horrifying to behold; and soon only the sticks for the arms were left amidst a dark grey tide of meltwater. The rain also 'ate away' at the snow cover that had lasted for days and days.
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As for work, it appears as if not just our new clients but especially longtime clients are filled with springtime zeal, happily sending us horrendous data that have all the hallmarks of the messy mistakes of a new season that haven't been ironed out yet.
Because we're too far behind deadlines, I suspect that the colleagues who talk with clients have not been smushing the clients' egregious missteps in their faces as I'd like — not just out of an Old Testament love of punishment of the evildoer, but also because it will make our lives so much easier not to chase after and correct these glitches ourselves.
In most years March just means an increase in day-to-day work. But this year February has been so terrible that the mind boggles at the thought of next Black Friday season. This might be because of a coronavirus-related transition from brick-and-mortar shopping to online retail.
I've begun working on the weekends, as well as long hours during the week, and feeling very, very cranky or in a kind of wilted-flower stage that I think is very irritating for onlookers. It's not just me: I've noticed teammates working long hours; the teams I work with most closely are also overloaded. What's pretty unusual is that teams have started pointing fingers at each other when things go wrong, and I wouldn't say that my team or I are innocent.
Yesterday a colleague asked for a quick meeting, which we held today, to talk about how to mend faltering morale. To be honest, I'm out of ideas.
So I can't say that the 'winter of discontent' has been 'made glorious summer' yet.
I think I'd be happier if I felt that we were still in service to each other, not in service to The Idea of the Company as held out by a very small and very distant (I know they take pains to be transparent and accessible, but maybe not the right ones) circle of decision-makers.
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