My last days with NRW.BANK

What a strange moment: Leaving the place where you have worked for the last three years...

It’s been five months now since I formally quit my job as an Investment Manager with NRW.BANK’s participations department. A long time to prepare the leave one might think but in the end it all went quite fast... Up to the last afternoon I haven’t had the feeling of really leaving the company and my colleagues. Don’t know where that came from...

A possible explanation might be that I spent the last two days of my NRW.BANK time on a strategy meeting with the whole team on Schloss Krickenbeck an old water castle owned by WestLB and set up as a high standard Seminar hotel.

These strategy meetings are held by the participations department once a year and I was very happy being invited to this year’s event. As usual the two days weren’t too serious but well balanced between discussing new market opportunities or improvements in existing products and on the other hand team building and heavy socializing.

In the afternoon of our first day we had a painting class in which we designed collages of the letters forming our company’s name NRW.BANK. We did this in groups of three formed by coincidence by picking notes and had a really good time with great results.

The evenings at Krickenbeck are traditionally spent in the bar "Tenne" and are vital part of the socializing side of such events. We had a very funny evening with good talks and a very nice speak of my boss saying that I did a good job during my time with the bank and that I will be welcomed warmly when I will come back. In addition to the plane shaped kite with flight vouchers I got during the breakfast I arranged as a farewell meal some days ago, I got a little book with pictures and nice words and wishes from my colleagues now. This is a really nice thing to remind me of the last three years and the nice persons I have been working with. Thank you very much for it!

Another tradition linked to the bar is turning to Ramazotti at a certain moment during the evening and finally ending up drinking Bessen Genever. The evenings usually finish with bamby eyes bagging for a last and final round of drinks and staff only reacting to this reluctantly.

In the morning after too many drinks having a swim in the hotel's pool is always a great idea and good basis for the rest of the strategy meeting. I did so with my very close work mates Mirja and Marko taking the opportunity to wrap up things and to discuss the last evening.

The two days ended with a warm farewell from my colleagues and me heading to airport Weeze catching the plane to visit Klaudia in Marlborough.

Cleaning up the mess

We normally try to get the big mess cleaned up directly after a party.



Our farewell party was an exception since we weren’t able to do so which left us with quite a bit of work on Sunday morning. With the dismantling of our sold kitchen scheduled for 3 p.m. we didn’t have that much time for getting things in order. Since Klaudia had been up early and started tidying up immediately we finished everything on time and even had the leisure to have a coffee with Steffi and Horny who stopped by on their Sunday walk with their daughter Maja.

On Sunday evening we moved to my parent`s flat. Staying in our one would have been quite uncomfortable without a kitchen :-)

Our farewell party

After a week of hard work with packing boxes and getting administrative things done we gave our farewell party on our sixth wedding anniversary. Thanks to the help of my mother, mother in law, sister in law (who made a really fantastic cake),



Aunt Anna and Joey’s Pizza, we didn’t have to prepare more than the drinks and therefore could spend the day quite relaxed.
With having no furniture in the living room except the dining table we set up bar tables in order to make the party more comfortable for our 30 guests.



It was a great pleasure for us to have so many good friends around especially since even those with small children or having been invited to other parties managed to come for at least a short while.



Supported by a good amount of Zitronella and other spirits we had a great party which only ended in the early morning hours.
Many thanks to our guests for a really nice night, all the good wishes and the nice presents!



Please find some of the party pictures here.

Housewarming at Stumpf’s place

The night before our farewell party we were invited to Yvonne and Stumpfi’s place, where they not only gave a small housewarming party but also presented the picture CD Stumpfi produced from our weekend trip to the Netherlands in April 2007. He did a great job on that, bringing the fantastic time in the CenterParcs back to our memory. It was a very funny evening.

The move becomes concrete

The last week was very stressful and busy. Our days were dominated by packing boxes. You can´t imagine how many things we collected over the years and had to through away now. We had to drive to the recycling court several times to get rid of all that stuff we don’t need any more. This is even crazier since we gave away so many things to friends and family before…

After recognizing how many bottles of Campari we have, we decided to serve the red Italian alcohol at our farewell-party next week. To offer different variations of Campari we tried various cocktails during the last nights – it was great fun as you can see ;)

On Saturday we brought the bulk of our furniture and the boxes to my parent’s garage – a big THANK YOU to all the hard-working helpers that handled this removal with ease.

After all things had been stored in the garage another task waited for all the helping hands: Wallpaper had to be removed. In a good mood and with energetic help even from the smallest three rooms were cleaned in less than two hours. Wow, fantastic job!

Now we are staying in a nearly empty flat and packing the last boxes. There are only two weeks left till Klaudia will leave Germany for Edinburgh.

See more pictures of our last week here...

move:elevator weekend

I promised to tell you something about the company outing last weekend.
This trip was definitely a reminder to why I so enjoyed working with Hans, Markus and the whole team. The weekend was great. We came back on Sunday and I had to say Goodbye. This was the first farewell and there are going to come some more ;(

But know look and see and try to get an impression how cool this outing was!

A little “Holiday” with my best friend Sonja

On Wednesday was my first day of. I will leave Germany on the 27^th of August and till then we have to organize many things so that I´ll have the next 3 weeks off to manage all these things.

My best friend Sonja called me on Tuesday and ask if I would like to go to a lake for Wednesday to relax a little bit. She is a nurse and has now three days off. I was doubleminded. On the one hand I enjoy time with Sonja and relaxing is also good but on the other hand there was my bad conscience.

But I am glad that she convinced me – Look an see!

My last day at move:elevator

On Tuesday was my last day with my current colleagues. It was a strange feeling and I can´t, even two days later, really realize that I left the agency. I am very enthusiastic about my new job but I will miss the old one.

I will use this place to thank my managers Hans and Markus for a great time with move:elevator. I am sure we will see each other again ;)

On Tuesday evening Caroline, a colleague who is going to stay in Finnland for a term, and I celebrated our farewell party on the sun deck above Oberhausen. It was bittersweet.

BUT it was only a GOODBYE for a short time. The team is going on a company outing from Friday till Sunday. Carolin and I will join the group. We don´t know where we are going to but we are sure that we will PARTY the whole weekend. I will inform you next week.