Jolle.net

The Friday-Frankfurt-Day
The day started early around 4 am. I tried to get awake and went by car to Nuremberg airport. Because they told me to be at the check-in one hour before departure I was there at 6 o' clock. They told me I can also take the 6:20 plane. Aha, check-in and boarding can also be done in 20 min. So next time I'll know this and can sleep a bit longer. I landed in Frankfurt an hour too early, so I took some time to relax before walking to gate 21, the visitor entrance. I had to deposit my drivers licence and changed it into a visitor sign. With that I went to the right building 303, 5th floor where approximately 20 other applicants have been wainting already for entrance. We were lead to a waiting room and I got into small-talk with 2 other guys. Later some others including a German girl studying in Maastricht, Henriette, and another German girl named Astrid joined in. They all seemed very easy-going and nice people.

A bit later half of the crowd was lead away, they were applicants for check-in. So we were just ten people for today's Fly-Along-Agent assessment round. It started all with an introductory presentation of the Fly-net project, made by 2 people of the project staff, 2 psychologists from the recruiting department as well as an American working for Connexion (a Boeing company). We were told the details of the project, our tasks, the conditions, the incentives as well as the schedule for today. Following the presentation was a 2 1/2 hour computer based test including the typical questions from which they hope to gain some insight knowledge of the applicant. I don't believe too much in these tests, but anyway, I think I'm not the worst in this, so I don't mind.

After that I went for lunch with Henriette and Astrid. Then we went back to the waiting room. Now it was a much more relaxed mood. We were all talking and joking. It wasn't a bit a competitive situation. It was all very friendly so that I wasn't nervous at all. I was really relaxed. If you looked a bit closer at the people, they were all quite different. People from different nations, people with different mother tongues, in ages ranging from 21 to the late 30's. And people with completely different backgrounds and education. It was interesting to see, but that was also the reason that nobody of us really knew, what person they were looking for.

After a while we were divided in two groups for a team-work-assessment. We had to sit around a table and were given a some handicraft task and a manual. Around us the assessment troika (psychologist, fly-net, Boeing) took notes of our behaviour. So we divided the 2 handicraft tasks and somebody read what should be done. It was a quite difficult work and I think we didn't act that organized. But at least Astrid finished one of the tasks succesfully in time.

The rest of the afternoon we chatted waiting for our individual interviews with the assessment troika, lasting around 45 minutes each. I had mine around 5 pm. It went better than I expected. I could answer most questions and my English was fluent. Definitely I could have done better, but you're never that cool in front of 3 people trying to get something out of you. I found the day interesting. And even if the chances of being selected are small, I learned a lot today.

Back in the airport I found that a plane just left and the next one gav me 3 hours time. So I called Marc and we met in the city centre of Frankfurt to eat some Pizza. The next table was taken by a Chinese group. Oh my god, their behaviour reminded me so much of Korea. It was nice to see. Frankfurt may not be a nice city, but it's definitely an international place which makes it interesting enough to live in.

My plane departed at 9:10 pm and the clouds had vanished which ermöglichte a night view of the city. I came to Ingolstadt around 11 pm and went to Kai to return his car. I met him in a beer garden with some friends.

...nothing special on Saturday. Just another visit to the beer garden and a lot of rain...