My Favorite Colleague

I’m back in front of the sample roaster – having made the rounds of the Swiss trading office and caught up with all my old colleagues. I’m wearing the same Schluter apron. Roasting the same coffees. The view out my window is the same. My Swiss watch – a going-away gift from 2012 – is the only give-away that I’m on the other side of my Schluter season.

I glance down at the watch – 5 minutes to 5. The hour still triggers in me a near visceral response – partly of stress and partly of Christmas morning-like anticipation, depending on what my DHL-ed coffee samples list looked like. The joy of 5 pm was always the sound of the quick ring of the doorbell, followed by our faithful DHL courier.

Michel DHL – as we affectionately know him – and as he resents being called – because, ‘this! This is just a uniform!’ – was probably, my favorite colleague.

Good for random philosophizing on any subject under the sun – and as a good Italian, he specialized in love. As a long time Swiss resident, he also did ‘things as they should be’ rather well. Some days he brought a torrent of opinions and energy and emotions through the door. Other days that energy was tersely contained with little more than a perfunctory ‘bonsoir’ as he headed out with the DHL pouches as suddenly and quickly as he had appeared. Part of the excitement and anticipation was simply not knowing which Michel you were going to get.

He seemed to have a way of timing his good moods and arrival times with our company aperitifs – for this birthday or that other occasion that merited pretzels, peanuts, and a toast. We eventually just automatically included him in the headcount of champagne glasses. His paycheck came from DHL – but he was as much a part of the Schluter company as any of us. In fact, maybe more. He’s been dropping off and collecting DHL pouches at this office for more than a decade – which is longer than most of us have been there.

So I find myself once more awaiting his end-of-day arrival as much as I’ve looked forward to seeing any of the Schluter team again.

I don’t hear the short, sharp doorbell over the sound of the roaster behind the closed door of the cupping room, but suddenly – having been alerted of my return by the front office team – Michel DHL bursts in with all the energy and amore I’ve been missing from him these past 13 months I’ve been away.

‘Christ!’ comes my time-honored greeting – for he long gave up trying to pronounce my name and settled for alternating between ‘Christy’ and the abbreviated messianic title. I turn from my roaster and return the smile that borders on a grin. ‘Michel DHL!’ We greet each other with la bise – the official Swiss 3 kisses on the cheek – and then he fires off.

He laments being pressed for time on this day of all days, but it doesn’t stop him from launching into his ‘morale’ regardless. How are the English, he wants to know? But he doesn’t wait for my answer because we have rehearsed this dialogue many times before. He critiques English men and counsels me to find a good Italian – because they make better lovers – then he goes into the intricacies of the Italian language and how this correlates to better lovers.

If he has the time he goes into attacking the German language – and so it goes. Depending on time, Michel is well able to build on the routine – like the most skilled of comedians, or teachers, or jazz musicians. He can riff with the passion and art of Louis Armstrong.

But today, time does not allow for much of a build – and nor do I. Before he can launch into linguistics I pull the rug out from under his feet when I cut him off and tell him he needn’t fear my settling for the English because I’ve found myself a Scot. His jaw drops but the maestro does not miss a beat, ‘un kilt?!?!?’ he exclaims so loudly – with one foot already out the door – I’m thinking he could be heard clear across the whole office down to the trading room – even over my roaring roaster.

I just laugh. Because most things Michel says just make me laugh. I laugh because it’s preposterous or because it’s truly funny. Or I laugh because I don’t understand.

Today I laugh out of joy. Pure joy that in all of life’s changes and uncertainties, some things – someone – never changes. Michel DHL will forever be spinning the same morale and for that constancy, I’m most grateful.