Hannes in time out

The modern man retreats, makes himself scarce and shows that he has organized the department so well that it can be done without him. This has been taught in training courses for a long time and it has been scientifically proven that everyone involved benefits from it. But it's only since the new CEO has been in charge that this insight has really been put into practice. Hannes' boss also went on a three-month educational vacation to Hawaii last year. Work-life balance under palm trees. Once again it becomes clear that there is no substitute for a good role model.

Hannes cleans up the desk. And in such a way that he can go away for three months, but also find his way around again after this time. Take care of everything, but don't stow anything away. The deputy knows where he can reach him in case of need. Hannes didn't want to reveal all secrets from the category "that-has-always-been-done-this-way-but-has-never-been-written-down". With all trust... you never know what ideas people would come up with if his absence would be problem-free.

The process of finding out what he wanted to do in the three months was not without its difficulties. Once again, thanks to his organisational talent, Hannes celebrated a cleverly balanced selection process. From the basic definition of "education", "recreation", "taking stock of life" to "having time for yourself". Combined with a SWOT analysis of the collected three-month programs listed in the usual morphological manner, the favorites crystallized. Et voilà, after several weeks of meticulous search for knowledge, he came to the conclusion: "I will be a househusband for three months". For this, his wife is going to the long-awaited paint-yourself-free workshop, which will last just three months. There she wants to deepen her artistic abilities in the area of "putting one's inner soul on paper".

Hannes goes into this phase perfectly prepared. He has already drawn up all the menu plans for the next three weeks. Of course also visually represented including the distribution of the most important vitamins per meal and week, because he wants to cook balanced. From this he also developed the shopping plan for the whole period. This has unexpected advantages. The special offers in the department stores of the city and the surrounding area can be used in such a way purposefully. However, only if it is planned in the long term, otherwise the savings efforts are cancelled out by the extra work due to the search for the best offers.

His break dates are fixed in the mail system, which he has also installed at home. He has not yet been able to contact all of his break partners. In his search for like-minded people, he has already found three men on the Internet who are also househusbands. An important contact is the neighbour, whom he always wants to keep on standby for emergencies of all kinds. Because calling his wife in the workshops is absolutely not possible. She has forbidden it. Besides, the disturbing call would probably be immediately visible on one of the pictures. And Hannes wants to do without that.

Hannes is particularly proud of the newly installed warehouse management system. His years of experience as a manager in a production company have once again served him well. He has already recorded all the food in stock in the computer system. Everything can be called up: by keyword search, expiry date, vitamin content or storage location. He has worked for weeks to provide the stocks with a barcode label. With the scanner purchased on e-bay, the system is now complete. From the first day of work at home, it is possible to scan all the food that is taken out of stock. The system books the product in the outbox and automatically creates the shopping list. A colleague from IT has programmed the system in such a way that the shopping list is compared with the manually entered special offers. If there is no match there, the system automatically triggers an order process in a predefined online department store. To ensure that nothing can go wrong, Hannes also receives an SMS message with the best offers for fresh pasta, for example. A short confirmation on the pre-programmed number and the goods are already presented by the home delivery service on the doorstep.

Hannes feels really well prepared. The time out is supposed to be a balance. To experience something different for a change, without immediately throwing his well-ordered life overboard. It is exactly this pinch of confidence that gives Hannes the courage to get through the three months well. He can always catch up on the painting course, maybe it will be part of his company's training programme one day ...