Once Upon a Time

So the first two weeks of my journey with AB InBev are up, and boy has it been a ride. It has been all but boring. As with most adventures there have been a few bumps a long the way, but also a whole lot of excitement, exploration, and fun. Organized chaos you could say.

First a few blunders of my own. Day one I decided to wear a very lovely yellow dress shirt to work… and sure enough walking to the Queens Quay office I also wore my coffee. Great impression to be standing under a blow drier right before you meet with the president of the company eh? Anywho, if that was not bad enough along came lunch, and the hot sauce decided to meet up with the coffee on more than once place. I’d like to add everyone else at the lunch table decided to wear bibs to prevent my morning accident, but being the stubborn individual that I am, I decided not to! Stains:2, Jenessa:0. Lucky for me the rest of the week I avoided looking like a bad sunlight commercial.

Aside from a few technical login and administrative issues (Miglietta is apparently quite the difficult name to work with) Queens Quay was amazing. Everyday I had the fortunate opportunity to meet with upper senior executives and learn the ways of the beer warriors. It is unbelievable how complex and dynamic the company is. Did you know the main warehouse in Mississauga holds inventory in the order of millions of dollars. I swear it was like a Super Walmart, with pallets of beer as far as the eye can see. Did I mention the forklifts that ran the show motored everywhere and anywhere at mach speed- Hwy 401 meets Taledaga. What I found particularly interesting about the entire week was the level of acceptance, equality, and friendliness every employee had towards us. There was no question left unanswered. Whatever we asked, people were more than happy to answer. To take this one step further, if you were to look inside the office yourself, you would find the entire office to be open concept, with management sitting among everyone else. It just further affirmed how amazing and unique the company was. After a busy week, full of long hours, enough information to make anyone’s head hurt, and a lot of great food and fun it was time for St. Louis.

The real excitement came at the airport, where Jack was refused entry on the plane, the engine needed repair, we almost missed our connection, the second flight was delayed by 3 hours, and a few bags got some serious damage. I would also like to point out after all this, Jack beat the three of us to St. Louis on his replacement flight. I may also have lost a bit of water weight with all the running and scrambling to make it to the gate on time. Sitting here writing this outside by a lit pool at 10:30 I can easily say it was all worth it. Our first two days were an intensive boot camp for brewing- and our American Counterparts were pretty awesome. It speaks wonders about the company when they can hire people in completely different area codes and nations, and when they all come together they meld as one. Now back to boot camp. So both days were full of tastings (32 beers to be precise) learning to pour a perfect Stella, going though the brewing process, and a beer pairing dinner (if you ever have a chance to do this, do it… it was wonderful! I have never had beer bring out the flavor in my food so much). Of course there was also a lot of taking in of the night life here in the city… two words “Billy Bucket” look it up, learn it, live it, love it- most certainly the best offering of the Library Annex.

Speaking of the local area, I was also lucky enough to take a little break from the downtown core and travel to a small town called Potosie, to visit one of the American’s vineyard. This was AMAZING. Two days full of rolling country side, skeet shooting (hit every clay pigeon), bison burgers, and wine tasting. I can easily say I heart Potosie!

Sorry for such a long schpeal, but currently I am happy as a clam. I could do without the disgustingly large cell phone bill from roaming, but I would not trade even a minute of the last two weeks for anything. Coming into this, I had my reservations about all the traveling and meeting of new people, but looking back on this last week I had nothing to worry about. As a great person here said, “Sometimes I hate that I am a real person, and then I remember that I work for a beer company, and that it is amazing”. Cheers for now. I’ll update you again soon.