Poffertjes and Power
Continuing my search for a place to plug in and work at airports, I was pleasantly surprised to find that HSBC has laid out the red carpet for its Premier account holders, at least at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta Airport. If you have one of their fancy accounts, anywhere in the world, you and your partner can partake of their lounge services.
It's all a bit new, and, dare I say it, charmingly Indonesian: More people (three men watching one female doing the work) were involved in making my poffertjes (a Dutch batter treat popular in the former colony) than there were actual poffertjes:
HSBC's Poffertje-Making Team (4)
HSBC Poffertjes (3)
But that's not to say I wasn't pathetically grateful. Food is never good at these kinds of places, so that the HSBC PMT (Poffertje-Making Team) took such care with my poffertjes was in itself a cause for celebration.
What impressed me, though, was that there was ample room there to work -- several little cubicles, a couple of actual offices, and, blow me backwards, lots of power outlets -- either in the walls, or in the floor. Like these, which pop up at the flick of a little switch. No Wi-Fi or anything, but you can't have everything. Well done, HSBC.
What! No poeder suiker? Otherwise I'm totally envious of your bank account - I miss warm poffertjes in cold market days in Holland. These look far better than anything my old iron pan can do.
Interesting, though, that this sort of marketing effort goes on in the Asia Pacific financial zone and wouldn't even be thought of in the west. It doesn't need a trip by the British Prime minister to tell us where the money is going to come from in the future.
Posted by: Tom Griffiths | January 22, 2008 at 09:37 PM
>More people (three men watching one female doing the work) were involved in making my poffertjes.
Well, that's typical "Indonesian" style teamwork. :)
Posted by: Jen | January 23, 2008 at 03:38 AM
what is it with indonesians and cheese? i reckon they use it to purposely mess with us westerners :)
Posted by: John Orford | January 26, 2008 at 04:56 AM