HAPPY HOUR AT FREITAG

Zurich, April 25, 2019 - For its 25th birthday, FREITAG wished itself nothing less than a happier world. To achieve that, last fall the Zurich bag manufacturers advertised the post of Executive Vice Pleasident for Global Happiness. And now, in Allan Dransfield and Tim Krohn, FREITAG is pleased to have found not just one but two happiness heroes to entrust with the job of increasing the world’s serotonin level.

More than 220 would-be happiness heroes submitted their ideas and plans to FREITAG with their applications for the position of Executive Vice Pleasident for Global Happiness (EVPfGH). Now, finally, we’ve managed to check out and evaluate over ten hours of video applications, and the application phase - an unusual one for everyone involved - has been closed:

British globetrotter Allan Dransfield and Swiss author Tim Krohn take up their posts as EVPfGHs with immediate effect and will be going out to the world to address the global happiness level and its ongoing growth. Here, it’s not so much a question of job-sharing as shared interests: The two of them will devote themselves to their common goal independently of each other.

Given the countless emotionally charged applications, FREITAG decisively rejects any suspicion that opting for two candidates is a sign of inept corporate decision-making. The fact we chose to have two incumbents and to distribute the load over four shoulders can be put down to the Herculean scale of the project and a few words of wisdom: If nothing ventured means nothing gained, then the more you reap, the more you sow.

THE ONE WITH THE JUMP
Allan Dransfield hails from a backwater in the north of England, studied automobile design at Coventry University and today lives in Lodz, Poland. The fact he once worked with the Volvo Trucks design team is pure chance and has absolutely nothing to do with his new job with the truck tarp bag-making company. For Allan, luck “is all about people, their relationships with one another and shared moments. On this huge planet of ours, with all its cultural and geographic diversity, it seems that actions usually speak louder than words.”

He firmly believes that genuinely big things (such as happiness) can come from very small beginnings. And it’s true: a cosmopolitan and the proud wearer of a mustache, he managed to convince the FREITAG appointments committee that his qualities were indispensable with a simple jump. On his journeys in FREITAG’s service, he’ll be in search of a universal code for happiness with a string of social experiments. 

THE ONE WITH THE HOUSE
After growing up in Switzerland’s Glarus region, Tim Krohn made himself a name with novels like “Vrenelis Gärtli” and “Quatemberkinder” and today is one of Switzerland’s most-respected writers. For Tim, “Happiness is not something we create. We carry it in us: it’s the fire that keeps us alive, the seed that keeps us unique and magical.”

Today, Tim lives with his family in Santa Maria on the other side of the Ofen Pass. And it’s from here, in the back of beyond, that happiness will find its way out into the big, wide world. In the house “Parli” he bought and restored with his wife, he plans to offer creative individuals the peace and space they need to do something good. Some small, modest work that will travel the world with a mission: to remind us that each and every one of us already has the happiness we need.

FREITAG would like to thank all applicants for their often emotional and inspirational contributions and wishes its two freshly appointed EVPfGHs a flying start. And the whole world, of course, much happiness.
 
Find out more about the two EVPfGHs in the interview with Allan Dransfield and Tim Krohn.