Chris Mock's story can be summed up in one sentence: "Camels saved his head." Or: "He defies the crisis with a sugar-sweet strategy."

But that sounds too harmonious and shouldn't hide the fact that behind it there was a small show of strength and the temporary departure from a lifelong dream.

Ursula Kals

Editor in business, responsible for “Young People Write”.

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From the outside, Chris Mock had and still has a hip job. As a sound engineer, the Cologne native drives from gig to gig with rock bands, ensures that the sound is right in clubs and, after a solid education, lives out his hobby professionally. It was over since the pandemic. No concerts, no bookings, no cash in the box. Corona shut down the event industry for more than a year, after all the sixth largest industry in Germany.

But Chris Mock, 39 years old, has one quality that makes him more crisis-proof than others: he is flexible and open to new ideas. Also for his uncle Hans-Dieter's plan. He is a lawyer, passionate opera lover and occasionally got annoyed by coughing concert goers, which irritate the musicians and annoy the visitors. By chance the uncle came across the candy brand "Caruso", cough drops, "cooked in a kettle", can be read on the nostalgic tin with the likeness of Enrico Caruso. That legendary tenor, "who even then found the effect of the original recipe from 1877 to be beneficial and soothing", says it in the small print. The owner family was looking for successors for reasons of age. Preferably also a family business. Mock's uncle expressed interest and approached his nephew at a family gathering. He listened up."It was a mixture of luck and coincidence," says Chris Mock of the proposal that was supposed to turn his previous professional life upside down.

Uncle and nephew quickly reached an agreement with the owners. Both are now shareholders, and Mock's father Walter is also involved and advises on tax and financial issues. “We complement each other. This constellation is extremely fortunate, I have my family in the background who support me, ”says Mock. The thought is important to him, because he is annoyed by the one-just-want-every-crisis-is-a-chance-whitewashing. "It shouldn't come across like this: everyone can do it if they only work enough." For the man with the trademark peaked cap, however, it was clear that he wasn't too good for any work. When the orders suddenly broke down, he would have “sat down at the cash register at the discounter,” he says. That he is in the cathedral city, which is famous throughout the country for its camel parades during carnival times,once he would earn his living selling candy, of all things, came as a surprise to him. After the lockdown, he did not have existential fear. “My first impulse was: strange, you don't know what's coming. And also: cool, now I can do all the other things that would otherwise be left behind, for example taking care of photography. But then came the awakening, the sobering thought: For a long time now, this won't be with concerts. Then there was a lack of prospects. I hadn't put that much money aside. "But then came the awakening, the sobering thought: For a long time now, this won't be with concerts. Then there was a lack of prospects. I hadn't put that much money aside. "But then came the awakening, the sobering thought: For a long time now, this won't be with concerts. Then there was a lack of prospects. I hadn't put that much money aside. "

From the “Blue Shell” to the desk

Instead of providing the perfect sound for the live bands in the large Lanxess Arena, in the traditional E-Werk or, as is so often the case in the Cologne club “Blue Shell”, he currently sits for hours at his computer and works his way through e-mails.

His main place of work is his apartment, in which he lives with his girlfriend, a media informatics student.

Outside on the busy shopping street in Cologne-Kalk, despite the pandemic, there is astonishing hustle and bustle, while at the back there is a green courtyard, on which a "Cologne parrot" can be seen from time to time.

Chris Mock likes the old working-class Kalk district, shaped by former Italian guest workers, with its multicultural life.

“You can get a lentil soup here in the middle of the night,” says the vegetarian happily.