Posts Tagged ‘job’

Yesterday I talked to one of my friends, with whom I hadn’t speaken in a while. She asked me about how we were doing and about my feelings regarding my new life in the US. Sure, we think about this a lot and talk about it, but it feels different to talk about it to someone other than Flo. It kind of makes it so much more real. And it makes you kind of proud of yourself.

I have to say that we had a real good plan before we moved here. And that we had thought everything through so well. But even if we had luck on our side and everything worked out amazing so far, this was and still is a huge challenge. Maybe even the biggest challenge of our lifes! Every day you have to get yourself together again, go out there and do things you never thought you have to do again. You have to find new friends, you have to start a new job, a whole new life – and you have to do all of this in a new language! You find yourself in situations that leave you so sad. Like not having the network of friends you had at home. Not having your family close to come to the rescue whenever you need them. And just to be yourself, be brave and live!

Even if it feels strange to say this about myself, I am so proud Flo and I did this. And I am even more proud on how well we did it! I am beyond happy that we took that challenge and that we didn’t give up.

Please be aware: This is a dream. This is an amazing journey I would recommend to everyone. But it is hard! It is crazy! And it sometimes feels like being a kid again that has to learn everything new. But it is worth it! Definetely!

Two months ago I was pretty scared about what I would be writing about now. The things I was most worried about were that neither of us might have a job by now, that we would be running out of money or that we would be homesick to death. Luckily everything worked out in a whole different direction. As always life takes it’s own path, but I didn’t expect it to be such a good one.

The best news I have to give you is that Flo found a job. I don’t want to talk about it in detail, because he will only start on Monday and I kind of believe in bad luck with talking about things too early, but this is such great news. And the best thing is that it came at the exact right moment. As I told you before we already found a flat, which we will be moving into today. And we finally bought a car this week. It is a ridiculously huge Ford Explorer, but I will tell you more about the car itself and about buying a car in generel later.

So back to the good news. We basically worked ourselves through our big list of things to do and hopefully soon will just begin to live. And with Flo having a job, too, I think live is really about to start! I am so amazed by how good this journey turned out to be so far! I think we really did come well prepared, but I still thought it would be a tougher journey. Right now all the hard work and all the preparations really begin to pay of. And I just love it! YAY!

I promised you to tell you more about my job soon and so here we go. After two weeks of work I kind of get used to what it’s like to work over here and thought this was a good time to write this post. First I have to say that it actually surprised me that I got this job. It was a huge coincidence and at the same time the best thing that could have happened to me. I don’t want to name the company and my exact position on this blog, but I can tell you this much: I work for a huge fashion company located in the Fashion District in Downtown Los Angeles.

This is not only great, because it takes us a reasonable 20 minutes to get their by car, but also because I started my career in fashion. I didn’t work a lot for fashion related companies in the last years, so it now feels really good to me to be back in business. But let’s start at the beginning:

I had actually applied to that company back when I was still in Germany, got as far as a phone interview, but in the end didn’t get the job for more than one reason. Through this I met a german girl who moved out here a few years ago and works for that company, which I think got at least one of my little toes in there. So two weeks after we arrived in Los Angeles I found an ad of that company which said that they were looking for a german person to work for them. I applied, got invited to an interview a week later and got an offer 2 days after that. The interview (as all my other ones, too) was very short, which may be due to the little time my supervisor had and to me not being a very outgoing person at first.

When she actually called me back to tell me that I would get an offer per E-Mail at the same day, I was more than thrilled. Thrilled and scared at the same time. The german girl who works there already told me that the first weeks or even months will be super exhausting, because of everything being new. And that totally came true. It began with the “contract” you get here, which actually is not existing. Over here you will get an offer per E-Mail, accept that by answering and than you are employed. Incomes are not discussable here. The company offers you one and you say yes or no. Also in most cases you don’t get insurance until you have worked for 3 months for the company. At my company it is the same with paid off days (called PTO).

I was pretty scared on my first day of work. Will I be able to tour the enormous factory I am working at and will I be able to understand everything they tell me? That were the questions that drove me nuts the whole week before my actual starting date. As always, everything turned out to be different than I imagined it to be. Not for the worse, but still different.

I don’t want to bore you, so these are the short facts of things that are different over here (or at least at my work):

- You arrive and work! No lazy first days of strolling around. You are expected to start working immediately
- People don’t talk! Don’t expect anyone to say Hi or Goodbye! Bring your headphones, put them on and work!
- Don’t even think about a german bonus! Noone talks slow to me, asks if I understand everything or asks me a lot about my home-country!
- Breaks are whenever you want them!
- Come in any time before 12 and stay as long as you need to but at least 8 hours!

I have to admit that my first week wasn’t challenging to me, because of the work, but because of everything else. I so have to get used to ask for everything I need to know (no one will tell you where to get lunch without you asking for example) and to just work and spend the day by myself – even when about 30 people are sitting in an office with me and 6000 are working somewhere in my building.

So far I have to say that this job is perfect for me, because I learn so many words every day, I can work on my own and I have fun while doing so. And still a daily routine hasn’t arrived. I am not sure how long it will take till it will hit. But now: Everything is new, exciting and still a hell of a journey for us!