Posts Tagged ‘job’

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!

For at least the first six months winning a Greencard is like living in a dream cloud! You just can’t stop to dream about how your new life abroad is going to be, how nice you will live (at the beach in our case) and how good the jobs you get may be. But someday you wake up from that dream and hit reality!

I have tried to convince myself that it will be a long and hard road from the beginning. But you just seem to catch yourself hanging by dream clouds. Flo and I are grown up enough to know that we have hard paths in front of us, so right now (six months before our actual moving date) we are doing a lot of research on emmigration and about the US in general.

What scares us the most ist he money part! Not the actual money, because we do have enough to move, but the money and credit card situation in general. As you already may have heard as an american you pay by credit card the most! You pay your rent by credit card you pay your car by credit card and you pay your food by credit card. The only problem about that is: You don’t get a credit card in the US, when you don’t have a credit history! And I guess you can figure out by yourself what that means!

To make it short: Your credit history is a certificate that proves your credit reliability. It is a record (made by Equifax, Transunion and Experian) that states your past usage of your credit card and how fast and constant you paid back your credits. The higher your score (between 300-850), the better is your credit reliability (the so called FICO score).

First thing that may come to your mind is: I do have a credit card in my homeland, so why can’t they just write me a credit history for the US? Well, they just can’t! The only credit card company that does that is American Express. And, oh wonder: No, we don’t use American Express!

Right now we are trying to figure out ways to help us with the credit history problem! I will keep you updated with it! But anyways: If you have some advice, you are more than welcome!

We want to move to the US at the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011 and right now I have the urge to start sending applications. For the last year I constantly have been looking for jobs that would be good to apply to and tried to check out the regularity of new matching jobs for me to open up. When I saw two good job ads last week I finally thought: Now is the time to start! And I started my job hunt in America.

I actually made a tiny step towards it in January. The job I found back then was kind of a perfect match for me and I would have taken the chance to move for it any minute. But the big problem was: German applications are not in any way similar to the ones required on the online application forms in the US. Even with the help of our american friend Scott, I wasn’t able to fill out the application form correctly and didn’t get to send it. Perhaps back then it was fate that holded me back from applying, because about a week later I got my current job, which I am very thankful for. But now I really mean it. I want the jobs I applied for.

But let’s go a step back first and let me tell you about the fun time we had while filling out the application forms yesterday. I already was used to only being allowed to apply via the online form. In Germany you normally do apply per E-Mail or send in an letter application – at least to the companies I applied to in the last years. I already had an english version of my resume so I was able to upload it without any problems. But what gave me little problems where the contact informations on my supervisors that I needed to give. I immediatley thought about my editor-in-chief, which would be anything but amused to get an english speaking call from an american employer. Again the giggles were on my side when I had to answer the following questions: Would you do a drug test on request? Are you hispanic or latino? Are you a war veteran? Do you want to give information on your gender? To a german person these questions sound so strange. In Germany you have to send in a picture with an application, which kind of leaves no question on the gender topic. And have I ever been asked, if I were a war veteran in my life? No!

The end of the story is that i completed my applications and now hope to hear from these companies, for those jobs are great! I kind of worry to talk to a potential employer on the phone and I guess this fear will stay for at least another year. But the good thing is: I may not have to worry about bad application pictures anymore and will not waste expensive stamps and application dossiers in the future. But if this will get me a job? Cross your fingers for me!