Life in the Second Week

Well, like I mentioned before, I spent the first half of my week at the European sales meeting for employees in Advanced Optics with my boss, Agnes Hübscher, and my supervisor, Frank Berger. The first day was incredibly long, because when the meeting should've ended around 4:30, they sprung a surprise on us. They had hired a bus to take us to a very famous park overlooking Wiesbaden to do a ropes course, practice archery, and have dinner. This would've been fine, but whereas everyone else had been warned ahead of time to wear comfortable shoes and dress casually, no one told me. I had to go to this event in a skirt and heels, so I couldn't do any climbing and the ground destroyed my shoes. The second day was boring, and I was exhausted (over 12 hours at a meeting the previous day and only five hours of sleep to boot).

In the afternoon, my bosses told me that they had arranged for me to go to another training session, supposedly for new employees, that would take place over the final two days of the week. This time was pretty awful, because it got extremely technical and I couldn't follow it. However, some parts were really fascinating, like we had tours through the melting department, the production department, and the quality control areas. That almost made the rest of it worth it.

I like Frau Hübscher. She is very friendly and acts more like someone my age than like someone who must be at least mid-thirties. Herr Berger is more what I expected from a German boss - very reserved and formal. I'm supposed to go to a trade show in Frankfurt am Main with them in a few weeks, which I'm actually looking forward to, since trade show experience is highly sought after in the job market. Beyond that, Frau Hübscher wants to bring me to Jena, where she works, for a week when Herr Berger is on vacation. The best part of that situation is that it will be the week before my birthday and she said I could leave Thursday night to go to Berlin to see my friends and host family...so I could be in Berlin on my birthday! I'm very excited.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to sit down with Herr Berger and find out what my specific duties are with regards to the internship. I can't wait! No more meetings!