It’s a new job, new city and new co-workers for Marie Hertfelder (25), Dana Walter (25), Muriel Weber (29) and Thomas Vollmer (28), the latest additions to the PR team at Communication Consultants. Marie, Thomas and Dana are our new interns and Muriel is a consultant. Their arrival means changes for more than just us as an agency. For each of these four, this new start means something different.
Marie’s creativity always blossoms at night. Or let’s say it used to. Since starting work at Communication Consultants, she’s been going to bed early instead. While studying political science and media studies in Tübingen, Marie’s midday nap was sacrosanct – after all, she had to stay bright and alert for some very late nights. But regular office hours are not entirely new for Marie, either, after a long stint as a freelance editor for the Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper and her work as an intern at dpa, SWR and in corporate communications. So what’s happened to all those good ideas? Well, they just pop up during the day – right here at Communication Consultants.
Regular work is supposed to mean free weekends and no more study commitments – something Thomas was certainly looking forward to when he came on board. But that’s not entirely true, as he works as a volunteer for the Protestant Youth Association. While studying for his master’s in corporate communications in Stuttgart, Thomas founded a small agency with his friends. This helped him settle into everyday life at our agency both quickly and easily.
For Dana, Swabian culture proved somewhat bemusing at first. Having grown up in the Rheinhessen region, it was a bit of a culture shock to learn that we don’t use a knife and fork to cut up our pancakes, but spoon strips of them out of our soup. Not only that, but we use black pudding to make sausage salad, and “Herrgottsbscheisserle” is not a curse but Swabian ravioli. It’s just as well Dana’s familiar enough with our office routines in this otherwise alien environment. Thank goodness she had already sampled agency life and gained some PR experience while studying German before coming here!
In contrast, our new consultant, Muriel, is new to agency life. Before joining us, she was a communications manager for a technology SME in the region and thus comes to us from the customers’ side. Muriel started work at Communication Consultants in April and is enjoying the wide range of topics and tasks above all, but also the pace of work at the agency. Having said that, she hasn’t entered entirely foreign terrain. Our paths already crossed while she was studying for her master’s at the University of Hohenheim.