At the moment, I only have 2 more work weeks left at my internship.

The time went by really fast and I can’t imagine to be back at school again in 2 weeks. I moved into a new house again for the next 2 weeks where I will stay at 2 hosts in a guest house next to their farm.

Concerning the school assignments I’m all finished and set and now it is time to wrap up the intern assignments at the company.

The last time has been a little doll ouside of work since the life here has become normal and there is not really anything new to write about. I can’t wait to go back home and live in my hometown again. So that I have everyone close to me. This is why I haven’t been posting a lot lately.

 

Good morning,

Today is an important day, since I will be moving into another house for the remaining of my internship. This house is in a town called “Wegberg” which is a 14km drive from Menz&Könecke. This should be no problem since I’m currently using the company car to get around in Germany. This will be until I buy my own car which is on the planning to be soon.

My school assignments are all going well except for one which is really confusing. A lot of stuff needs to be researched, however a lot of stuff that is requested is not relevant to this company. So I will have to find my way around this by maybe looking at the Dutch location of the ELKA Group. This is because the assignments requires me to research Dutch laws.

At the internship everything is going good as well. I’ve been sick for a while, but I’m all better now and almost caught up which my planning. I hope to present my research papers soon, since there is only little research left to be done and after this I can combine it all into a paper.

For my new school next year I have 2 appointments at the 1st and the 19th of March. I asked whether those dates could be moved to April but this wasn’t possible since there is an application deadline and those days are scheduled for my intake and some competency tests. I will also give a presentation at the 19th about what I want to achieve after the study and what my ambitions are for the future.

So this afternoon after work I will go get the key and move into a new place. I hope there is something to do in the town of Wegberg and hope the people who own the house are nice. But it’s only for the last 6 weeks that are remaining so it’s not that long.

 

 

Time flies by. The last 3 months went by so fast.

Now it’s only 2 months left and I still have to finish some school papers. This will be no problem as long as I stick to my planning.

Everything got a little easier now as well. I could borrow a car from the company for during the internship. The only exception is that I’m not allowed to drive with it to the Netherlands since this could bring trouble with the BPM taxes. This is because officially I’m a Dutch citizen and otherwise everyone could just buy a car in Germany because the car’s there are much cheaper. However I’m very happy that I got some transportation to get around. In stead of walking to work for half an hour, I can now drive there in 5 minutes and it is way easier to do groceries now because I don’t have to walk a long road with a heavy bag.

Last week I revisited the doctor. 1.5 weeks ago I visited him to burn the veins in my nose, since I had trouble with nosebleads and this was the best sollution. I also had this on the left side of my nose when I was 12 and now it happened on the right side. However, in the week after the surgery, my nose started bleeding again and I had to go back to the doctor. The wound was still too fresh to do it again, so he managed to do something in order to stop the bleeding and in about 1 month I will have to come back and see what we’ll do at that point.

Conserning the internship I’m still working on my projects from the company. This now includes writing a business plan. It is difficult to write one however when the information is limited and it has to be based on an already excisting concept but in another country. Researching this country is new for me, since all the business plans I wrote before were conserning the Netherlands or the UK.

Now I will get back to work and give an update soon.

 

Greetings.

Well that has been a while since I wrote an article. I’ve been sick at home last week and had surgery on my nose as well. In the week before that I had a week off, so that makes it that I haven’t written anything for a couple of weeks.

Last week when I was sick I sneezed a lot and ripped the veins in my nose. Which had to be burned together in the hospital to stop the bleeding. The days before this surgery I had a lot of nosebleeds and that’s why I decided to go there.

At work everything is going alright. I lost a little track of the scedule due to the time I missed, but I’m working to catch up with this and make sure I finish my projects for school and the company in time.

For the company I’m working on a business plan which I also made for school. This made it that I could use the same template for both and use the techniques I learned in school to create a business plan for the company.

I’m still living in the house nearby the company. However still by myself. Since the guy I lived with moved out, I stayed there because there was no immediate need to find something else nearby and as it looks right now I will probably stay there for the next weeks untill I will have to move to a Hostel/Hotel in the neighbourhood for the remaining 1.5 months. This is due to the fact that there is no rental appartment to find nearby which is free for rent for such a short period of time.

My school projects are almost finished as well and I will hand these in shortly so that I can start preparing the presentations for this.

I will write another article next week,

ciao.

Happy new year,
Today I start my first day of the new year at Menz&Könecke. I had 2 weeks off in order to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s. During the holidays the house was emptied out, since Mr. Légeard moved back to France. This changes a lot and it means that I’m all alone in the house and really have to take care of myself.

 
My parents came to Germany and brought a lot of stuff to help me settle for myself, since everything I used belonged to Mr. Légeard. They brought me everything for the kitchen, such as pans, pots, plates etc. And some furniture for in my room. I only use my bedroom, the hall, the kitchen and my bathroom. But everything else is empty. This makes it feel like I’m all alone, since the house is way too big for one person. 8 rooms are unfurnished and empty and the other bathroom is not in use. This takes some getting used to.

 
At the internship, everything is going well. I’m going to work on my core tasks for the upcoming weeks in order to make sure that I’ll finish those in time for the end of the internship. I already finished the biggest assignments, since these can lay the basis for the rest of the assignments.

 
There is not very much to tell at this point, since I just started working after my holiday and in the holidays I was free, so I’m going to wrap it up for this time and will present a longer story in the next blog.

 

It’s almost time for Christmas and New Year’s. Even though I’m not a holiday type of person, a party is always welcome :).

I’m planning on spending Christmas with my family and seeing them after some time. I still have to buy a present, since we had to pick names and make a surprise for the person we picked. However, the most difficult part isn’t the present, it’s the poem that goes with it. I’ve never been a very good writer and I’m more a person who writes facts instead of emotions and opinions. This also makes it difficult to write a blog, since it can get very stale at a certain point.

The last week at work I’ve spent on working at my school assignments. The first core task Law&Complaint procedures was already finished and at the moment I’m writing a fictional business plan for a Webshop that would become part of the Group with the Netherlands as its domestic market.

As I’m here now for almost 1.5 months, I’m really starting to miss my friends in the Netherlands. I found out that in Germany, people are more living by theirselves. In the Netherlands, a new person in the neighbourhood is welcomed by its neighbours and will be introduced to a lot of people. In Germany this is not really the case, apart from at work, it is very difficult to get into contact with people. Of course I was living together with a collegue, but he’s moving back to his home country (France) in 2 days… So this will make it even more difficult.

I’m also thinking that I might get a misconception of Germany by living in a small town of 20000 people where approximately 95% of the people are adults or small children. People from my age move out and live near the cities, since there is no college or university in the town and people are looking for higher educations. I will just have to manage being on my own I guess and like other weekends, invite friends from the Netherlands to come to Germany and have a good time over here.

Afterall, I want to wish everyone a great Christmas and New Year’s.

Greetings!

 

As noticed, I didn’t post for a while. This is due to the fact that I got ill and stayed in bed for a couple of days. Now on Monday morning I’m still tired but up to a fresh start of the week.

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This week I have to go back to Breda in order to attend a day at a possible new study for next year. At this day I will take part in classes of this course and see what it’s like to follow them for real.

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Last time I wrote is already 2 weeks ago, so a lot happened in the mean while. Besides the fact that I got ill, I’ve also learned my way around the little town I’m living in. By going around on my scooter, I now know the way around and where to go. Also Düsseldorf became more familiar to me, I went there this weekend with some friends to look around and have a great time. It was very cold eventually, and it was a disappointment that the Christmas market closed so early. This closes around 10 PM, which was approximately the time we got to Düsseldorf.

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At my internship everything is going great, I’m booking progress on my research paper for the company and starting to ask myself new questions which I can answer in this paper. For my school assignments I still have a lot to finish, but according to my scedule I’m on the good way. I already finished 1 big research paper for this and I’m planning on starting the second one today, so that I can finish it within 2 weeks.

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The holidays are also around the corner and I’m planning to visit my parents for Christmas and New-year’s. After this I have to get bet to Germany, but I’m moving to another place, I still have to see where this is, but I’m sure this will all work out fine.
At the company I also worked on making pictures in the photo studio for the new product catalogue which the marketing department is working on. Every once in a while they prepare a new product catalogue in order to make sure that old products aren’t in there anymore and the new one’s are taken into it. This is a really time consuming activity, but I’m sure that when it is done it will look great.

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Now I will go back to work and make sure I get a lot done today.

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Greetings from Stefan.

Well… So I just found out that the article I wrote before the weekend didn’t post so I have to write a new one.

Last week is already a little far away in my head and I’m trying to remember most of the things I’ve done.

The week began great and I was very energised to begin my second week. On monday I started designing a PowerPoint presentation for Ms. Weiss. I think these type of tasks are really fun, since I can work freely and get the freedom of making it in my own way. After finishing this presentation I started working on my research paper for school. This was a very long paper, but I managed to nearly finish it. It would be great if I can finish it this week, since I will have enough time for all the other things if I finish my school assignments early.

Monday evening I went to the gym with Mr. Légeard, who I live with. This was a lot of fun. I didn’t work out or anything for nearly 4 years and was a bit curious of how this would go. I found out pretty quickly that I couldn’t cope with the rest of the people there and I just did the exercises that I could. It was a powerhour, so a lot of cardio. This was difficult without a good condition.

The next day my whole body was sour (this was like this for the next 4 days…)

On Tuesday at work I went to the photo studio with a collegue from the marketing department. She explained to me how they make product pictures and how they edit them in the editor’s software. This was really fun to do and I learned it quickly. Now it is the planning to go and make pictures more often.

On Wednesday, I started working on my school assignments and finished my research paper; Law and Complaints. This became a big document and I’m proud of finishing it. In the afternoon I got a briefing for the projects I’m going to work on and discussed a ot of different aspects of the most important project with Ms. Weiss and Mr. van Eersel (Managing Director). This looks really interesting and I’m urging to start on this project. After this briefing I started researching the topics.

The next day I prepared a summary of the briefing and had it checked by Ms. Weiss in order to make sure that the information was right. This gave me the rest of the day to research the projects.

On Friday you can notice that everyone is so happy. This is due to the short working day till 2:30 PM. 🙂

In the morning I sat together with Ms. Weiss who adjusted some things in my briefing summary and she told me that it would be interesting to attend a presentation given by an external company in order to get more information about one of the projects I received. The presentation lasted for 3 hours and most of it was interesting. But since it was all in German and I didn’t get some things about the IT behind the project at sometimes it was a little doll. However I learned a lot about how everyhting works and this gave me a better bases for the project. After the presentation I went on researching the different aspects of this project and at 2:30 PM I went home.

In the weekend I arranged that I would get my moped in Germany. This all worked out and I now have transportation around here. The first two weeks I drove to work with Mr. Légeard, however our working hours didn’t get along and I had to start keeping track of the scedule I got from Ms. Weiss. This is 8:00 AM till 4:30 PM. 8 hours with half an hour break.

On Saturday, a friend of mine from Breda visited me and we decided to go the Düsseldorf where we went all night. We left at 9 PM and got home around 9 AM. This was a very succesfull night except for the end when we got lost in the metro system of Düsseldorf and eventually decided to take a cab home which was 46 km and costed 80 euro’s… ‘-.-

All overviewed, it was a great second week. On Sunday I mostly slept so there is not much to tell about this day.

At this moment I just started my working day on Monday and will give an update in about a week about the 3rd week of my internship.

Thanks for reading and see you next week.

 

 

Welcome to my blog. This is the first article I’m writing and for the next 5 months I’m planning on writing an article about my experiences every week.

At Sunday the 11th of November I left to Germany for my internship. I visited the company before and knew what to expect, but I had no idea about the housing or the people yet. The company arranged a place for me to stay, together with someone who works at the company. The house is in Brüggen and is near to the old office building of the company. Currently the city government is renting the buiding and placing around 60 refugees from Syria inside this old office building.

The company is an international wholesale that is part of the EP International Group. Menz&Könecke is the headquarters of this group and all international trade is taking place from this location.

My first day I went to the company with the guy I’m living with. He drove us there and I was welcomed by Mrs. Weiss. She is my supervisor at the company and showed me around the office. I got a clear scedule for the week from her and this included an introduction to all different departments of the company.

On Monday I had a more general introduction. I got a tour through the office building, provided by Mrs. Weiss and I got a presentation about the company from Mr. Kolberg. After this I went into a meeting with the Managing Director of the company (Mr. van Eersel) and Mrs. Weiss. In this meeting we discussed the basic things I’d be doing at the company. In this meeting I was asked to prepare a little presentation about the assignments I’ll have to make, since the placement manual was a pretty overall view of everything. After this I had some time to work on my assignments and get settled.

On Tuesday, I had a day in the warehouse in order to understand the logistic processes within the company. The company Menz&Könecke is located as the headquarters of the EP Group which they are part of. This means that a lot of business around the world is taken care of from this location. The warehouse is also providing all European deliveries except for the Netherlands and Belgium, where the company has warehouses as well. In the warehouse I got information about incoming goods, outgoing goods and the returns department.

On Wednesday I came in and had a meeting for an introduction with the Purchases department. I’ve been there all morning and talked about all different aspects of the purchases department. The company has someone in China who takes care of the manufacturing of their own brands and they buy from over 200 different brands. Which requires a lot of organisation. After this it was the planning for me to be introduced to the accountancy department. This is however moved over to Thursday morning, so I had some time to take care of my school assignments. After this I had an introduction to the IT department and learned about the companies data flow and back-up systems.

On Thursday I had the introduction with the accountancy department. This lasted all morning and a part of the afternoon and I got a lot of information. After this I had some time to work on my assignments and had the introduction at the Sales department.

This blog is written on Thursday, but I have my planning for tomorrow already. Tomorrow the planning is an introduction with the export department. This is the person I’m living with in the house, his name is Mr. Legeard. Export is maybe a wrong term for his department, since he is the international Business Manager and managing the locations in different countries throughout Europe. In the morning and a little bit of the afternoon, I’ll have an introduction with the Marketing department. This is the department where my desk is placed at, so I’ve already seen these people all week.

At Friday’s the company closes at 2:30 PM. This is normal in Germany and gives me the opportunity to take the train back home to Breda for 1 day in order to get my scooter and take it to Germany. On Saturday I will then be in Germany with my scooter so I have my own transportation throughout the week. Since the company is only a couple of miles from the house where I live for this period.

I really enjoyed my first week up untill now and I think I will have a great time at this company where I will learn a lot. My German has gotten a lot better already and I think that after a few months, it will be very good. This is due to the fact that some people within the company don’t speak English, so this forces me to speak German. This is actually why I chose to go to Germany, since I think German is an important language within the business world and it will help me if I’m able to have a conversation in German.

This was my first week, I hope you enjoyed the article. It was a little boring maybe, since I haven’t done much yet. Next week when I have my scooter here I will be able to get around some more and have some more stories about the town I’m living in.

🙂