Traineeship: Head of HR in London and at the Brighton University

Before narrating Manuela’s adventure in the UK, I am fond of keeping you posted on my parking behaviour which has not much improved, I am afraid. For those who remember, I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I already got a ‘kind’, costly reminder for my naughty behaviour a little while ago.

More parking, less salary

Without beating around the bush, I must confess that my parking behaviour has remained unchanged. Probably only another hefty fine can trigger me to rethink, I am assumed to learn it the hard way... Florian, who is our fleet manager, got slightly worried about the fines as they get directly deducted from my salary and therefore reminded me of that – just in case I did not notice. This is indeed very kind of him, even though I had noticed :P In my defense though, sometimes I am demanded to carry cash on me to pay the parking fee which is inconceivable for a millennial. As a result, I turn a blind eye and keep my fingers crossed.

A visitor from Switzerland

Throughout my traineeship, HR, especially Manuela, have been supporting me incredibly. May it be for a personal or professional exchange, HR related topics, or any other challenges I face, they help me everywhere. Muchas gracias!

It was only recently when Manuela joined me for two days in the UK. How exciting?! On the first day, we were out and about seeing a tonne of customers. As I planned to meet as many customers as possible, I kindly asked her for a super early pick up in the morning. I cheekily convinced her by promising that we go for decent coffee at about 9ish. To her unfortunate, my enthusiasm about chasing one customer after another let me entirely forget take the promised coffee break. Seriously?! That’s unbelievable!

Relying on experience

On our second day, Manuela, Paul Duffy (senior SL GB-Team), and I conducted a workshop at Brighton University with students in the field of architecture, engineering, building surveyance, etc. That was fun, hey! Particularly because without Paul I would have been hopeless, his expertise and experience raised the workshop presentation to new levels, and Manuela represented SIGA wonderfully well. In essence, they did most of the job, whilst I was watching them and drinking coffee.

In hindsight, the two joint days with Manuela were instructive for both of us. I can assure you that we always had great fun, even though the days were long and tiring at times. Will you be coming back to visit me again Manuela? I hope so!