Welcome to the first day at your new job!
What I was greeted with on my first day!
I made the decision to leave Bestseller, and began working for a new Danish company on July 1, 2011. The. Best. Work. Decision. I. Have. Ever. Made.
I am always curious about what is going on out there in the market, and often found myself perusing job ads. Ironically enough, the internship I held at the ASB Career Center, focusing on helping international students find jobs in Denmark, sends a 'Job Friday' Facebook link, where they post job ads in Denmark that are written in English - so that we obviously know they are willing to hire English speakers for these positions. I have looked at this link for weeks, and often saw semi-interesting job titles, clicked on them, but the job ad in itself was less than interesting for me. Until that one day...
I saw a link called Brand Manager, Cat Bags and Accessories - and my curiosity was piqued. I clicked on the link, and like never before, as I read off each bullet point in the job ad, I thought to myself, that my name was written all over this ad. See the job ad
here.
I ended up sending in my job application at 11pm, the night before it was due. Oops. I was in London for the Royal Wedding, and had forgotten about the deadline. I was at my friend's place in London, and I was having major issues with her laptop and was unable to open word documents or attach them to my email, so with the help of two great people, my friends Lonnie and Katrine, I was texting and chatting online with them, copy/pasting my resume and cover letters into the body of emails, telling them what to change and adjust, and then they would send them for me to check. I even had to write the draft of the email, and ask one of them to log into my email and attach the documents and send it off. Crazy!
What was even more crazy, is I received a phone call the next day, telling me that a lot of my experience and characteristics were very interesting, and they hoped they could talk to me the next week! I had an interview and took an online personality test. I was then asked for a final interview on a Friday at 3pm. I finished after about an hour and met a friend in the city to go shopping. My cell phone rang at 6pm, and I was offered the job! What a way to start the weekend!
Everything about this company has been different from the beginning. I have felt special, important, part of the team. My new boss is Dutch, and he actually works out of the Netherlands, so we see each other about once a month, but communicate frequently. He took me out to dinner in Aarhus before I started the job, because he knew he was not going to see me for two weeks after I began. My boss seems so different and refreshing from any I have had in the past - before I left home on my first day, he called me (he was in Hong Kong). He told me he wanted me to have a good day, and to go in there and take charge. That this was my business now and to be strong and to have fun. When I came on my first day, there was a huge, beautiful bouquet of flowers waiting for me. And cake. And they have popsicles and ice cream in the afternoon on random days, just because. And everyone says hi and goodbye to each other, and talks to each other at lunch (sounds weird, but these last things were very awkward things from my old company). I am motivated again, and happy to go to work. I know I can do this job, I know I can do well. And I can tell they value me, which makes me want to work harder for them.
The company is a Danish company called Grown Up - they are the largest manufacturers of bags and luggage in the world. They are a licensee company, so they produce bags for other brands - think Nike, Adidas, Burton, Ellehammer, LEGO, Cat (Caterpillar); they also are the number one producer of tennis bags (Wilson, Prince, etc). So again, the product is interesting to me, and relatable, which makes work more fun.
I work for a division of Grown Up called Grown Up Licenses, and am the Brand Manager for Cat bags and accessories. Not only does Grown Up have their headquarters in Aarhus, they have an office in Hong Kong, they own two factories in China, they have a design office in Hamburg, but they also have an office in Seattle! So I am working for a Danish company, as a Brand Manager for an American brand (Caterpillar machines) - which is headquartered in the Midwest, nonetheless! (Peoria, IL, to be exact, which is 3.5 hours from StL!) While the brand is not big in the US, it is big all over the world. It is also very exciting that this is a new contract for Grown Up, and they see huge potential. So I am jumping on from the beginning, and hopefully get to watch it grow tremendously!
So this job is a different side of retail, which is exciting to. I am not working with the supply/manufacturing side more heavily, and focusing on getting the goods to my distributors. I am working with distributors from all over the world! China, Japan, Korea, Panama, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, South Africa, Egypt, US, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Germany, UK...and on and on. There is product development, marketing, and more creativity involved in this position. And there will be travel involved in my job as well, 30-40 days, as written into the job description, but we will see. I already have my first trip to the US (San Diego) scheduled in November, and am allowed to stay for a week's vacation so I am home for Thanksgiving. My boss even said, when I asked if I could stay in the US 'Sure, spend some time with your family. Free trip home!' It does not get better than that! I also have a trip to Portugal on the table, as well as China in the near future.
Another benefit of this new job is I no longer have to commute to work. I can bike 15-20 to work, and it is located at the harbor, which is a great location, very scenic!
And what is even cooler is they have a ping pong, pool, and fooseball table - and even the CEO plays everyday!
It just seems that things have begun to fall into place for me, that possibly, all my hard work has paid off. And I must say, after my experiences with Neiman Marcus and Bestseller versus the ASB Career Center and Grown Up Licenses - I now know that I thrive much more in a smaller environment where I am not just a number, but rather, a person - and I matter.
My goal, ever since falling in love with Denmark, was to find a job that gave me some sort of tie between the two countries, that allowed me to travel back and forth. And it seems I may have just found that.
My brand's website - this is a work in progress, with many more bells and whistles planned!
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