I had the right skill set to land my first job in Germany: I knew how to sew. In two languages. The job was advertised in the weekly national paper Die Zeit. The publishing company Verlag Aenne Burda in Offenburg was looking for a translator. I bought a new black skirt and sweater for the interview, studied my sewing terminology (“yoke” and “darts”) with the help of my PONS German-English dictionary, and took a train to Offenburg for my interview. I worked in a team of young women, one or two each from countries all over Europe: Italy, France, Sweden, and Holland. We were the “Auslandsredaktion” and were housed in an old building, separate from the company headquarters. We didn’t have any contact with the editors of the magazine, which, when I think about it, was crazy. We were an all-female team with a male supervisor who spoke no foreign languages and had no apparent editorial, fashion, or home-sewing skills. I’m just saying, he might have been a good manager despite these shortcomings. It was 1991. The team translated all the editorial copy for company’s portfolio of magazines including the monthly Burda Moden and quarterly and now defunct Burda International. When I worked there Burda Moden featured a homemaker’s mixture of home-sewing, fashion, food, and domestic pleasantries. The centerpiece of the magazine always has been the built-in sewing patterns. Everything from Bavarian dirndls to First Communion dresses to golf skirts. Just last month, the magazine was relaunched with a fresh new look and feel, and a new editor-in-chief. I even started buying it again! Check out their website.
It was the perfect job for me at that time. I wanted to work for a known name. Wanted to enter the workforce quickly. After all, it was only a year after I had settled in Heidelberg and my German was not very good at the time.
Later I would commute from Heidelberg to Offenburg, a train trip of some 90 minutes one way. As soon as my Probezeit was up, I asked what other opportunities there were in the company for someone like myself. Unfortunately there were none, I was told. Fortunately, I was soon pregnant with my first child.
When I tried to get a job at SAP two years later – they too were advertising for native speaking translators – I couldn’t convince them that the skills I had acquired would serve me well as a technical translator. That was my first missed attempt at getting hired at SAP. Another would follow before they finally took me.
