Servus!
Closing in on three months since I started my internship at adidas in the town of Herzogenaurach, Germany so it´s about time to take a look back and blog about my experience so far.
Things turned out well for me as I was able to start my internship right after finishing my exchange semester in Heilbronn. The relocation wasn’t that huge either, roughly 200 kilometers. What I found most difficult was the accommodation. Herzogenaurach being a relatively small town with little to no shared flats or other student friendly housing, I decided to set my sights on finding a place in the nearby city of Erlangen. Many employees of adidas also live in Nürnberg and the company has arranged a private bus line to bring people to work and take them back home, but I’m not a big fan of being depended on bus schedules. So it had to be Erlangen for me. Turns out, the housing situation in the whole area is quite bad, with Erlangen being a popular university city and the Erlangen-Herzo area having other big companies like Puma, Siemens and Schaeffler. I got a place for a month in the center of Erlangen and it took me the whole month to find a permanent one. Commuting by bike feels like a pain sometimes, especially when it’s raining, but hey, I didn’t want to depend on schedules. Alright, back to my internship.
So, I’m working at the adidas headquarters in the Global Logistics – 3PL Strategy and Management -department in the Procurement team. The team is responsible for inbound and outbound freight rates globally, we negotiate with carriers the freight rates to be used for a certain period of time. The project are long and demanding and the ultimate goal is of course to save as much money as possible, since adidas ships worldwide and the share of logistics costs from the overall costs is quite significant.
During my first weeks I had a talk with my boss about my tasks and my role in the team. The outcome of that meeting was that even though I have no work experience in the field, I would still be responsible for certain things in the team, to get as much out of the six months of my internship as possible.
The whole experience has been great so far and I see no reason why it wouldn’t be going forward. The work environment is great and so much more relaxed then one might expect from a German company, the normal office wear is jeans and sneakers. Not to mention the employee discount you get from adidas products. My wardrobe has never been so full of stripes. The company encourages a healthy and sporty lifestyle which is seen in the casual office attire, healthy foods offered in the cafeteria and a gym just outside the office. Walking around the campus, it feels more like a university than a company. You have flexibility in your working hours so you can take a break in the middle of the day and go to the gym, go jogging, play beach volley, tennis or basketball.
I don’t usually take a lot of pictures, but I’ll see what I can gather.
These two pictures were taken during the Global Brand Conference evening party. The cafeteria was transformed in to a disco and some light effects were added to a pond that’s inside the campus (and is also home to a family of geese, who sometimes get aggressive and chase people). The party had several artists performing and there was also free food and beer for everyone.
And this is a pair of sneakers I wear around the office. Told you I don’t take a lot of pictures.
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