| Written by Angela Lampl
Angi: Hello Jürgen, thank you for meeting me!
Jürgen: Hi! I must thank you for giving me the opportunity to.
Angi: Then, let’s start with my first question. Can you describe to me where you live and what you like about your place?
Jürgen: I live in the city of Bregenz, in a nice flat. I like the allocation between the lake of Constance and the mountain Pfänder. It´s a small city, but within an hour, I am in a Ski-resort in Bregenzerwald or Zürich.
Angi: Is there any favourite place you have in Bregenz?
Jürgen: Sitting at the lakeside and joining the sunset is my favourite place.
Angi: Yes! The lake of Constance is very nice to walk around and enjoy beautiful sunsets. Now to your career’s interesting aspects, tell me about those.
Jürgen: After my business administration studies, I worked for several years in the automotive supply industry. To widen my experiences in another industry, I switched to Identec Solutions.
Angi: When did you start here at Identec Solutions, and what do you do?
Jürgen: I am a Financial Controller and started 4 years ago. Besides several local tasks, I work a lot together with the other sites/our other offices.
Angi: What is so interesting about crunching numbers? Where does your passion for controlling and accounting come from?
Jürgen: When you are crunching numbers, the outcome is often much more than you thought at the starting point. It´s great to generate additional information “only” by analysing numbers. My passion started already in middle school. There we learnt about cost accounting, and I was addicted.
Angi: That sounds passionate! What do you like the most about your job?
Jürgen: When you read a controller job description, you always read about “ad hoc analysis”. That means you have no daily business 😊. But this is the exciting part of my job.
Angi: What exactly do you analyse as “ad hoc”?
Jürgen: That can be everything. It starts with revenue by region/mth up to detailed expenses for a special business process or an overview of the possibilities of sponsorship in a country.
Angi: Sounds like a good mix of different to-dos! Onto the next question: Here at Identec Solutions, we have 5 core company values – Visionary, Open, Responsible, Leading and Global. Which one is for you the most significant, and how do you live it?
Jürgen: All of them are essential. For me, the most significant is Global. Each day I discuss tasks with colleagues somewhere in the world. Hearing about other approaches to come to a great outcome is very interesting.
Angi: I would say so as well – being part of our global company widens your thoughts of doing things differently even more! Do you have a guiding principle at work?
Jürgen: Doing the right thing at the right time. As a Controller, you have a lot of deadlines, and I do my best to meet these deadlines.
Angi: Can be at work or in your private time but how do you cope with stress if you know you must meet a deadline?
Jürgen: Taking a break, for me, is the best way to cope with stress. Stand up, walk to the coffee machine, drink a coffee and don´t think about the open tasks. After such a break, it is much easier to go ahead.
Angi: Now onto more good things like coffee! What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Jürgen: For me, it is to work together with people from so many different countries. In Lustenau alone, there are people from about 25 Nations. But, of course, there are also some challenges. With different mother tongues, we all communicate in English, and sometimes it comes to misunderstandings – “Lost in translation”. But then, you discuss a topic a second time, and it works.
Angi: As I mentioned before, we widen our knowledge every day because we are so different but can work together very well. :) Back to you, Jürgen - What do you do in your free time – any hobbies or passions?
Jürgen: When the weather is fine, I like to sit on my bike and ride along the lakeside. It´s so relaxing to enjoy the silence of nature and the view over the lake. In winter, typically Austrian, I like to ski in the mountains. Once a week, I meet some colleagues, and we cook together, mostly local specialities. My favourite dish is “Kässpätzle” with roasted onions. Difficult to translate :), and the translation I found (“homemade cheese noodles”) doesn´t describe how it tastes.
Angi: “Kässpätzle” is my favourite dish and everyone who visits Vorarlberg needs to try them – so delicious! What kind of bike do you have?
Jürgen: I ride a 10-year-old city bike. This is perfect for riding also in the wintertime. Last year I tried to buy a new bike, but it was not possible without a delivery time of 10 months, so I decided to repair the old one.
Angi: Do you have a favourite place to go skiing?
Jürgen: My favourite skiing area is Damüls. A nice small village in the Bregenzerwald, with a lot of different ski slopes.
Angi: Back to cooking - are there themes when you cook with your colleagues like this week’s Italian, the next different one?
Jürgen: Not really, we just call each other, and everyone talks about his preferences or which new recipe he/she found. Afterwards, we agree about the dish we cook.
Angi: Jürgen thank you so much for answering my questions today!
Jürgen: It was very interesting, thank you!