Dir Deine Meinung!

Another girl with a particularly hard-to-pronounce name was starting with me and we were quickly shown the ropes. We were brought to the online editors' meeting on the 16th floor in the afternoon, where the latest stories and scandals were discussed at a frightening pace, with snappy opinions exchanged frank and forthright. "Ich finde das langweilig," one poor fella was told of his story pitch.
Once the dust settled I had a few minutes to take in my new surroundings; picture desks strewn with prints, fancy glass-walled offices, trendy desks and chairs, rows and rows of keyboards and screens, telephones everywhere and plasma televisions hanging from the ceiling beaming out pages of the newspaper or the latest images of interest from around the world. The energy palpable, excitement in the air, people everywhere scurrying about with a decided Springer in their step.

In the afternoon I worked on stories of Earth-shattering importance; Paris Hilton baring her arse again, Rachel Stevens being pregnant, and Ballack insisting that Schweini would save the day for Germany after he was ruled out of the World Cup. Any story with a character called Schweini in it is always going to be a good.
In truth, it was an exhausting day. I'm absolutely knackered and my head feels like it's gonna explode, but dammit, I'm a journalist once again no matter what anyone else says. Mir meine Meinung!
I forgot to mention there's unlimited caffé lattes, freshly made as soon as you make them. A real machine which froths and steams the milk and everything, real coffee too, absolutely delish! There's also an unlimited supply of bottled water - without gas, with gas, and with just a little gas - take your pick. It's gas!
Nice one!
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI forget how I stumbled upon your blog, but am glad I did.
Are you working as an intern there or as a new-hire? Bild has always fascinated me - in a car-wreck sort of way, of course.
Cheers,
Ian in Hamburg
Hey Ian,
ReplyDeleteWorking there as a Praktikant, as in Prakti-can't get a full time job which pays real money. Still, it's a good experience and the money's better than most of these Praktikant things through which employers in Berlin take advantage of people desperate for work. I finish up in August and don't anticipate being asked to be kept on, but as I said before it's a good experience and the work's fun which is more than I can say for my last job.
The people who do get full-time employment at the Axel Springer group seem to be well looked after - there's free apples as you walk in, big discounts at the cantine, unlimited coffee, tea and water, they pay well, and generally it seems like a fairly relaxed atmosphere pervades throughout the place.
The people seem very nice - they actually say hello and goodbye when getting in or out of a lift - and all the women are models. They dress very well and strut around like they know it. I haven't seen one ugly one yet. The head honchos (nearly all men) are very fashionable too, while the male subordinates all seem to be gay. Less competition for the head honchos I suppose, and another reason I won't be kept on after my internship.
Grüße nach Hamburg!
Is it true that the chief editor has little horns on his head and a cloven hoof?
ReplyDeleteHi AB,
ReplyDeleteNice little bits of insider info. So what do they think of BildBlog?
What will they say if they stumble upon yours? :-)
Not sure what they make of BildBlog. Presume they're happy about it though. All publicity is good publicity. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they were the ones behind it!
ReplyDeleteDitto for mine, although I can assure you that they're not behind it.
DM - I don't think they're on his head.
ReplyDelete