Timo Reinarz, 19 years, industrial management assistant apprentice in his 1st year of training

My first month at BSH, my apprenticeship company

My first month at Bilstein & Siekermann^® is slowly coming to an end and the time has simply flown by. And, as they say, time flies when you are having fun.

My work in the sales department
I have already got to know many new procedures but haven't been able to learn about all of my sales tasks because the system is currently being changed. Over the next five months I will learn how orders and delivery call-offs are started, how to enter delivery call-offs into the system, and also how to generate order confirmations.

I am already able to carry out a number of other tasks on my own, such as distributing incoming faxes to the relevant employees.
Another task is the daily coffee service in the morning and the afternoon, including serving visitors during conferences. Sorting the post is also one of my daily tasks, however I share this task with the other three commercial apprentices; every week someone else takes their turn.
After a short familiarisation period, I am now able to do this on my own.

The postal service is a nice contrast to the other sales tasks because you have to take the post to lots of different departments in the company and pick up the invoices from the despatch department and then send them off.

Together with my instructor, Ms Ubl, I also deal with the various issues we receive in emails. These include customer enquiries about their orders, in German and also in English. These enquiries need to be processed, which often takes more time than you would think. This is because when customers demand that their order is delivered as quickly as possible you often have to check whether they have already paid.
You also need to ask about the delivery status and then contact the customer again with the new information.

We have also worked on various HR tasks together. In particular, these have included registering and processing new applications for apprenticeships and work placements, as well as issuing certificates or confirmations.
At first I worked on this together with Ms Ubl, now I can do some of the tasks myself.

I also had to do several tasks and create overviews using Excel and Word. This included generating work placement certificates and work placement contracts, creating a sales volume summary for a customer and searching for information about lean management, the 5S method, the KANBAN system and various company certifications. I particularly like working with Excel or the ELO file management system (Leitz office software) because there are many ways of processing things and a lot to learn.
I also like working through emails or HR tasks because you have to have direct contact with the other person and solve a variety of customer problems.

Sorting the post is a welcome change to all the computer work. It's a pity that I haven't seen much of the actual work in sales yet, but this is due to the current situation with the system change.

Of course, during my apprenticeship, I also attend vocational school in Gerolstein.
At the moment, we are focussing on accounting, the subject WED (Recognising and Documenting Values and Valuation Streams), and performance processes in the company. So far, I've enjoyed the accounting a lot. The difference is that you only learn things in theory, and you don't experience it directly, like in the company. However, I have already learned things in vocational school that could help me with my work, such as serial production and entry certificates.

Another difference is that we also cover more general topics in school, both in the vocational subjects and also in German or, in the future, religion lessons.
I like the vocational lessons a lot and it is a nice contrast to working in the company.

All in all, I've enjoyed my apprenticeship so far which is also due to the excellent working atmosphere in the company.