Croozer Blog: Behind the Scenes

It’s still dark outside on Monday morning when I arrive at the offices in Hürth. Our name “Croozer” shines brightly above the front door, which I open every day, ideally early in the morning. As an early bird, I benefit from the flexible working hours, because this system allows me to come really early and take advantage of my high-energy phase in the morning. Then I can also leave work relatively early in the afternoon. It’s usually around 20 past seven when I step into the Croozer entrance hall. Usually only one or two other Croozians are there before me. Owing to the open floor plan, it’s easy to wave a quick “hello” to everyone on the way to my desk.

Here at Croozer, I’m doing my training in marketing communications, so my main working place is of course in the marketing department, beside Katharina, Teresa and Carolin – albeit with sufficient space between our desks, owing to corona. During this (the first) year of my training programme, Croozer has made sure that I have a chance to experience all relevant departments first-hand. This is a pretty practical system, because every time I return to marketing, I feel like my horizons have been broadened a bit more.

At the moment, I’m working in customer service. To reach their offices, you have to go up the stairs to the open gallery. In no time at all, my work space is set up for the day, and my negative corona lateral flow test is lying on my desk. Then I grab a cup of coffee and get straight to work. The first thing I do is check my Microsoft Teams and Outlook accounts for messages or notifications, responding as needed. Until 8 o’clock I’m able to work on my marketing projects, because in spite of my absence, there are still areas that I am responsible for – i.e. I never really leave behind my main area of training. I work on some of the projects in cooperation with our second marketing trainee, David. At the moment, for example, we are both organising a photo-shoot outside of Germany: This includes communicating with the models and photographers, and choosing the clothing items, models and photo motifs, along with the storyline that the photo shoot will follow. Now and then, I also take part in meetings and work on other smaller marketing tasks.

Between 8 and 9, I start my customer service activities, and my two colleagues Anke and Florian are helping me learn about their areas of responsibility. Product management is now part of what I do all day. I take part in telephone calls, take and record orders, answer emails and every so often head down to the workshop with Florian, where I help him with returned merchandise. The so-called Coffee-Break Meeting with the entire Croozer family takes place at noon.

At 12:30 all of us here at Croozer take our lunch break. I like to spend this break downstairs in the food area beside the huge Croozer kitchen, where employees have lots of different options for making their own food – unless they’re getting something delicious from Twinz – Livecooking. I personally couldn’t survive without my breakfast in the lunch break: rolled oats with honey and fruit from our fruit bowl. I eat and chat with my colleagues before heading back upstairs (of course never without coffee number 2).

Afterwards, I can help Anke or Florian with their work, or take care of my other marketing responsibilities. Sometimes, there are also meetings in the afternoon for planning or finalising projects, or just doing some brainstorming. The nice thing here is that the various departments always work together. We do this by paying quick visits to our colleagues in other areas, or giving them a ring. At Croozer, everyone knows everyone else, and everyone has something to do with everyone else. This means that projects can be managed quickly and easily. Working on stuff together is just really nice and also enabled me to feel quickly integrated when I first started my training programme.