Blog It Forward - Jana Kreutziger

[former_member205480]

Hi All,

I was nominated for the BIF by Ann Marie Sinclair, who is working on the SLL component (Global Trade Services) in GSC Ireland in Dublin. I’m working in the same component in GSC Austria in Dresden (Germany). We are working together in this virtual global team for a couple of years now, but only had the chance to meet each other earlier this year when attending a Boot Camp in Walldorf together with our colleagues. It was a great time!

Thanks for your nomination Ann Marie. I’ve never heard of this challenge before. But I’m glad that I don’t have to empty an ice bucket on my head for this challenge. :smile: It’s a great way to get to know interesting and funny facts about colleagues this way. Hope I can contribute my share and help to make this challenge more popular to my German colleagues. 

Introduction

My name is Jana Kreutziger. I am 36 years old and was born and raised in a small town called Löbau in the very south east of East Germany (former GDR – German Democratic Republic) near Poland and Czech Republic.
From the earliest years it was my dream to live in Dresden once in my life. As my father had to perform his military service in Dresden in the early seventies, he learned to love this beautiful but that time heavily wounded (in WW2) town. Apparently he handed down this love on me. We were already spending a lot of time in Dresden when I was a child as it was only about 100km away from home.

By turn of the millennium my dream became true when me and my friends had a great Millennium New Years Eve party in my own first apartment in Dresden and out in this glorious town.

I have been working for SAP since January 2002 and have a degree in Engineering Economics.

I am married to Carsten, who’s also an SAP employee and studied same subject at same place at the same time as I did, but we didn’t become aware of each other back then. Both of us began working for SAP and we only fell in love when SAP hosted a summer event for all employees in Dresden in 2005. Funnily this party took place at my birthday. So thanks to SAP for this birthday gift, it changed my whole life. :smile:

Today we are proud parents of two marvelous little girls aged 8 and 6 and can call a nice new build house with a pretty garden in the city of the wonderful rebuild Dresden, only 10min away from SAP office, our own.

Fun fact about my country/yourself

Have you ever been to Dresden? Have you ever heard Dresden is also called “Elbflorenz” (Florence of the Elbe)? Originally this is because of the numerous art collections, but it’s also because of the Baroque-style architecture and the mild climate on the Elbe river. This year I had the chance to visit the original Florence in Italy during summer vacation. I’m a real Italy lover! And yeah, for sure, Florence is really a lovely and magnificent nice place too, of course. But guess what? I do like my beloved home edition so much more! :smile:

Before the heavy destruction at the very end of WW2 in February 1945 Dresden was also called “the most beautiful one”. Unfortunately it has fallen into a kind of deep slumber during the time of GDR. Thanks to the German reunification after the peaceful revolution, Dresden has been restored extensively since the early 1990s. I guess it’s on the best way to become the “the most beautiful one” again! Nevertheless I wish I could have a walk through the old Dresden. But even this dream became true somehow, as the ‘Asisi Panometer' shows a 360° high detailed panorama view of the city during its baroque time.

Despite loving travelling around as well as visiting my family and friends in the area of my birth (which is also a really nice place to live indeed), I’m always indescribable happy to be back in Dresden! This is my home! It’s still some kind of ‘Wow!’ effect when driving down from the higher areas around into the Dresden basin at night (Dresden lies on both banks of the Elbe river). When driving across the river, having the magnificent illuminated skyline of the historic city right in front of me, I'm always feeling like: ‘How happy am I to live in this great place on earth!’ :smile:

Questions asked by Ann Marie

• Share a fun fact/story about yourself that people don't know
  A couple of years ago when I was not yet married and had no kids, me and a friend of mine decided spontaneously on a Friday night to spend the Whitsun at the Baltic Sea Coast in a very simple and near-natural way by sleeping on the beach. So we packed a few clothes, took our sleeping bags and camping mats and drove North. We arrived at Warnemünde tired in dawn of Saturday morning after having a short stay in Berlin at night for a couple of hours as it’s directly on the way. But unfortunately Baltic Sea didn’t warm welcome us. It was stormy and cold weather, high waves, heavy rain and dark, cloudy sky. It was definitively the wrong time to sleep and relax on the beach! :smile: Hence we went to a café for having breakfast and wake up, waiting for better weather. Two hours later we figured that it might take whole weekend to wait for better weather at this café. As directly driving back home another five hours wasn’t really an option, we’ve been searching for any kind of guesthouse or room to stay. You have to know that staying a summer weekend at Baltic Sea Coast (esp. Whitsun) is very popular in East Germany. So you have to be early to book any accommodation. After unsuccessfully requesting at several hotels and guesthouses for a room, only the best hotel in town was left. The ‘Neptun’ hotel (Luxury category! It's the tall angular shaped building on the pic below.), located directly at the beach! So what? Didn’t we want to stay ‘on the beach’? What the heck! It’s only two nights... We were cold and tired and we were wishing for a shower… :smile:
  Hence the weekend turned from a planned very low budget one into a very high budget one. Guess what? We enjoyed swimming and lying at the hotel own SPA having a great view of the stormy sea! I've never been to a 5 star hotel before resp. again since then.
  
  
• If you could have a conversation with anyone in the world (alive or dead), who would it be and why?
  Neither dead, nor alive. Or maybe alive, but not yet knowing. I simply wish for me and my family to stay healthy and become old enough to meet my girls partners and furthermore my grandchildren one day. Hope I can attend my kids’ weddings and can have a share growing up their kids. It sounds very simple and far away, I know, but I also know it’s not to be a given.

• If you were not in your current position, what/where would you be and why?
  Me and my friend once had the dream to run a little bed & breakfast guesthouse. Maybe we’ll make this dream come true when her and my kids are grown up and left parental home.

• If you could be a super hero (or are in your spare time) who would you be?
  I don’t want to be a super hero! Though… aren’t super heroes the ones who work all night long to rescue and assist needy human beings?
  Does carrying sick and sleepless kids around the house in my arms all night long also count?
  Or staying awake for a night watch at their beds?
  Or maybe switching bedclothes for the third time a night?
  Or hunting for monsters (or alternatively searching for the one and only cuddly toy) in the middle of the night?
  Or sharing my bed (and duvet!) until only the last twenty centimeters are left for me?
  Or perhaps baking cakes and preparing a birthday party for twelve little guests until the wee hours?
  … [might be extended endless]
  I love my little brats!
  Okay, maybe my pyjama isn’t that hot kind of a super hero dress, but my tired eyes at night might qualify as a super (?) hero (??) mask!!! :smile:
  Well, I really don't need to be a super hero. For me it's absolutely sufficient to be kind of a mum hero to my kids. Hope one day they will realize my heroic deeds. 

Blogging It Forward

I'd like to blog it forward to the following people:

christin.angus

michael.shieldsin order to be updated when the people you "Blog It Forward" to post the links to their "Blog It Forward" blogs.