My work

I am a market researcher. Not one of those pitiful but nevertheless annoying people, who call your at home after 8pm and want to ask you questions about your TV-watching and telephone behaviour. No, I am actually one of those researchers who work in a nice office and invite people to have a chat with me about their favourite topics: their dog, dishwashing liquid (yes, some people can talk for hours about how much foam it should produce), cars, cookies and and and... . The best part is people get actually paid to talk to me. To give me their opinion. To tell me the truth – honestly even if it’s brutal. Sometimes they also get free chocolate or new mobile phones to test for me. Okay, sometimes I also invite people to talk with me about their not-so-favourite topics, health insurance for example. As compensation they get extra money and even more free chocolate. ;-)

picture from here

I love this job, because I spend at least 70% of my time talking to all different kind of people and the rest of the time I sit in front of my computer and try to make sense of what they have said. The perfect mix for me! I also enjoy working on a broad variety of different topics – from tacos to credit cards, from toilet paper to cosmetics. You meet so many interesting people, find out so many interesting things and honestly who would want to think only about one thing, let's say hair colour, for more than 2 months. See, NOBODY!

picture from here

Okay, okay, I am sure you have understood by now, that I really really love my profession ;-) I have started right after uni and since then I have never stopped. And that really means something since we are talking 10 years. Gosh! Until recently I worked with a market research institute. Which means nice colleagues, a nice office and a nice regular income. Then the aftershocks of the Global Financial Crisis hit and I lost my job. Now I am working as a freelancer, which means sleeping in more often, working from home and a not-so-regular income. At the moment that’s fine with me.

So, enough now of this serious stuff. Tomorrow I will share the first of my passions with you.