EatonCare Newsletter

Hier bij EatonCare, zo heet het servicecenter tegenwoordig, “we take care of our customers”, hebben ze ook een maandelijks nieuwsblad. Hierin worden nieuwtjes vermeld, opmerkelijke gebeurtenissen medegedeeld en nieuwe medewerkers voorgesteld, je kent het wel.. Ik was er al bang voor dat ze een deze dagen bij mij zouden aan kloppen om ook een artikel te schrijven, waarin ik zou moeten vertellen over het hoe en waarom ik hier tijdelijk werkzaam ben. En ja hoor, een paar dagen geleden was het zover, de ‘hoofdredacteur’ kwam me opzoeken met de vraag of ik een artikel zou willen schrijven. ‘Natuurlijk wil ik dat’, zei ik met frisse tegenzin. Nu gaat het schrijven in het Nederlands me goed af, maar in het Engels, dat is toch heel iets anders...

Hieronder de tekst zoals die komende maand te lezen is in het ‘EatonCare’ nieuwsblad:

Hi, I’m Robin van Leeuwen and I’m asked to write an article about my stay here at Avery Creek. I’m happy to do that, so here we go:

I’ve been with Eaton for 2.5 years now and I work for Eaton Hengelo in the Netherlands. I fulfill one of the three Sales Engineer positions at the European OEM Response Centre (ORC); that means that I provide commercial and technical support to our European Distributors. I started as a Sales Engineer right after I graduated. I have a degree in electrical business engineering and I’m also an electrician. I did a technical school first to become an electrician so I could be employed in the construction of new buildings or maintenance of existing infrastructure. I figured, by installing electrical products myself I gain a lot of experience which could be beneficiary when I’m actually selling these products in the future. I always knew that I didn’t want to be an electrician my whole life, and therefore I obtained my engineering degree a few years later…

How did I end up in Avery Creek? Well, after a few years working as a Sales Engineer for the ORC, I was looking for a new challenge and wanted to get more experience in International Environments. I was wondering if there were possible employment opportunities to work for a period of time in Avery Creek, so I wrote an application letter to Paula Latta and Mary Lewis about 9 months ago. I preferred a position were I could use the skills I already learned as a Sales Engineer for the ORC in order to make a significant contribution to Avery Creek. The ORC in Europe is using the same ERP-systems (Vista, BidManager) and EBS-tools as here in Avery Creek, so there was no training needed on that part. And since the international group in Avery Creek is almost similar to the ORC, I thought it would be a nice opportunity to work there.

Time went by and suddenly I got the change to go to Avery Creek for three months because Mary Lewis needed someone to replace Tracie Singleton during her maternity leave. Wow, let’s say yes, and off we go! Well, nothing is as easy as it looks like. First you have to arrange several things before you actually can go. You need to write an approval report, you need housing, insurance, a car, a laptop, an international phone, a working permit (Visa), etc. The Visa was the biggest challenge; we had only four weeks left before I needed to be in Avery Creek so there was not much time left to apply for a Visa. As a European citizen you can stay for 90 days in the United States without a Visa, but the immigration agency is not easy to deal with. Both Eaton Hengelo and Eaton Avery Creek had to write a letter explaining why I needed to be in the United States. The immigration agency wants to be sure that you leave the country after those 90 days. If you have a home, family, girlfriend and a good job in your home country you shouldn’t have a problem entering the United States. Nevertheless, the immigration officer gave me a hard time at the Atlanta Airport. They interrogated me for 45 minutes in a special room to be sure I was not a potential illegal immigrant. You can imagine that my first day in the United States wasn’t pleasant..

I’ve been here for six weeks and till now I have had a great time. Everything is well taken care of and I love the landscape around Asheville. I keep maintaining a daily contact with my co-workers back home because I still do 50% of my duties from Hengelo while I’m here in Avery Creek, and that’s nice. There are many differences between Europe and America but when it comes to work we are not so different. Since Eaton Hengelo is a full subsidiary, we use mostly the same business processes as Avery Creek does. That’s made it a lot easier for me to integrate..

I’m here till July 13th, and if you have questions or you just want to say hello, feel free to do so. I am sitting right in the middle of the International group on the top floor.

Robin

Natuurlijk moest er ook een foto bij, die was eerder al gemaakt voor mijn toegangspasje dus dat was geen probleem. De reacties op mijn, als buitenlander geschreven, artikel waren overwegend positief. Mijn collega vond dat ik beter Engels kon schrijven dan de meeste van haar mede studenten toen ze nog op ‘College’ zaten. En op dat moment moest ik toch even denken aan al mijn oude leraren Engels op mijn vorige scholen die vonden dat ik er beter mee kon stoppen.. Of zou dat een andere reden gehad hebben...?

Ik kan er niet meer om heen, de complete EatonCare organisatie weet nu wie ik ben..