Variety is the spice of life

Volunteering for the fire service, jogging, hiking, climbing, skiing – Daniel`s hobbies take him places. And so does his job. As a field service technician, he spends almost every day visiting a different institute, for example research institutes and universities in the Cologne metropolitan area, that work with ZEISS electron microscopes. "It`s fun to get a taste of all the different subject areas and get talking to the customer," he enthuses.

If the field service employee chats to people not in the know, he explains the products he installs, maintains and repairs as follows: "Magnification begins with eyeglass lenses, continues with the magnifying glasses and ends up with the microscope. Light microscopes produce a magnified image using several lenses. Electron microscopes use electron beams instead of light, which enables a significantly higher magnification and level of detail. Imagine being able to look a tick in the eye. Our electron microscopes facilitate this."

Daniel has now found career fulfillment, but he still remembers what it was like for him when he started and the ensuing months of intensive training. "During the first six months, I paired up with a colleague and learned a lot from him," he explains. He can also vividly remember the first job he did on his own: "After a few weeks, the colleague who was training me went on vacation. He assigned me a job: Visit a customer and replace a part in their microscope. In the run-up to the appointment, unexpected repair jobs were added to the list, and I spent three sweat-inducing days working on a challenging piece of equipment." Today, Daniel laughs about it and is proud to have successfully completed the job with the support of his team in the back office. His recommendation is: If you get excited about technical things, this has got to be the right job for you.