In 2013, I was forced to leave my old job because my employer at the time went bankrupt. I wanted a decent job in a decent company and found the job offer at the CLASSEN Group in Baruth, 430 kilometres from my home in North Rhine-Westphalia. And so I started here.

My first impression of the factory was: Wow! I had never seen anything so clean before. I was thrilled! And I had already seen many wood-processing plants, including those of CLASSEN's direct competitors. Today I can say: Here in Baruth, investments are not only made in cleanliness, but also in maintenance to keep the factory at a high level. I am also still overwhelmed by everything that is done here in the factory for environmentally friendly production.

Sometimes people ask me what it was like to go from West Germany "to the East". I tell them: I come from East Westphalia, people there are very stubborn. Brandenburgers are not like that. I find that the people here are even friendlier than we in West Germany. I was immediately well received and became part of the team. And here in maintenance I have a top team. The guys know exactly what needs to be done and everyone pulls together. The way they congratulated me on my 60th birthday last year, and when I came in in the morning, the guys were hanging streamers all over the place, that was really great.

I am just as enthusiastic about the fact that we're always provided with the best technical equipment for our work, from guillotine shears to overhead cranes. In our maintenance department, of course, you can roughly cut sheet metal for half an hour with an angle grinder or, as here, in a few seconds with the guillotine shears. These are also differences that make a good employer, and that's where my heart and the boys' hearts leap.

When I retire, I will remember CLASSEN in Baruth as a very good employer.