From the village boy to the cosmopolitan Me

So the time has really come. After 19 years living in rural Austria trying to adjust to a life society wanted me to live, it was now time to do what I so wanted to be, becoming the true me.

I always knew either flying for an airline or going into the hotel business, this would open my life up and allow me to live the life I had been longing for so long. My first step in becoming me, after successfully graduating and completing my one year alternative service to the military in the retirement home, I started my search for my first ever real job. But it wasn’t as easy as I thought at first. The times were the times still without proper internet access and applications were sent via post mail to addresses of hotels which I found in normal phone register books. My main focus was first on “targeting” my applications to the major hotels in Vienna, it really knowing the difference between any of them. I did though also try an application for Austrian Airlines as I didn’t want to wake up later in my life not having tried to at least apply for my previous dream job. But the response was negative.

In fact most of the applications and CVs I sent out either were sent back to me, or sent back to me with very formal rejection letters. Fun fact the first hotel which rejected me was actually from the company I now work for. So it wasn’t easy, I knew I needed to keep trying and also I knew if I go into hotels it needs to be in an area where I had guest contact as I wanted to not only spend time with people hearing about their travel journeys but also keep using the languages I learned. At that point I was fluent in German as my mother tongue, somehow almost fluent in English and somehow getting by with my French. Spanish at that point was almost to none existent as Tenerife helped English but not my Spanish.

So here I was receiving one rejection after the other and really starting to feel bad and coming up with my back up plan, which was continuing to study and inscribe to Law at university. But that was really not my preferred option as I couldn’t think of anything worse to study for another 8 years and being dependent on my parents. I wanted to take control of my own life and live life.

And then came that one day, when I received two letters back asking me to call their Human Resources office to arrange for an interview. One a super luxury hotel and one in a super business hotel both in Vienna, and both from two major big international hotel chains. My mind worked overtime as I knew would I be considered and could start my career with any of those two, the world would be open for me.

So I arranged the interviews for the same day, travelled to Vienna which was about 2 hours away from my village and did the interviews. And surprise surprise both of them offered me the same day a position. But for two different roles. The luxury hotel for a switch board operator and the business hotel for a receptionist position. So it was tough as I had to give an answer the next day. I spent a lot of thinking but made my decision to go with the business hotel as they offered me the receptionist position, and relented the luxury hotel but did tell them if there ever was an opportunity for receptionist to let me know. I really like the luxury hotel and also the people who interviewed me but I also knew how many initial rejections I got and I did really want to start in the reception connecting with people and not on the phone connecting people to someone else.

Here we go I got my first job and was excited and arranged for my move to Vienna, first staying with my cousin and her husband to whom I will ever be grateful for and soon thereafter moving to my own, let’s call it cozy, 20sqm apartment in Viennas 3rd district 15 minutes by tram from my new work. Let life begin!