Hi, Laura here. This time, I got the chance to sit down with our new (not so new anymore) Jana and talk about her first six months at GLADTOBE.
Jana has always been a traveller at heart. After school, she packed up and moved to Australia for five years, working, travelling, and getting into the surfing life. She came back to Germany for a job in sales and marketing, but the pull of travel got too loud again. So she left once more, this time exploring Asia too.
When she came back, she was looking for something different: a job with flexibility, room to keep learning, and none of the pushy sales energy she’d had enough of. GLADTOBE felt right in her guts, so she packed her bags, moved to Berlin, found a great WG with an amazing flatmate, and was ready to go.
She came in with zero experience in offline media or TV, but she’s a fast learner. Excel sheets, numbers, reports, all the things that felt completely foreign at first are starting to feel manageable (turns out there’s a lot you can do in Excel!). Agency life took some adjusting too: the freedom, the trust, occasionally the stress, but she appreciates how everyone pitches in to help.
She’s grateful she didn’t start alone. Going through onboarding with together with Taisa made the transition easier. She was also really happy when Caroline joined the team, and they’re now working together and supporting each other (more on that soon…). She also finds that the collaboration with the Stuttgart team, Kathrina especially, runs smoothly even from a distance.
She genuinely enjoys coming into the office, figuring out her own rhythm (morning workouts, working from a café, after-work sessions with colleagues), and the teamwork experience that comes with it. But the traveler in her hasn’t gone anywhere. She’s already thinking about her next move: working remotely from somewhere new for a while (maybe Sri Lanka?).
It’s a pretty rare way to live. New city, new people, the ability to work from wherever you are. Something a lot of people only get to dream about. We think that’s worth appreciating and making space for, while it’s still possible. Responsibilities catch up with everyone eventually. For now, it’s time to fly.
What stood out most about Jana in our chat is how genuinely excited she is about life. Eager to learn, eager to grow. Her travels have clearly shaped how she sees things, and made her wiser along the way. We’re lucky to have someone this open on the team.
So if you ever run into her, ask about her travels. She’s definitely got stories.
