It’s already been three months that I moved to Basel and embarked on a new life adventure. Time to take a breath and review what’s been happening, what has been working well, where I want to progress and what I am still missing. Let me take you on an honest journey through what it is like to make such a move.
What it took to make the move to Switzerland
- At the beginning there was the urge for a new adventure. Spurred mostly by the “end of covid” (we shalle see), I felt like it was time to push myself out of the comfortable chair that was my life in Würzburg with amazing friends/family and a purposeful job.- Then there was the long term idea to move to a region that would be even warmer than Würzburg and that was closer to France, a culture and language I love have lived in before.- While I quit my old job before having a new one, it was always clear to me that I would need to find a job that would give some meaning to my new adventure. Quitting my job gave me a deadline and flexibility and freedom to really put my emphasis on finding a new job. I ended up taking up a job at the company my brother also works at, (http://www.cital.io).- As a citizen of a country in the EU you have to have a job contract and a rental contract under your belt in order to get a working visa. On the rental front, I could lukily rely on my brother to help out again. That way I could apply for my visa well in advance so that at the time I started my new job, I had it ready to roll.
I had always thought that moving to a country outside the EU would be a real struggle. However, thanks to my brother and the european econonic area (which Switzerland is a part of), it was actually super easy to make that move from an administrational perspective.
View out my room window
My current messy setup
New flat, new roommates
Of course I didn’t move in with my brother actually. Knowing that we’d already share other social circles (family, work) we decided (and rightfully so I believe) that we would not add another one to that list. Instead I was really lucky to find a room in an old but cozy flat close to the main train station in Basel. My 12 m2 room is now host to my beloved modular Ivar closet, a small old desk for home office days, my also beloved 1,60x2,00 meter bed (☝️ never get a 1,40 bed. Way too small for 1 person, let alone 2 😂), my cherished gold shitting donkey (courtesy of my good friend Anja; for the story on that, check (https://whereisvinz.help/home-is-where-your-heart-jubilates/)), a cozy sleeping hammock for when friends visit and my projector, for movie nights.
The wonderful people I share my flat with are Kerstin, Jan, Jann and Flo. Together we make up an incredible diversity of characters. Hobbies include cycling, rock climbing & bouldering, music, football, burning schnaps, cooking, alcoholic beverages and smoking green leafs. Of course that doesn’t mean that everything in a new living environment clicks right away. Especially in the beginning I felt like I couldn’t really get a grip on them and that I felt like I had a tought time building a good base with them. This was mostly hindered by the fact that I had attracted covid pretty much right after I moved. Also, summertime obviously means that people are out and about. Most of the others had already had the summer planned out a lot so that they were often gone for the weekend. In my opinion that’s a good thing though. Long term, I am more the type of person to sporadically get together with my roommates, rather than planning everything too far ahead or putting pressure on ourselves to regularly do something together. In my experience, spontaneity often makes for the best times together.
Field visit in Olive fields around Valladolid, Spain
At the things conference Amsterdam
New job, new responsibilities
Another huge factor of change in this adventure is my new occupation. Officially dubbed a project manager, the actual tasks are highly fluid as the team is pretty small. While this can be overwhelming at times, especially to keep the overview of all topics you have stakes in, I really enjoy this so far. Considering myself a Swiss army knife (aka. a universal tool), I believe that this is exactly the position I thrive in.
So what do I actually do then? -> In my first months I have occupied myself largely with restructuring the way we internally use our tools to become more efficient in our workflows in regards to speed, responsibility and accountability. Then I have subconsciously moved to aligning the after sales journey, from order to production to logistics, getting all external and internal stakeholders on the same page and trying to coordinate the whole process. Last but not least I have started to push some new ideas on the customer relations side so that we are now finally onboarding a new customer relations management tool and starting to restructure the way we gather and manage data related to customers and the products they order.
Enough jibberish. Let’s move to a meta level or recap of the first months. -> All in all, so far I am more than happy with the move I made. While I loved the purpose and my team at my old employer more than I could possibly express here, it was time for me to move on. I was just feeling like I was in the wrong place for some months in the end. I was craving for more responsility and a higher impact of my doing, which I could not find anymore at my old employer. The move I made really give me just that. In a small team, all of your work will be more visible and have a much higher impact (it’s like in investing of ETFs vs. single shares. Any fluctuation up and down will have a much higher impact with individual shares). On top of that, I get to try myself in a completely new position, coming from a customer facing role and moving on to larger scale project management, internally as well as externally. At this point I think this was the most crucial development for me. Over the years I just noticed that being in a solely customer facing role will not make me happy long term, especially in a high volume customer request environment where it’s more about quantity than quality.
Quality of life
I realized that my daily life changed in many ways since moving to Basel. Had I been spending a lot of time around my desk previously, working from home, now I spend my days mostly in the office. This makes for a big change because I can actually interact a lot with my colleagues, and that makes for a nice change. Also, in Würzburg I noticed at some point that I wasn’t doing a lot of exercising and sports. In Basel I often take the bike to work, which takes about 40 minutes. Twice that and I got more than my days worth of workout in. And let me tell you: my body likes it.
Besides the changes in my working life, as an outgoing human being I got to know a lot of my neighbors which had not been the case in many of my previous shared flats. Especially with the second floor flat I have already shared some really good memories baking pizza, making burgers or else going out to dance or watch live shows, like the one that is displayed in the featured picture for this post. The relationship with my neighbors is characterized by mututal understanding of joy, fun and love for each other. I can go deep and awkward and funny with them and it always makes for a nice atmosphere spending time with them.
Lastly, I want to make a point in applauding the city of Basel for its cultural life. I cannot tell whether it is me or the city, but it seems to me at least, that the city is always full of life. In the summer time there are so many festivities and events of all sorts happening that it actually becomes hard to choose. Moreover, many of these events are free of charge, making them available to everybody. Whether it is the (http://junglestreetgroove.ch/) that entertained all of the electronic music enthusiasts, the (https://floss.ch/) that lastet over 3 weeks with music blasting over the river every night or the innumerable other events happening simultaneously all the time: Basel is full of life. This makes the city very attractive and gives it such a cool vibe. And this is even without mentioning every Basel inhabitants favorite activity: the Rhylaxing -> Just going down the river with your dry bag, pretending to be an otter, chillaxing through the city on a hot summers day.
How can you become a part of it?
Well it’s easier said than done, but I think you should definitely move here 😉 Of course this would benefit me a lot. But if this post hasn’t convinced you yet, maybe we can schedule a visit so that I… äääääh Basel, can get any last doubts out of your mind. And don’t worry: Swiss people are not that different from the rest of the world… Just a lot. But you’ll cope. It’s easy enough if you just try. Well… I let the Swiss people that know me already judge on that one. Now I better stop writing or I’ll get into really bad trouble.