The Insurance Apprenticeship

I applied for an apprenticeship at a well-known insurance company. It's an education with payments, that couldn't just further my job hunt, it might come with a job offer at the end and, if not, comes from an institution that looks great on a resume.

In all honesty, I was waiting for a rejection letter.

Except, two weeks ago, I had the first interview. How many interviews there are is up for debate. Some say four in total. Some say it's just the one. I'm a pessimist and think four, on this one.

I baffled the interviewers. There were tests, there were conversations, there was roleplay and there was general information. That was normal. What wasn't normal were my results.

Not to make them sound racist, but they were sort of floundering as to what to do with me. Because, as any native speaker who's talked German with me for longer than five minutes realises, I'm not German. I'm not Germanophone. I have an accent. I make mistakes. Some words, I plain don't know.

The last bit screwed up some of my tests. But the ones I got, I scored really well on. My interview went well. I had the guts to come out and say I prefer going by bike than getting a driver's license, appy as a non-German to an education which was pretty much all-German people and move to Germany without any certainties whatsoever, except that there was someone there who loves me and makes me feel like life is a good thing.

So the interviewers had a problem. I grasp concepts quickly, I'm polylingual and I can be freaking determined if I want to. I have one visible piercing, which falls in the area of social acceptability, I clean up relatively good and I'm perky and upbeat. But I couldn't be put on a phone and expected to deal efficiently with Germans demanding their insurance company solves their problem three weeks ago. They brought in a person who worked an international department for my interview. He admitted he'd hire me on the spot if only my German were better. Would I be willing to take a German course between now and September? Of course I would.

The plan was fuzzy. They'd talk over the problem of me at a later time. Then I'd either get a letter saying yes, no, or a call inviting me to a private conversation with the head or HR.

I know they work slowly. I'm still waiting. I'm still expecting a no, to be honest.