GABLER GmbH

I'll talk about GABLER in just a second.  First, I want to point out something that's been bothering me.

Why we say, "Should I try and save a spot for you?"  or, "Go and buy me a few turnips?"  Do we actually say these things?  Or are those just bad habits I've picked up?  Especially with try- I don't understand the replacement of "to" with "and", especially considering how ubiquitous the first person + infinitive construction is.  Why should "try" be different?  "Try and do" doesn't make any sense at all, when you really stop to think about it...

Okay.  GABLER.  I started my Praktikum (which, once again, is similar to an internship) on Monday, and I'm working at a firm called GABLER here in Luebeck.  GABLER builds submarines and thermoform machines- machines that make plastic trays, cups, joghurt containers, etc. You can find GABLER's website here.

On Monday and Tuesday I was over in Advertising and PR, yesterday and today I've been in Sales.  I think next week I mosey on to Quality Control, but I'm not sure.

I've actually been doing a lot of translation work here, in several different departments.  People have heard that there's an American in the house and call up 'der Praktikant'.  I don't mind, though- it's nice to be useful.

For the last two days I've been doing a little bit of database management and updating, too- GABLER has three databases and only one is really up to date.  I've been updating prices in the other two.  I wouldn't say it's exciting, but it's not bad work, either.

Today I had even had an extra project- I was given a printout with a bunch of costs and variables and had to duplicate the processes- so, for instance, I'd be given X and Z and have to calculate variable Y which connects the two, and then program it into excel.  That was actually pretty fun, and at the end of the day I had a pretty impressive looking Excel spreadsheet that could calculate revenues, profits, percent profits, total costs, material costs, and human labor from just a few of the variables.  I'm not sure how well I explained that, but in any case, it was rewarding.