Welcome to the Team to...

Jordan Sunley, our English translator in Spain. Read all about how his work with exact! and flexword, him getting to know the rest of the team, and his visits at our office in Mannheim!

Success and development in a business aren’t just about revenue and sales, they are also about people. I joined the flexword and exact! team towards the beginning of 2024 and am very happy to have done so. My duties span across both flexword and exact!, which is great because together they form a very interesting international melting pot of cultures and languages. I joined as a CRM (client relations manager) with flexword and translator with exact!, so I have had the pleasure of learning and improving two different skill sets whilst working with both teams. I handle SAP-related translations, which are handled by exact!, or more specifically by my colleague Tina Dolezel, who showed me the ropes and is responsible not only for her own SAP translation projects but also for maintaining customer information and handling aspects of project management. It’s a great team to be a part of, both professionally and socially.

In our post-pandemic world, working from home has become a new reality. Just as it has for me. I live in Spain and was thrilled when I was able to join this team in Mannheim from the comfort of my own home. That said, it’s also great to discuss work and connect with someone in person, compared to the famous Zoom (or Teams or Slack, or any of the other applications we have nowadays). Thankfully, I have been invited several times to join my colleagues in Mannheim, not only for the sake of physically being there but also to get to know them better in person. I did miss going for a coffee with someone!

Of course, I was able to discuss work-related topics with them in person, but that was not the only point of my visit. As I said, I was there to get to know my team mates better. And I was not the only one. Other colleagues from outside of Mannheim were also invited and we were able to mingle and strengthen these interpersonal relationships even more face-to-face. Antonella, who is from Argentina but lives in Berlin, was one of the colleagues who came and I was even able to speak Spanish with her. That meant I went from speaking German in Spain to speaking Spanish in Germany! flexword is so international that I can go to the office and spend my day switching from one language to another. Amongst the flexword and exact! colleagues, our arsenal includes English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian and many more!

They also organized great after-work activities, from bowling competitions to karaoke sessions, and even horror-theme escape rooms, which we did eventually escape from. I am slowly exploring all that Mannheim and my favorite, Ludwigshafen, have to offer. I highly recommend!

These opportunities are not only for internal employees but also for our external team mates. In July, during one of my visits, exact! organized a little get-together with some of our regular longstanding translators. They were invited to spend the afternoon with us in our Mannheim abode, where we mingled in the communal area, exchanged ideas and, more importantly, had the chance to get to know each other better. It was especially important for our experienced external translators to get to know newer colleagues, like me, who they may have only known so far as a name in an email. It is great to put a face to a name when we work so often together!

I brought a variety of Turrón from Spain, Antonella brought some chocolate alfajores (pastries) from Argentina and Katharina (exact! project manager) made and served us all waffles, which were delicious! It was great to be able to savor all these worldwide gourmet delights whilst chatting with my colleagues. exact! definitely knows how to throw a great afternoon tea!

These moments of social interaction really strengthen our ties as colleagues and friends and I was very happy to be a part of this. I am looking forward to coming back to Mannheim and continuing my adventure!