hauptsache man hat arbeit
 
I am a company artist at ContiTech.
ContiTech is part of the Continental AG Group, which specializes in the production of tyres. ContiTech also produces other articles that are made of rubber such as V-belts, multiple V-ribbed belts and rubber timing belts for example. Or as Mr Timm says in a nutshell: "Things that seal, insulate, feather, muffle, protect and enclose." Mr Timm is the boss of the communication department. Which must be a difficult task, as what can there be to say about profiles, air suspensions and those peculiar belts? Tyres are pretty flashy compared to them, says Mr Timm.
I applied for the position of company artist at ContiTech as if this profession existed. My offer was to carry out all services that the staff of ContiTech thought appropriate for a company artist. I also wanted to be available for all the company departments.

  I was once invited to talk about the project at a school in Hanover. The children said that if they were the manager of Conti, they would have offered me the rates of an unskilled worker - that is if they employed me at all. For, as the job I applied for and the profession I wanted to exercise didn't actually exist, it would naturally have to be classed as an unskilled profession and the pay would be accordingly low.
My application was accepted. But I was not to be an employee of ContiTech, said Mr Timm, and I shouldn't say I was either. It's a very sensitive issue - art in the company. Whatever would the public or staff think if Conti says it keeps a close eye on costs, but splurges out on a company artist?
In my interview the manager thoughtfully prepared me for the fact that art wouldn't be of much interest to most members of the staff. After all, they are technicians, chemists, physicists and businessmen, said Mr Lerch, and they are here to work and not to think about art. But hey, that shouldn't frighten me off!