Marco Elsner
A workplace with good prospects
Marco Elsner likes places where he has a good view of the countryside. His workplace is one of them.
He can gaze at the green Raumbach valley towards Reichenbach from the window of his office at DATEC Netzwerke & Druckerlösungen GmbH, which is located on the Kaltes Feld industrial and business park. The native of the Vogtland region never thought that he would be enjoying this view today.
“After completing my final school exams in Reichenbach, I studied business administration and engineering at the Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg in Friedrichshafen and then worked for an automobile supplier in Austria, in the Vorarlberg region,” the 22-year-old explains. This course is roughly the equivalent of a degree from a university of cooperative education in Saxony. This company was actually the subject of a takeover bid, “but only in the technology department and I had already decided to work in sales.”
As a result, he wrote many applications in 2016, received offers, including some from Bavaria, but decided that the difference in wages between Eastern and Western Germany was not that great, particularly as the cost of living in Western Germany and Austria is much higher. However, Marco Elsner learned the hard way that the degree of disparity is sometimes fairly large in the Vogtland region. “I made it clear to some companies that I was not prepared to work for the money that they were offering!”
The offer from DATEC was just right. “Product Sales Manager Software” is what is written on his business card. He works in data and document management. Software solutions are developed, often for small and medium-sized enterprises – for example, for incoming invoices until they are filed digitally. He is able to see what is really happening behind the scenes at different companies, complete process analyses and point out new options to enable each firm to make savings with a tailor-made software solution. DATEC is expanding its offers and gearing up its business for the future. “That’s exciting and appealing,” he adds.
The new company premises at Kaltes Feld, to which DATEC moved from Netzschkau in 2016, has three positive outlooks for Marco Elsner: one overlooking the countryside, one for his ongoing professional development and one regarding the possibility of being able to fulfil his great passion.
“That’s music. I decided to play the accordion when I was still in the first class at school and I was already standing on a stage at the age of eight.”
He still loves these performances now – at village festivals, weddings, association festivals. His Silberbach accordion with all its technical sophistication and the perfect sound equipment provides everything that he needs as a solo entertainer to create a great atmosphere. He prepares his performances down to the finest detail, adapts to his audience’s wishes and tries to enthuse more and more young people with appealing songs and also plays Ostrock – the title for East German rock. He sometimes spends six hours on the stage without having sung or played a single song more than once.
He has his own apartment in Reichenbach, but he does not seem to be there very often. In addition to his professional engagements and his own performances, the 22-year-old enjoys attending smallish events.
“There are many wonderful events where you can meet people like the “office concerts”, he says, expressing his enthusiasm for Reichenbach and the Vogtland region. “This is my home, especially as I feel so good in a rural region. I have many friends here,” says Marco Elsner, who is glad to have ‘returned to his roots’.