International in Vienna

I now work for a corporation in Vienna that provides services throughout Europe. The experience is really amazing because of how international it is.
 
First, the company language is English. Understand that the company is headquartered in Austria, but despite that, the corporate language is English. That means all Austrians who work there must have an excellent command of English. And they do! I am so impressed with my co-workers. They pull out English vocabulary that I think some native speakers wouldn’t use.
 
The company also recruits internationally. One of my supervisors was recruited from Israel. A current position that is open is searching for candidates throughout Europe.
 
Working in the company is wonderfully interesting. Meetings are a mix of German and English, mainly because I am the only native English speaker and I am trying to improve my German. We start in German, and while the meeting is going on, I actually take notes in English. I don’t know how I do it really. The ear is accepting German, the pen is writing in English. Somewhere in between my brain is translating, but it doesn’t feel like that. If I over-think it, I am sure I would confuse myself. Because I get tired as the meeting progresses, I then start speaking in English. My co-workers don’t even blink an eye and switch right over to English without missing a beat. Very impressive!
 
I have to do some writing for my job. There is a fantastic process of writing what I want to write, submitting it to the company intranet, and within a week, getting my words translated into 25 different languages. Now that’s just cool.
 
I’ve never worked for an international company in the United States. Yes, I sold products to Canada and had to have text translated to French, but that’s about it. I find it difficult to imagine that an American company that calls itself global or international because it has multiple locations throughout the world, is as international as a company in Europe like the one that I am working for.

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