In Albania, my last role was Cluster Manager. I ran the operations of a flagship store in Tirana and coordinated part of the store network. In Germany, my first job was delivering parcels.
The series "Ten years close to the work" starts with that contrast. Not to make it dramatic, and not to tell a migration story. It starts there because nothing I write afterwards makes sense without it: how I think when I have an operational problem in front of me, how I lead people, and why I see processes from both sides.
I did not take over the flagship store ready-made. I was part of building it from zero to opening day, coordinating architects, carpenters, painters and the fit-out crews. Then came sales, the service standard, the customer experience, the operational organisation and the team: eight sales staff, four cashiers and one assistant. We built the company's first online sales website and its first e-commerce team. In the same period the network was restructured. Two underperforming stores were closed and the business was concentrated more on the flagship.
Before that, as General Sales Manager at a distributor of household appliances, I had led wholesale: a network of 61 active resellers and a structure that included the warehouse, B2B sales, accounting, the technical team and customer service. Before I left Albania, I was used to making decisions, leading people and being accountable for business results.
Then came Germany, and with it a list of jobs I do not hide.
From November 2021 to June 2022 I worked for a last-mile delivery company: I started as a parcel courier and later moved into dispatch. From July 2022 to April 2023 I worked as a steward in a hotel. In May 2023 I started as a night auditor at a hotel in Frankfurt. From December 2023 to October 2024, alongside night audit, I delivered parcels again, and from October 2024 to January 2025 I worked as a care assistant (Pflegehelfer). In January 2025 I went back to last mile, this time as Team Leader On Road. In June 2025 I became Area Manager.
I have no reason to hide the jobs as a parcel courier, a steward or a care assistant. Quite the opposite. Without them, the road back into management makes no sense.
In Albania I led people, stores and processes. In Germany I had to take the van, drive the route, respect the time and the process, and do the job like any other employee. The title I used to have no longer mattered. That was the real zero. Not because my experience had disappeared, but because nobody was obliged to recognise it just because of my past.
Some things helped me straight away, because they do not depend on a title: operational discipline, the relationship with the customer, the ability to understand a process and see where the waste is, working under pressure and being ready to take responsibility. I had moved from retail to wholesale, from running a store to the warehouse, B2B sales, e-commerce and leading teams. That helped me understand new industries quickly.
One thing I had to leave behind: the idea that previous experience automatically guarantees the same position in a new place. I could not say "I was a manager, so I should be a manager". I had to learn the system from the inside, from the operational level. I had to prove it again.
The language was the same. When I arrived, German was not my working language, and I had to build it while I worked. In 2025 I took the Deutsch-Test für Zuwanderer at level B1: 45 out of 45 in listening and reading, 15 out of 20 in writing, 97 out of 100 in speaking. I did not wait for my German to be perfect before moving forward professionally. I worked, communicated and learned at the same time.
What I gained in these years was not only the language. I saw the work from the side of the person who has to carry out the process.
As a parcel courier you understand differently what time means, the route, the pressure, a process that does not work, or a decision taken by someone who is not on the ground. As a steward you see the hotel from a completely different level: physical work, rhythm, cooperation between departments, and how much the guest's experience depends on people the guest may never see. As a night auditor I saw another side: what is left after a working day when everyone else has gone. The errors, the payments, the reports, the complaints, the no-shows, the checks and the handover.
When I went back to leadership in last mile, I was not leading people only from theory. I had been on the other side of the process myself. You will find that behind every essay in this series.
If someone who has been a boss asks me how to start again from zero, I would not tell them it is easy. I would tell them not to confuse losing the title with losing their professional value. A title can disappear in a single day, when you change country, company or industry. What you have learned does not.
But there is one condition. Do not walk into the new job expecting others to respect what you used to be. Start showing what you can do where you are. I went from leading people and businesses in Albania to delivering parcels and working as a steward in Germany, then to night audit, to Team Leader and to Area Manager. If I had thought some jobs were beneath me, I might never have learned what I needed to rise again.
Do not cling to the chair you used to have. Take with you what you learned while sitting in it.