Ciprian Podină: I came to Aramis in January ‘98. I lived close by, I was 18, so I had to get a job. There were about 15 people here then. At that time, people were much more sought after, people were not hired as easily, you would wait even a month until you got an answer. I was the happiest man when I got hired. It’s the most beautiful memory. I stayed, I’m the kind of person who keeps working. I liked that the salary was a salary, it came on time, the money was good… it was as if even the people were different, more serious, it didn’t happen to be absent from work, not to announce, not to keep working. When we went out during the break, we all went out, the team was united.
Raluca Podină: My mother brought me to Aramis, also from the age of 18, in 2000. My mother was working here, at the assembly section, in the oldest section there was. Only 2-3 people remain from her time. There used to be many colleagues of the same age, we knew each other well, we celebrated our birthdays together, March 8th – Women’s Day, both after work and during the lunch break we were together.
Ciprina Podină: I started in transport, but I liked to learn, to see many kinds of work, you don’t know when you need it. I, then, went on to the polishing section, and kept working in the field for five years. There were different times, it was harder, I was outworn when I left the shift, I worked on full auto, until the moment when the shift ended. I then became a foreman, I worked in the sofa department, and then they put me in charge of the shift. I liked it, it’s a job with many responsibilities, you have to take care of people, how you put them to work, what you give them to do etc. Here I grew up, here I became a responsible adult, here I learned to work with people. I wouldn’t change my job, I could retire here.
Raluca Podină: We even met at work, we were also colleagues in the department, I did retouching, he did polishing. We met, he returned from the army and we stayed together. Now we work in different shifts, we have two boys, aged 8 and 12, and we do our schedule after them. We got used to working in three shifts after all these years. Now they are older, it’s easier. I worked mostly in the sofa department, from there I went twice on maternity leave, then I got to the foam department. I have been working here for seven years, and since the beginning of the year I have been doing technical quality control.
Ciprian Podină: I have been shift leader for seven years, but I have never had problems with people. I like to talk openly with them, to get along, to let things happen, to reconcile them. If you tell him at first, „You’re not allowed to do that, you’re not allowed to do that”, he won’t work the same way for and with you. The most important thing for a colleague is to stick to the schedule and do his job. This is where we, the shift leaders, manage. You are industrious in vain, you do what I tell you, but you do not come to do the work. Only once I wanted to give up, some new people advanced, there were misunderstandings, but I solved them. It’s a lot of stress with people, with production, it’s getting harder and harder to find people and keep them. It’s easy to tell a person to go home, but it doesn’t work that way. As a shift leader, I get my hands dirty too, I help when needed. What’s the deal with that, if you’re a shift leader you just sit aside and walk around?