Monday, March 8 is International Women’s Day. A day that arose in the twentieth century when women stood up for their rights. To celebrate this day, we would like to put the spotlight on 5 women. From Monday to Friday we publish a portrait of a strong and tough woman who works in what used to be considered a profession for men. This is part 2.
Samantha Vogt works at CDS Electronics and is responsible for a number of production lines where parts of the UNI-GR1 are produced. Working in a factory and automatically assembling devices is no longer a task for men. Samantha proves that every day.
“This is not the profession I dreamed of growing up and I do not have a technical background either. I studied Pedagogy and couldn’t find a job in this field after I finished this. During my studies I already did a holiday job here and after graduating, I was asked to continue working at Azteco, now CDS Electronics. I did and now I do not necessarily see myself returning to pedagogy, not only because I then have to brush up my knowledge, but also because I actually like this work much more. More variety especially.
For example, I am responsible for one of the production lines where parts of the UNI-GR1 from marXact are produced. We work on this line with a team of 3, two women and one man. Most of the people working on the lines are women. That’s not what most people expect and I like that. I think that’s because you have to have fine motorics for this job, we see that it works just a bit better with women. When a machine cannot assemble or assemble something, we do it manually and with a steady hand. Because of the better motorics and steady hand, you see many women who work in the small assembly at our company, for example in assembling the printed circuit boards.
My female colleagues whom work on work preparation, wrote the program for the first production of UNI-GR1’s. You also check if everything is properly attached to the product or whether adjustments are necessary to the machine process. I checked and optimized that program. From the supporting part of my job, I made a new prototype of the UNI to test changes in the production process and then implement the improvements. I also test whether the line can move faster and check the products once again, for example whether the soldering is firmly in place.
Soon I will be more involved with prototypes and move towards work preparation. I like that and am ready for the next step, for a new challenge. I will also stay in my current team and “hop” between support and machine support. I was employed here for 2 months and suddenly was on my own, but it went well. After that, I learned so much more, like recently about checking the housing. Maybe I would like to follow a course in electrical engineering, but for now I focus on my new challenge and want to learn as much as possible from those colleagues.
People are often surprised when I tell them what kind of job I have, especially when I also tell them that I have studied pedagogy. After I explain it all, they understand and I receive good feedback, people often like what I do. To women who think about a profession like mine, I want to say that you should be and remain yourself. That is most important. Do what you like, what someone else thinks is not important. Yes, sometimes there are men who think that a woman cannot do this job well, ignore them. You know where your strength lies, they do not keep up with the current times. If you really want something, you can do anything!
