CONTRIBUTION WRITTEN ON 10. October 2018 BY Luise Rueffer

How I came to Wempe

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, they say. My sister was already working at a jeweller and told me about her tasks and the most beautiful products. I was completely mesmerised.
To me, watches have always been more than just an adornment, but I did not fully understand their true value until I visited the Wempe store on Maximilianstraße in Munich. The master watchmaker there explained the particulars of the movements and what craftsmanship and finesse goes into each and every watch. I knew then that I wanted to learn and understand this craft. This is how I came to watchmaking and how my enthusiasm for the craft was ignited.

During my apprenticeship in the Wempe training workshop in Glashütte, I was introduced to the incredible variety of different watches and their many extraordinary functions. I learned how to work with premium watches and was taught step by step how to repair a watch, regulate it and manufacture new parts for the movements.

After my apprenticeship, I deliberately chose the Wempe service workshop in Hamburg (Europe’s largest independent watch repair workshop), so that I could continue working with watches. Of course this is possible at the showrooms as well, but at the service workshop I can work on a watch from start to finish, take it apart, find the fault, reassemble it, regulate it and close it up again. It is an incredible feeling for me to turn over a finished watch and know that I can make a customer happy.

Another advantage of the workshop is its location in the most beautiful city in Germany, so I was able to move from the Elbe River in Dresden to the Elbe in Hamburg.
Starting work at the workshop was very pleasant. My colleagues there welcomed me with open arms as a “Hamburg newbie” and are always there whenever I need help with anything.

At the moment I am in what you might call a fourth year of apprenticeship. That means I am given plenty of time to become familiar with the different facets of work. Here in our Hamburg workshop, the Rolex brand is the “starter brand”. That alone is extraordinary, because right away you are allowed to work on one of the world’s top brands.

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