EXBERLINER Issue 153, October 2016

REGULARS
Start-ups
By Sophie Atkinson
Working
the system
A day of custom
shoemaking is
one of the many
Descapes on offer.
Looking to escape the daily, fulltime
grind? Whether you’re looking
to try on a new career or share your
job with a buddy, Berlin start-ups
Descape and Tandemploy promise
to solve your work woes... how
convincingly, though? By Sophie Atkinson
Descape
If you’re anything like yours truly, the onset
of autumn is giving you some heavy
back-to-school vibes and with them,
renewed focus on all things career-related.
You’re in Berlin, you’re part of the digital native
generation, so there’s every chance you
might look to start-ups for salvation.
Descape offers work placements across the
globe for money. Yup, you heard that right:
you’re paying to work on your holiday. This
is theoretically because the jobs on offer are
dream jobs. This isn’t you fetching coffees
and doing photocopying for a marketing
department, but the opportunity to “try out”
being a chocolatier, a llama breeder, a sailor, a
vintner or even a ranger at a game reserve in
Namibia. Plus, as co-founder Lena Felixberger
clarifies, while the experience is authentic (“If
you do a Descape at a bakery, obviously you
have to get up early”), you shouldn’t be doing
the gruntwork. “The idea is that you get an
insight but you also have a really good experience
because you paid for it.”
Markus Hoffmann is the co-founder of the
Costa Rica-based project Aiko Logi Tours,
which offers Descape guests the chance to
become rainforest rangers: planting trees,
maintaining paths and reintegrating different
kinds of animals. He argues that Descape
works well for both sides: “It helps finance
the rainforest preservation, but Descapers
also show a special interest in our work.
Since many Descapers stay for extended
time periods, we can give them real projects,
which in turn also speeds up our work.”
Still, chasing your bliss doesn’t always
come cheap. The cheapest Descape costs
only €35, but the job’s not exactly thrilling:
you’re paying to squat a cabin and cook for
hikers in France for a day. Compare this
with the most expensive work placement,
which offers Descapers the opportunity to
make their own pair of shoes in Baden-Baden
for €2880 – ouch. But the role that really
induced a spasm of eye-rolling was “barista”.
You can pay the Berlin School of Coffee €260
to learn how to make, well, coffee. Dude,
ask your closest barista friend (it’s Berlin,
This isn’t you doing
photocopying for a marketing
department, but
the opportunity to “try
out” being a chocolatier
or a llama breeder.
we all have one) for tips instead and spend
the money you’ve saved on a trip to Rome to
suck down some really impressive caffeine.
This said, most Descapes seem to be priced
around the €200 mark, which isn’t that big of
a sum to invest towards some Oprah-esque
dream following, or a holiday spent with
exotic animals.
If you’re looking for a longer-term work
solution, Tandemploy might prove a tempting
alternative. The premise: split a full-time job
with another person so that you can do interesting,
fulfilling work while still having time
to do... whatever else it is you do in Berlin.
Co-founder Jana Tepe set up the company after
working in recruitment, and her lightbulb
moment came when two candidates made
a “tandem” application for one role: they
would both work the job part-time, creating
one full-time candidate. Two days later Tepe
and her colleague Anna Kaiser quit their jobs
at the recruitment company to found their
own startup, hoping to popularise a more
flexible form of working.
The free service offers vacancies from
companies across Germany that are open to
tandem workers, and allows people to team
up and apply for jobs with fellow workers
in their industry. Tepe argues this benefits
employers every bit as much as it does
employees, with employers getting “what recruiters
usually look for: someone who can
speak five languages, who’s really creative
but can also be analytical” by filling the one
role with two candidates. It’s also pretty
good for the employees: part-time roles, by
law in Germany, all come with the health
insurance, holiday leave and sick leave you’d
associate with a non-freelance position. The
number of days of paid leave assigned is proportional
to how much you work, so you’d
only get half the normal amount of holiday
if you split the job 50-50, but who needs
holidays if you’re only working half time,
anyway? Plus, 20 of the companies who use
the service are based in Berlin so you won’t
have to relocate for your new part-time
working life. So far, so blissful.
50
EXBERLINER 153