On the way, she falls off her bike, loses a tooth and turns up for the interview with a swollen lip and several abrasions. This interview even is conducted by the boss Dr Georg Kress himself, who is known to be strict. He reacts calmly, simply saying “it will all be healed by the time she is a grandmother” and gives her the apprenticeship contract. A few months after starting her apprenticeship in spring 1962, she actually wants to drop out. The personnel manager therefore summons Regina Pfitzer's parents and makes a clear statement: “The child will finish her apprenticeship and then she can do what she wants. That's it.” Regina Pfitzer obeys - and has no idea that she will stay at MAPAL for 45 years.
At the beginning she takes over various office tasks. She later acquires additional qualifications as an industrial business administrator and as an educator, helps to set up the export department and becomes its manager. During her long time at MAPAL, she experiences and supports numerous technical changes - from telex, fax machines and early booking machines to the first PCs up to sophisticated merchandise management programmes and the communication via e-mail. Despite all the changes and the continuous growth of the company, she enjoys working at MAPAL and is passionate about it. Not least because of the family atmosphere and the feeling of togetherness among all employees. “MAPAL was my company,” she remembers, “people simply identified with it, it was never the MAPAL, it was our MAPAL.”
All the more Regina Pfitzer meets and falls in love with her husband at MAPAL. The family atmosphere also reflects in the fact that the senior boss Dr Georg Kress attends the wedding in 1970 and that Dr Dieter Kress invites the Pfitzer couple, who had long since retired, to his big party to celebrate his 70th birthday in 2012, along with many others. Although they are on holiday, they gladly accepted the invitation. “We felt the need to be there.”
