Customer-Facing Operations

Hospitality operations at WDR Funkhaus in Cologne — the broadcast center of Westdeutscher Rundfunk. Managing high-volume service across café, bar, and restaurant during live broadcast days, coordinating front-of-house under time pressure with rotating event schedules. This wasn't a design role. It was where I learned how customer-facing systems work — and break — under daily operational pressure. The barista who watches the same service failure happen every morning and can't get anyone to fix it understands customer experience at a level no journey map captures. I was that person. Concurrent with career transition from spatial design into applied design research. Alongside retail positions at Diesel and Moleskine — premium brands where I observed how product storytelling, spatial merchandising, and service culture interact at the point of sale. That practitioner's perspective became foundational to everything I built later at Grau. The difference between mapping a customer journey from the outside and having lived inside one — feeling the friction in your body — is the difference between analysis and understanding.