There are lots of reasons why people choose to work the permanent night shift. For Fabienne, it’s kickboxing. Four days a week, she dons her padded boxing gloves and skips around the rings of the “Académie Européenne des Sports” in Strasbourg. The 49-year-old kicks and punches, bobs and weaves, and repeats her movements until she becomes completely calm. “I love it,” she says. “Kickboxing uses practically every muscle in my body, and helps me clear my head.” She does the night shift to make sure she has enough time for her favorite sport alongside her work. Fabienne is part of our team Pick, which gathers goods for customer orders from our picking warehouse.
Four girls and two boys between the ages of six and eight, who Fabienne – the French national kickboxing champion of 1999 – has been coaching as a volunteer for the past year, also benefit from her shift pattern. The children are from Hautepierre, one of Strasbourg’s more deprived areas full of high-rise apartment blocks, and are considered hyperactive. “When we train, they can get rid of all that excess energy,” Fabienne says. She practices boxing and kicking with them using punching bags, and teaches them not only how to coordinate their arm and leg movements and to concentrate, but also how to increase their self-confidence. It’s a challenging task: When the children get bored, they become impatient, so the volunteer coach always has to come up with new ideas to keep them interested.
Fabienne was similarly restless, she recalls, before taking up kickboxing more than 30 years ago. Nowadays, she is calmness personified in her role in Pick. Fabienne loves to pass on her passion for kickboxing to others, before working off some energy for a few hours herself.
At Zalando, we want to support our employees in their volunteer work. That's why we give all Zalando employees two days off a year with full pay for volunteer work. Find out more about Zalando's social commitment here and check our current job openings if you want to be part of the Zalando journey.
