Simply the best hobby in the world
Annelie Hagen is a full-time electronics technician for industrial engineering, but that doesn’t stop her from devoting herself to her dream job, driving a truck, on a part-time basis. That’s why she regularly travels on German roads with a tanker trailer.
Relaxing where others work – to a certain extent, this applies to professional trucker Annelie from Wahlstedt. When she is on the road as a back-up driver for the company Klemm-Trans Heilck at the weekend, she also uses the time in the cab to switch off from the week gone by. ‘I have time for myself and my trucker freedom,’ says the 31-year-old, happily. She already started to dream of driving as a child. At some point, she decided she wanted to sit in a truck herself. And that’s what she is doing now: for almost two years, Annelie has been transporting milk and milk products from dairies to industrial companies throughout Germany.
‘For me, it’s simply the best hobby in the world.’
She had no fear of the challenges of the industry: she had already learned to get involved and assert herself in her job as an electrical engineer. ‘You just have to show the men that you can manoeuvre a 40-tonne truck, then it’s fine,’ she laughs. Her light-heartedness is contagious, so she also enjoys the contact she has with many other truckers and the opportunity to discuss experiences.
Lion preferred
She speaks of love at first sight when she remembers her first encounter with the company’s new MAN TGX. She often switches between makes, but the MAN TGX has clearly made the biggest impression on her. ‘There are a lot of things I really like,’ she says. ‘The angular design, which is underlined by the lamp brackets, the driver-friendly operation of the driving systems with the multi-rotary knob, the outstanding sound system and the large amount of space for the driver,’ make up her top four.
Her favourite MAN? By a distance, the MAN TGX Individual Lion S: ‘I think the seats with the red seat belt look particularly good and the exterior is simply unbeatable. It’s a lion with a lot of bite,’ says Annelie. That made her all the happier to see the current version of her favourite MAN in person at the IAA Transportation recently. That was a highlight in itself, but in her case, it was made even better – thanks to the appearance of Julia Beitler, of whom Annelie is a big fan. She suddenly appeared in front of Annelie at the booth to surprise her personally: ‘I was completely overwhelmed and at first could not believe that something like that was happening to me,’ says Annelie. ‘I was really happy that Julia made me feel like I was not only a fan, but also a fellow trucker.’
Sometimes the unexpected does happen. Annelie also includes her first meeting with her boss at Klemm-Trans Heilck in that category. ‘I applied for my driving licence in 2020 and became aware of my current employer’s company before I received it.’ What followed still gives the young driver goosebumps: ‘On my first drive after my lessons, I was at the wheel of a three-day-old, brand-new truck with a new trailer as well.’
Do not dream your life, but live your dream and fight for it – for Annelie, her motto for life has clearly worked out, and she likes to pass it on to others. Ultimately, it’s all about trying things out to see if they suit you, she explains. That is how she herself turned a dream into a hobby, which has now become ‘pure passion with an element of addiction’ on all the routes she drives in her truck.
