Outlandish

This challenge has been going around in Facebook for a while already but I’m jumping on board only now. It’s been funny and interesting to read people’s first work experiences, it has given a little window to see how they have ended up where they are now, what sort of path have they traveled. And there have been some very surprising ones also, that I would never have imagined that some of my friends would have done as work. Somehow this has (as far as I know) been concentrated on the Western world and especially young people living in Nordic countries. It is a fact that in Nordic countries people start working and move out of their parents’ place much younger than in other parts of Europe. So quite many of my friends can’t even list as many jobs as seven because their first work experience is from after they graduated University.  But I sure can! #1 Library assistant My first ever job was a one-month-long summer job for the City of Turku. I was 13 so legal...

There's been a lot of talk about digitalisation and how it will change the work life as we know it: robots will take over an even bigger portion of people's tasks in factories and manufacturing plants in all industries. That doesn't mean, though, that there would be less work for people. It just means that the nature of work changes, manual labour decreases and is replaced by surveillance tasks, administrative work moves online, etc. One change that is very much a reflection of the 21st century work culture and has been very well implemented in most companies where it has been possible is home office, working from home. I was introduced to this way of working in Slovakia working for one of the biggest IT companies in the world. And now I wouldn't accept a job if it didn't have the home office option included in the terms.   Especially in administrative jobs and executive positions where the only tool you need is a laptop and a phone home office is a...

Here in Slovakia I have become familiar with the concept of Secret Santa. It is a popular Christmas time activity at work places and I assume it originates from the States. The main idea is to lift at random a colleague's name from a hat. Your job then is to buy something small to this colleague as a Christmas present. The presents are later dealt out by the Secret Santa and the point is that you don't know from whom your gift is.  Of course if you get your best friend's name from the hat you'd probably buy something personal and maybe attach a card on it to notify them that it's from you. Our team has a bit of a grumpy reputation; not eager to participate in any stupid team activities. But for this most people were totally in (of course there were the odd two people who tried to squirm out... I didn't give them a choice :D). I've mentioned before how hard buying Christmas gifts is. Especially because I want the gifts to be useful and s...

Halloween I love! Even though in reality it's a very Christian time of the year when you should go to cemetery and light a candle for someone who has passed, but for me it's all about a world-scale costume party. And I loove costume parties! And at Halloween everybody makes an effort. This year I had a two-day Halloween, one in the office and one with friends on Saturday, and because I am a superficial person I couldn't wear the same outfit for two days in a row. As the Fun Team team leader I was responsible for organizing some Halloween happening in the office on Friday. So, the obvious option was a costume competition. Fun Team also took it upon itself to decorate the office in the Halloween's spirit. And we went all out! Even though we had to pay for all that stuff ourselves, it was more important to make the office presentable. We even had Halloween-appropriate music prepared, candy and cookies resembling various body parts and spider's web every...

I've been rafting altogether once in my life and despite the rafting itself being very enjoyable the experience as a whole was traumatic. Mainly because the Finnish summer decided to show it's full wrath to us all day long with literally pouring  rain on our necks. On top of that, because of a storm couple days previously, there were fallen tree trunks lying across the river and we had to carry the boats over them. What made bad even worse was the day's meal of mac and cheese, which is one food that I truly hate!  This time I felt confident in the fact that the trip would be much more successful an experience than that time 10 years ago. 36 degrees, sunshine and such a wide river that no tree would ever reach from one shore to the other.  A bus took us over the border to Hainburg, Austria. Behind the castle there we found canoes ready and waiting. A quick safety reminder (in Slovak of course....), life vests on and boats in the water! I was a bit ...

I knew when I moved here that people who come from other countries don't tend to stay much longer than a year. I wasn't planning on staying longer than a year or two either. Nonetheless now that the people who moved here around the same time as I did are starting to move on again I'm feeling a bit moody. Even though, thank goodness for the weather, my moodiness is under control most of the time.  I know that they are hiring new people all the time here but still I doubt that, whoever turns up, I won't have the same connection with them as I have with these people here now. I've encountered some amazing people and made absolutely wonderful friends. On the other hand I wasn't expecting to find such good friends anywhere else after leaving Scotland, but I was wrong. And for once I'm happy to say that :)   There's one thing I've noticed lately all around that I have NEVER seen in Finland and I can't imagine ever seeing there. Here...

I was so hoping that this winter I would completely avoid the snow and ice-covered pavements just because I am not spending the winter months in Finland. But no... unfortunately the white shite reaches these levels every year as well. Although not in such quantities as in Northern Europe, thankfully. I've never been one of those people who run to the window smiling like crazy when the first snow falls. OK, fine, snow makes nature look beautiful but practically it makes life extremely difficult. Either there's too much of it or if there's not so much, all roads are covered in this uneven, trambled mixture of snow and ice: definite death to ankles and knees. Having gone through couple winters in the UK I must take my hat off for how this yearly phenomenon was received here. Nobody went to panic, shops, schools and offices were still open like normally, no major setbacks in traffic (as far as I know) and no people running around like headless chicken shouting ...

So far I've seen Slovaks and Finns to be very similar in culture and behaviour. But on Friday I had a cold reality call when it turned out that the salaries were nowhere to be seen. And what in Finland would end up in big headlines is taken with complete ignorance here. Ever since our teams were outsourced there have been problems from switching between work systems to salaries. Last month the salaries were late for one day and we were ensured that it would never happen again. Of course we believed it. Now it turns out that we shouldn't have: salaries were late for days. In Finland you go to work, remember it's the pay day, check your account and if it turns out that the salary hasn't even been transferred yet, you would turn on your heels and return home... Who would work without being paid? Apparently Slovaks would.  I was so furious I couldn't concentrate on anything, it was just so against all my principles to keep working when other people i...

Ever since I joined the Fun Team I've become very close with the Nordic and UK customer care teams, which means that I've been able to participate in things that my own team doesn't arrange, like the Halloween costume competition and the Christmas party yesterday. Officially I wasn't "allowed" to go because I work under another company these days. But I was offered free entry in exchange for helping with the registration. Obviously I jumped for the chance!  After one of the crazy-busiest work days in recorded history I ran home to change and then rushed across the road to the party venue. Our shift at the entrance only lasted for half an hour which left us plenty of time to concentrate on the main thing: dancing and wine. I haven't been dancing for a long time so obviously I had the time of my life. And what was super awesome was the amount of men on the dance floor! I've never seen so many men dancing.  Did I already mention I had ...