April 26, 2011

History of working hours

Back in the day, even the women were hotter.
Working time is the period of time that an individual spends at paid occupational labor. Many countries have regulations for a duration of work week, and for example in Finland the maximum hours of work week is 40. In 2008 Finnish people worked 40,3 hours a week which means that supposedly we love working overtime. Still we work less than Europeans in average (41,8 hours a week in 2008). Austrians work 44 hours a week and Irish for only 40 hours a week. Well, this seems decent, right? Let's look some figures outside Europe - Chinese work for 2200 hours a year, Japanese around 2000 hours. Now I'm going to make a guess how this will affect these countries. China will have (and probably already has) a lot of problems with depression and stress. Japanese already has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and this is mainly because of depression and social pressure.


For long time anthropologists thought that hunter-gathering of our ancestors was a full day job. Actually these people worked less than five hours a day, while dividing the day to approximately 2 hour periods of gathering food or hunting game. "Nine-to-five" mindset wasn't invented until this fucker called George F. Johnson announced  that no American should have to work more than 40 hours per week. At the industrial age there was no regulation on work week and it could be anything from 2 hours to 16 hours per day. So why this system doesn't work anymore? Work has changed. Less and less people are working at mass industry, doing repetitive jobs at the assembly line. Today you have to be CREATIVE. This is so essential at the IT sector that it's sad when executives and managers don't realize this. You can't force creativity. 


I would like to see a person who writes good code 40 hours a week. These freaks probably exist, but I've never met anyone. I don't know how good point examples from movies make, but I'll use them anyway. In 'Social Network' by Fincher, Facebook was invented over time. It was not big fucking 'Eureka!' moment after tedious sitting at desk, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. All those ideas came from real life situations.


I really think that we should re-think the idea of work week and use hunter-gatherers as a good example. Work when you feel like it, have a break - be it long or short, and keep on working when you feel like it. Of course you must have some kind of deadlines but make them flexible. No one will die if your software is launched one week late. 


Check out docStout's blogs too, he writes a good (better!) blog about the same things. His blog can be found here.


References:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time
http://www.ek.fi/www/fi/tyoelama/liitteet/kuvat_tyoaika_Suomessa_muissa_maissa.pdf

April 23, 2011

My thoughts on the future

As someone mentioned, now that I actually enjoy my work the name of the blog has lost some of its power, but let's keep it that way since I believe there will once again be a day when I will hate my job! Here's why: future is gonna suck for the most of us. Since the Industrial revolution of the 18th century we have been building our society on one principle - growth. Everything must grow, be it productivity, salaries, personal wealth, etc. Capitalism is system where EVERYTHING is based on that. It is like a religion where talking about downshifting or slowing down is forbidden. If you're not contributing to this system, you are considered a parasite who sucks on capitalisms big titties and give nothing back.

So what would happen if we stopped buying new cars, toys, tv's, computers, gadgets, etc.? The system would collapse. We already saw a glimpse of this collapse few years back when Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy  - it affected the whole world. Many American citizens who didn't have the money wanted to buy a house and banks gave out crappy subprime loans to them just out of greed. Same thing would happen if people stopped buying stuff all of a sudden. Country's import/export would go stagnant and there would be no growth which is key element to success in capitalism. Of course this will happen eventually since resources on this planet are limited. Read this great comic by Stuart McMillen:

St. Matthew Island

'What's the solution then?' one might ask. I have no fucking clue. People have been advertising many solutions for me, one being the Zeitgeist Project, which is communism with technology sprinkled on top. I really don't believe that humans are capable of acting in large communist societies because of our greed and selfishness. We are also grasping too tightly for life of hedonism and NEVER want to give out the benefits we have. Some individuals can do this, but most of us can't. I'm very pessimistic about our future on this planet and therefore try not to take part of the rape of it that's happening at the moment. I've been giving out gained benefits and would eventually want to shift to simple life like this Finnish guy: Pentti Linkola.

April 22, 2011

Responds to comments

A dialog
I think that blogs should be dialogue, not a monologue. I just realized that mine has been the latter one and I want to fix that now. Here are some comments to your comments:

"i have heard these type of stories every now and then. i dont know how a little incidence changes lives of people and how do meet their dream. it does not happen with me. i am really stressed. i dont know what to do. people get oppurtunities. i have not come across even one. what should i do ? :'(" -Anonymous

Well, they happen to some people. It probably won't happen to you, unless you do something about it. If you're stressed, you should find out the reason for that. Is it because you hate your job? Is it because it's too time consuming or too challenging? If it is, quit. I know this can be difficult specially if you live in a country with no welfare or other source of income other than work, but think it like this: It's your fucking life and you can do anything you want with it. It may take you a while to fulfill your dream but with hard work it's possible (unless you want to be a supermodel and are ugly as fuck... or professional basketball player as a white guy). I used to do things the way I thought other people wanted me to do them, and that caused me a lot of stress and headache. Now I do what I WANT to do and am quite happy. Fuck everyone else!

"How hard is to a brazilian get a visa to live in your country?" - Eu otro Eu

You're probably just joking with this question but because I'm such a nice guy, I'll answer anyway: it's fucking hard! It's kinda ironic that coming to work to Finland is a lot harder than coming as humanitarian refugee. When you come to Finland to work you actually have to have a nice chunk of money at your bank account, and you have to prove that you get more of it from somewhere (can be work or your relatives). Language is very hard to learn and althought people speak English quite well they usually communicate in Finnish. There's also the problem with qualifications - Finnish people don't like qualification papers from abroad and it can be difficult to prove that you actually know how to your job. We are also somewhat racist.

"Have not seen you post a new blog for a long time, I hope you did not lose your job HA!" - #19

I've had some motivation problems lately with this blog but I'll try to write more in the near future! I actually suffer of this thing called Borderline Personality Disorder where I get very (too) excited about something for a while and lose interest soon after. I have many sites I have created in the past (most of them porn, actually!) and I'm starting to update that shit again, including this blog.

April 18, 2011

My dream job

It's easy as ABC
Ok, so people have been asking me why I don't just quit my job and look for a better one? Actually, I already did that. Reason for not writing in a while is that I've been doing some work, designing some new web concepts and also planning my wedding. But about my job - I quit my well paying job few years back and decided to go back to study some more computer science. In Finland state pays you small amount of money per month if you study, so that you really don't need any savings for that.

I studied for one year and it was the most relaxing thing in years. I just went to courses that I was interested in and I wasn't responsible to anyone but myself. After studying a year I applied for a position at the university. Salary was very bad but work was everything I could hope for - the working hours were very flexible and I didn't have to make money for the evil stockholders and other rich people. During my studies I really learned to live with less, and even this crappy money was enough to get me enough food and drink, even luxuries.

I'm still working at Uni and I love it! Our projects are way cooler than elsewhere, we can do stuff with new technologies that aren't used anywhere else and people who work there are actually interested in their jobs. How do I know this? Well, they are very competent people and still work for crappy money. They could go to top notch jobs anytime they wanted, but they decide to stay because the work is so much fun.

So, at least to me the key to happy working was to find the right job - surprisingly it had nothing to do with money. I just had to realize that I don't have to buy a "50 plasma tv, a fast car, big house etc.

March 24, 2011

Recreational days at work

In Finland almost all companies have recreational days for their employees. It means that the company pays it's workers for drinking and being idiots. I think the idea behind these days is very good - it COULD help employees get to know each other and maybe co-operate better afterwards. There are several reasons why this does not work in Finland. Here are few of them:

Alcohol - Finnish people like to drink. A lot. Free booze and Finnish people is possibly the worst combination you can think of. We become aggressive, horny and drooling idiots who have no self-control. I have seen awkward flirting, vomiting, terrible dancing etc. from my bosses (not my current boss, he's cool). I don't know if having sex with your secretary will help co-operating at work (or your marriage).

Finnish "small talk" - There are always people who for some reason don't drink. In these recreational happenings these people don't get noticed, at all. Nobody is interested in them. Finnish people really can't have relaxed conversations without alcohol.

Cliques - These probably exist in every country and workplace. Some examples: 
  • Housewives who talk about giving birth, how to raise your kids properly, etc. 
  • Nerds who talk about ... well, nerd stuff. 
  • Middle management who talk about money, business, sales, etc. 
  • Consultants who kiss each others asses
At all my previous jobs these cliques existed. I really felt like I don't belong.

I got the inspiration for this blog post from this comic. It's from Finnish magazine Myrkky and it's about what happens in Finnish "mini-Christmas" parties. That's quite accurate, actually. 

March 20, 2011

Time management and salary

"Come to us for free money!"
I'm very lucky to be living in Finland - we have very good social security and we get money from the government for all sorts of stuff. So I made some calculations: Let's assume that person studies approximately 5,5 years for a job title (3 years in vocational school or 3+5 years in university or 3+4 years in polytechnic). Usually you have to study like 6 hours a day, which makes 30 hours in a week and 130 in a month. You study for 9 months in a year and therefore you study roughly 1170 hours a year. So 1170 * years of studying is approximately the time you use to GET TO WORK.

Ok, so graduate and go to work. That's 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week and 160 hours a month. When you take off vacations and midweek holidays, you'll get something 10 months of working in a year. That's 1600 hours of work in a year, so if you graduate when you're 25, you're work career will probably last like 40 years. That's 64 000 hours of your life, working.

In Finland we have this bureuacracy office called Kela, which basically pays you money when you're unemployeed, studying, have a child, etc. They pay you 550 euros / month. In a year you get 6600 euros, and you pay ~10% tax off that (funny how in Finland we collect taxes to pay those unemployment support and when you get the money you pay taxes off of that...) So in the end you get 5940 euros / year. If you make around 3000 euros / month in your job, you make around 36 000 euros / year. About 1/4 goes to taxes so you're left with roughly 27 000 euros / year.

So, working for 40 years you make around million euros. That's crazy money! But check this out: if you DON'T work, you get 237 600 euros. That's not bad either! If you assume that Kela stuff takes around 5 hours a month from you, you get 110 euros / hour from them. At work you earn 16,50 euros / hour. I understand people who enjoy working and consider it as one of the greatest things in life. Some even call it their life (poor bastards...). After I did the calculations above, I'm even more convinced that working is not for ME.

Please comment.

March 18, 2011

Back in business

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, been very busy with work and other stuff. I'll write up longer blog post later today, until then I present you a comic that is so true it hurts:

March 10, 2011

Other blogs, part 1

I often read other blogs at work. It makes the day go faster, and I enjoy reading well written stuff. I'm going to recommend you few blogs that I read regularly. There are many others I read, but these I like the most.

Habitable zones of the Internet - I've always been kind of interested in astronomy, space and other stuff that I have hard time understanding. This guy writes about it so well that even I understand. He even asks people's questions once in a while. Good read.

I didn't know that! - Trivia stuff, things you probably didn't know about, etc. Articles are not too long and they are easy to digest. 

Diary of a future medical student (hopefully) - Jesse writes very well and his life is actually quite interesting. He also draws comics and drawings explaining chemistry, etc.

Mudcrabs; more fearsome than I. - I'm not very interested in gaming and I don't really play any games other than Freecell and Civ 4, but Rinns's blog is still a good read. She writes very well and also uses drawings.

All these blogs are updated regularly (almost daily) which is good for bored person like me. I suppose they're all native English speakers since they write so well and the text is easy to read and understand (unlike mine!). Check them out, you won't be disappointed.

March 8, 2011

Confessions of a job hater

I was having a conversation at this forum about working and I really liked what this one guy wrote. I asked for his permission to translate it to English and publish it in my blog and he said yes. Enjoy!

"I know how you feel, I was in a same situation few years back. For many years I listened to stuff about Nokia stock. At least in the beginning of the millenia this was very common topic among little yuppies. I thought it was superficial. Few years back there was this show on TV called The Apprentice by Donald Trump. My friend used to hum the tune of that show ("money, money, money" or something like that) while he told me that he had bought new speakers 50 000 € a piece. He told me that he had invested over 200 000 € into HiFi with golden cables. He also claimed to have spent 5000 € on men's fragrances. After that he mumbled something about his new Mercedes.

God I hate my job!

There are many reasons why I lost my enthusiasm to work. One was when I realized that succeeding in the IT was like playing the lottery - worth of one product could be billions, other's 0. Even thought both developer (or dev teams) may be equally good, success is usually based on good luck.

I started to hate my job even more when I realized that old phrase "Work is everything" doesn't apply. Harder I tried to work and build my career, more I felt like I was getting bogged down in the swamp of despair. More projects I had, more insecure I got. I didn't have any luck with the projects I did, even thought they were completed in time and without faults. In Finnish working culture you're nothing if you're at wrong side of the fence.

It's no surprise that people in Finland apply for governmental jobs with simple job description and good pensions without any profit responsibilities. The other option, working for the companies, is too risky and even then most of the profits go to business managers, investors and other people who did nothing for the results.

I visited a doctor some time ago saying that I can't get anything out of my job. He tried to prescribe me some antidepressants but I know that there are deeper, philosophical reasons for me hating working. I think I could work for few days a week and live a simple life, and for the rest of the time I could do something I love (procrastinating for example!). But as long as the system does not approve that, I will use every trick in the book and do nothing at work from now on."

I don't know if something crucial was lost in translation, but I think this guy is right: Working is not worth it anymore.

March 7, 2011

Work for yourself - part 2

Okay, I'm going to write more about stuff I know nothing of - working for yourself and actually making some money. Here are more guidelines for you to consider:


I mean, seriously?
Don't believe everything you read - If you Google (I love Google, can you tell?) "make money at home" you get over billion search results. "Make money on the Internet" returns 268 million results. Most of this stuff is crap - they are usually some sort of pyramid schemes or scams that aim for your wallet, not your success. You could always hop in the scam wagon and do the same, but that's not very sustainable business model, and it has it's risks (going to jail and get gangraped). Here are some sites that I have found useful during my shot career at Internet business:

Steve Pavlina - Personal development for smart people : That site has hundreds of quality articles about making money in the Interwebs, I highly recommend reading them.

ProBlogger : Very good tips for bloggers. Lots of long and informative articles about blogging and how to make money with it.

CozyFrog Academy : CozyFrog helps you start your own adult business, if you're interested in that sort of thing. Most of the tips and articles there can be applied for general websites too. You'll learn the basics here (niches, traffic, what you need for working at home, etc.)


Not all ideas are good
You can't force creativity - Good ideas usually when least expected. Don't try to force these, since you can't force creativity. Here's a quote from movie Pi:

"You remember Archimedes of Syracuse, eh? The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he's received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks - insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end. Finally, his equally exhausted wife - she's forced to share a bed with this genius - convinces him to take a bath to relax. While he's entering the tub, Archimedes notices the bath water rise. Displacement, a way to determine volume, and that's a way to determine density - weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams "Eureka" and he is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the king's palace to report his discovery."

Feel like your brain is dysfunctional? Take a day off, go to a spa, have a drink with friends, etc. You'll be surprised how those ideas start coming when you least expect them.


Outsource boring stuff - You don't have to do everything by yourself. Get some cheap labor from Asian countries (you can hire English-fluent article writers from Indonesia). Buy your web design from desperate university students who'll work cheaper than the Indonesian people. Blackmail your girlfriend/boyfriend/neighbor to do the boring, repetitive labor.

I really don't know if this stuff is interesting, so maybe you readers could tell me. Should I write more about working for yourself or just that regular bullshit about how I still hate my job and working in general? Comments, please.



March 6, 2011

Work for yourself

Ok, so you hate your job? Why do it then? You can always work for yourself. I'm going to start a new blog series rambling about how this can be achieved - less bullshit, more tips (dunno if they're any good, tho). You might ask if I have achieved anything in the entrepreneur business, and the answer is no. I have only made some scraps but I know the exact reasons for this: I'm lazy and I can't concentrate on things for a long period. So if you're like me, don't do it, it'll just be a waste of time.

Now that everything is in Internet you don't really have to invest a lot of money. You don't even have to sell anything. Take blogs for example: you can make thousands of dollars in a month with Blogger blog and AdSense. Of course this is not easy and there are only few people who live on it, but it is possible. Starting cost for this kind of business is the cost of your Internet Service Provider. Actually Google provides you with all the tools you need for monitoring your business. I'm not going to write about how to use these tools and how to make your blog/site popular with crazy traffic, because there are hundreds of blogs telling you how. If you don't know how to Google them, don't start your own business. Just don't.

Here are some pointers that you should consider when thinking of starting your own business:

Be original - Don't start selling imported gadgets from China or general t-shirts with "original" quotes. Google is again your friend here. Google "buy t-shirts" and you get 418 000 000 results. "buy quote t-shirts" gives you 92 700 000 results. You really wanna start competing with this? The market is saturated, there's no room for you anymore, unless you come up with great ideas. How long has there been clothes for dogs? And how big thing they are now? Exactly. Come up with an original idea, like clothes for birds or goats (there's actually at least one store that sells clothes and shoes for goats). Something that no one has done before. 


Steal... I mean loan ideas - There's nothing wrong with "loaning" ideas. Of course there's contradiction between being original and stealing but if you can't be original, steal. Check out this stolen picture which I found from the Interwebs, there's truth in it:
You can apply Jarmusch's tips to work too.

Think of Tarantino - he "loans" from old classic and cult movies and makes them better. Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds, both great movies but most of the stuff is stolen from other movies. IB is actually a remake of action movie from the 70's. Another example: World of Warcraft - not much original ideas there, they just took the best ideas from other games and made them better. Steal and make it better so they can't sue you!

Prepare to work a lot for no money - All businesses take time to start up and grow. Facebook and YouTube were not made in a day. You're probably going to spend more than gain in the first few months (or a lot longer) and there are not many industries where you can make money fast and easy. If you want fast results start a appealing pyramid scheme but also prepare for the consequences!

Ok, most of these are no-brainers for you guys but hopefully this is helpful to someone. Tomorrow I will write more guidelines and tips about starting your own business. I think I call this series "Guidelines for your own business from a guy who has never achieved anything in his life". Nah, too long. "Read this and do the exact opposite" is better I think.

Comments and questions are welcome.

March 5, 2011

Should everyone work?

This frog has nothing do with work.
Couldn't come up with any picture ideas on this, so here's
a picture of frog.
From Black's Law Dictionary page 471 (5th ed. 1979) on work: "A person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, where the employer has the power or right to control and direct the employee in the material details of how the work is to be performed." I don't know why that sounds fucked up to me, but it does. Here in Finland we have very good social security and people actually get paid for doing nothing. In that case your only "job" is to fill up papers and take them to different bureaucratic organizations we have here. People get paid for doing nothing and still they complain. I suppose you can call me a commie or socialist or whatever but I think the system is good. I think poor people should be helped by the rich, and if it's not voluntary then it should be involuntary (paying taxes). So, here in Finland we pay crazy taxes - some people pay over 50% of their salaries as taxes. For that we get free health care and social services.

Okay, so why should I work? I don't enjoy it and I'm not giving anything to the community. I guess I could ask this question from all the people who really don't like working - why should you? Of course I understand that some other people pay for my living, but isn't that better situation than me working and taking job from someone who actually enjoys work? There are always rotten eggs and parasites but for some reason government doesn't want to admit it. Every election year members of parliament are talking about 100% employment rate and how they're going to achieve it. Well here's a wake up call for you - you're not. Because of people like me.

I wrote about this stuff back in 2008 and got a comment from a person who supports the Zeitgeist Movement. He asked my opinion on the movement and I never answered, so I answer now: I think it's communism with a little twist (technology). It's utopia and therefore it's never going to happen. Humans are brutal, self-centered assholes and most of them will never share money or other commodities with other people. Of course it would be nice if we could live without borders and work together towards a better world, but that's not going to happen. There's my answer, hope it satisfies you.

March 4, 2011

Coffee keeps us going

Coffee cup - heroin of the work place.
Mmm... drugs....
A large percentage of Finnish (and others, but let's narrow the scope) start their day by ingesting some sort of coffee beverage. As we all know, caffeine is a moderate stimulant. If coffee was invented today, it would probably be regulated and only available with prescription. Coffee is the fuel for the common white collar worker. It's a social drug, just like nicotine. But it also has positive effects on your health. These are my favorite effects of coffeine (I drink tea, but it contains coffeine too):

Laxative effects - I challenge you to stay away from toilet after three cups of coffee or 5 cups of tea in the morning. If you wanna go hardcore mode, smoke few cigs too.

Coffeine is a mild diuretic - More piss -> more toilet visits -> less work!

Caffeine causes sleep disturbances - Paper at school due tomorrow? Need to finish that report at work ASAP? Drink 12 cups of coffee and you're good to go.

Two cups of coffee reduce significantly post-gym muscle pain - Caffeine consumed one-hour before going to the gym induces a 48 % decrease in pain; those who drink caffeine before the near-maximum force test have 26 % drop in soreness. Useful for all you P90X people!

And the best for the last:

Caffeine gets women in the mood for sex, especially in moderate amounts and when the women are not heavy drinkers. The chemical is also known to increase excitability in men.

Nobody cares about the negative effects, right? Anyway, here are some.

Stereotypes at work

Hipster girl reading book at work.
Besserwisser: "This Dostojevski is like, soooo
interesting"
During my working years I've noticed some stereotypes at work place. This is probably an universal phenomenon but here are some stereotypes I've seen in Finland:

Besserwisser from the graphics department - These always go with the latest fashion trends (I think it's hipster now...). At lunch break they discuss about jumpcut scenes of French avant-garde movies, why Mac is better than PC (well, it isn't so fuck you), shittiness of new progrock/freejazz album or opening of a new trendy cafe. About 80% of these are women, 10% gays and rest of them are - well, technically - men.

Middle aged engineers - At lunch break these guys discuss about building a new terrace, changing diapers, buying a new SUV, how fucking hot new Miss Finland looks and that trip to Lapland next summer with the wife and kids. Young people usually laugh at the engineers only to realize that in 5 years they are in similar situation. The society WILL convert you.

Middle aged women from the helpdesk - At lunch break they discuss about price of groceries, sex scandals of Prime Minister (this was happening already back in 2008, he decided to quit and take a better paying job. Still screwing with younger chicks, tho), Dancing with the Stars, brutality of school massacres, things they did with husband last weekend (sometimes gets a bit too intense and intimate!) and as a bonus - news from the tabloids. Sometimes it seems like these women live off the tabloids and misery of other people.

All the above groups will burn eternally in hell. Some other groups include:

Nerds - Well, I guess you all know these guys. Usually nerd don't speak to other people. If they do however, it's in code ("dedicated server linux ip address hosts iä iä cthulhu fhtagn!").

Interns - They don't speak and are not spoken to. You know the drill.

March 2, 2011

Short post for today

Sorry, not going to make long post today. I've had some serious insomnia issues for a week now, my head is a wee bit fucked up at the moment and I can't really think straight. This must be devastating news to all my 2 readers out there. I promise to write as soon as I feel better and can get some proper sleep.

March 1, 2011

Your job in one sentence

Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) asked people to describe their jobs with one sentence. These are some of the answers he got:

My job is...
... mostly looking out of a window (pilot)
... to run away and call the cops (guard/watchman)
... to make sure that stupid people stay in the gene pool (lifeguard)
... to cut and paste stuff from the Internet (student at the university)
... speak while people sleep (lecturer at the university)
... to surf the webs all day long (this one's mine!)

So i guess other people have boring jobs too. How would you describe your job (or life situation in case you're unemployed) with one sentence?
Student sleeping at lecture.
Studying is hard work

February 28, 2011

500 ways to make money FAST! part deux

This guy quit work and started his own business.
This guy read my last tips and look at him now.

Start an escort service - Okay, so basically this means that you start whoring yourself/your girlfriend/your buddies. But you gotta do it the classy way - don't put ads on Craigslist and write how you "have sex for money". You have to advertise it as "girlfriend/boyfriend eexperience" where you actually spend time with your fat, ugly clients so that they can be seen with beautiful people such as you. You can ask crazy money from this, something like 100 bucks an hour. You have to be decent looking, of course.

Make your own porn - Amateur porn sells SO good. Just make a film with your boyfriend/girlfriend/friend and sell it to some amateur porn site (there are thousands of these). If you feel VERY productive you can make more stuff and create your own site. There's a lot of money in this, believe me.

Start a "quick loan" company - In Finland we have these companies which offer high interest "quick loans" for poor people (young alcoholics, drug addicts, etc.). All they have to do is send an SMS message and they get the money. These were the most profitable companies last year, so this should be good business. If your country doesn't have this kind of services, you should be the one to start the first one - you'll be filthy rich.

Start collecting debt - This is continuation to the last tip. Get to know some Russian/other Eastern European people, they are very good at collecting debt. These companies were also very profitable last year, probably because of these quick loans and recession.

Make children's music - I don't know any unsuccesful bands for kids. Kids are stupid and they listen to almost anything, just sing about dinosaurs, pokemons or some shit like that. You can also meet some hot single moms.

Don't forget to check the first part: 500 ways to make money FAST!

February 26, 2011

Good weekend everyone!

It's saturday so I don't want to write about work. Now here's what we do: write a comment about what you want read in this blog on monday. It should be work-related. Or I can also continue my 500 ways to make money FAST! series and give you free tips how to get filthy rich quick. So, please comment and have a good weekend.

That's me celebrating the break from work.
"FUCK YOU, it's weekend!"

February 25, 2011

Looking for job? Read this first

I know that many of you readers are vigoriously looking for jobs, regardless of my wise words. Here are some tips that should make it easier for you. I don't know how well these work outside Finland or other than IT sector but so far I've gotten job from EVERY interview.

- Don't overdress or underdress. This means that you should take a shower and shave. If you're applying to be a consultant, wear your most expensive dress. If you actually WANT to be a consultant, kill yourself. Do it, faggot.

- Interviews are usually very similar to each other. There are two interviewers and one of them is either HR person or the some middle management asshole. The other one is usually someone they call "expert" - in IT sector this is the nerdiest guy in the office. He/she doesn't usually speak but most of the time he decides if your compatible for the job. Don't ignore him/her.

- If you're asked about specific technique, skill, etc., NEVER say that you don't know it or you don't know how to use it. You have to improvise here! You can say that you studied it in school 5 years ago and can't remember a lot, but with some practice you'll manage to regain your skills. This is like skating on thin ice - don't go too far or you get caught for lying. Lying itself is not bad but don't get caught. Before you go to interview use check out what they are looking for: if they need you to use JQuery and you hear the word for the first time, check out jquery.com or Wikipedia for article on it. Learn the basics.

- Lie. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with lying. Everybody does it (at least those who get jobs) at interviews. If they ask where you want to be in 5 years (nobody can really answer this question, right?), say that you want to be the middle management or climbing up the career ladder. They want you to be their bitch, just go with it. You can suddenly change your mind once they've hired you.

- Sometimes there are also psychological tests during the interview. Walk the middle road here. You should be OK unless you smoke pot or take LSD daily.

- Also remember the basic stuff you read from every magazine that promotes employment: Smile, look in the eyes, talk loud enough (don't yell!), etc. This is very important especially in IT sector where people are usually not that talkative and charming.

- If they give you some assignments to do, you could be fucked. Just do what you can and try to do it properly. If you have no clue, just tell them that you're too excited or suffer of lockdown syndrome.

- If you get to the second round of interviews, congratulations. You're probably going to get the job if you don't fuck up badly. For me, these interviews were only for talking about salary, working times, benefits, etc. Again, this might be different for outside IT sector or for really big companies who have many, many rounds of interviews (Google for example). They probably make you wait for a day or two before they call you to congratulate on your new job.

Ok so, if you get job, you can send 15% of your salary to my bank account. Send me email for the account #. Once you've done this, please leave a comment.

Looking for a job? Grow big breasts.
... or disregard all my previous tips and just be a large breasted woman.


February 24, 2011

Interns - The nigger of the world

NOTE! Before you call me racist or anything like that, please read this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_Is_the_Nigger_of_the_World It implies to slavery.


Interns at work place are a fucking great resource. In Finland companies usually hire interns for the summer, but many schools also have some sort of mandatory internship periods. And why are they so great? Well, let's take a developer for example: they come fresh from the school bench, they know how to code and if you get lucky he'll be better at writing code than the guys (engineers) that have been doing same stuff for years. And they're FUCKING FREE! Why they are treated so badly then?

Interns always get the shittiest jobs.
Welcome to Fuck You Co., Mr Slav...Smith
Usually interns get either too challenging ("Design and implement this complete CMS system and if you have spare time implement SAP to it also") or too easy ("organize the shelves and collect trash from the yard") tasks. Those quotes in parenthesis are my ACTUAL tasks working as an intern, two different places. I didn't do any of that shit but that's a whole different story.

Nobody wants to talk to interns, since he/she won't be staying for long anyway. Usually they don't get paid so they'll eat some microwave pizza alone in the backroom while others go out to eat. Co-workers often give interns tasks that interrupt their work, and they are in general considered as slaves of the workplace. In best/worst scenario the companies can benefit 50 000 euros (this is just an estimate) from the interns work and he/she gets paid nothing. When the intern asks for possible payment, middle management talks about "mental capital" (actual quote from real life).

I don't if it's just me but I have no single good experience about being intern. I can say for sure, that I didn't personally benefit from these experiences and never really got anything out of these internships. The fact that I'm a lazy SOB might have something to do with it but hey, what do you expect when you're being worked for free? Yet, I enjoyed watching interns at my last jobs, designing and implementing systems that are usually done by experts. They are very valuable "mental capital".

Got any GOOD internship experiences? Share them in comments.

February 23, 2011

Office gossip

Every office has its gossip. Yes, even the place where you work. If you're not aware of that, you are probably one of the topics they are talking about. I'm sure that most of you already consider me a chauvinist, so I really don't have to be careful what I say about women. Women gossip, a lot. My ex workmate spoke wise words: if you want to keep the gossiping at minimum, hire a one woman (althought this maximizes the caveman effect, check out my last post). Women don't usually gossip with men and only place left for her to gossip at is the Internet. Once you add another female to the equation, you're deep in the gossip shit. It'll take few days once legends and stories start to evolve. But here's a strange thing: if you add a third female, they start having some kind of power struggle and the  Weakest one will be the target of gossiping.

We all know that it's mostly women that gossip at work place.
Did you hear that the blogger has a HUGE di...
Usually this is done at coffee break, lunch or at the smoking area/room. Men do these things differently: they gather all their anger and hatred to a big lump and hide it inside them for months and months to come. Then, at the spring picnic they get drunk and EXPLODE. They might yell at their bosses, grope female (or male) co-workers or even attack someone physically. This happens especially here in Finland where people don't know the ways of small talk and usually drink WAY too much.

Want to start gossiping? Here are some good topics for ya to get started:

- How fucking idiot your boss is
- How fucking huge (gossiped by women)/juicy (gossiped by men) his secretary's ass is
- Co-workers personal problems (depression is a good one, if someone is depressed, hit them while they're in the ground!)
- Someone's getting fatter/thinner

Oh, there are those who don't gossip. They're called Aspies or interns. Since I know nothing about Aspies (I'm not a mathematician or phycisist), tomorrow I'll be writing about interns. Have your say at gossip in the comments section.

February 22, 2011

Women of the work place and caveman genes

Caveman - alpha males of the workplace. They love their job.
Me want ugly chick. Ugh.
If you have worked in an office environment, you must you know this phenomenon - a beautiful woman arrives in men are divided into two groups: quiet nerdy types and chest pounding alpha-males. If you work at the IT, she doesn't even have to be hot. Some kind of boobs and hitch-pitched voice is enough. These rat racing engineers then do what they do worst - flirt.

Women usually take advantage of the situation and when they notice that they're treated like royalty they claim the queen's title and role in the process. In the process they get free meals, coffee warmed up, free carpools, free drinks on friday, etc. This list is as long as the queen's imagination.

However, this is a win-win situation. These engineer-types also get something out of it. It's kind of a symbiosis, an office organism. They usually have a nagging wife and two kids waiting at home and they were good looking maybe 15 years ago. Now they can be in the spotlight again and they can feel young, energetic and charming once more. Once they get back home harsh reality hits them in the face. Kids are screaming, dog is sick, wife is nagging (usually about money) and bills are piling up.

These are the kind of people who like to work late.

February 21, 2011

500 ways to make money FAST!

If I were to write a book about getting rich quickly and easily my number one tip would definently be: Write a book about getting rich quick and easily. These self-help and moneymaking books are often on top of the Amazon's bestseller lists and obviously if you write one good book, you're good for the rest of your life (moneywise). But because I'm lazy and not a very good writer, I'll skip the book publishing and just give you some tips for free. These are good ways to get some MONEY:

Be a celeb - Start hanging out in places where celebs hang out (expensive nightclubs, rehab centers, etc.) and try to be seen with someone famous. If you live in the States, I recommend Charlie Sheen (through your crack dealer) or Justin Bieber (I bet he doesn't have a single heterosexual, male friend). Tabloids pay huge sums of money for gossip, etc. about these people. Besides, if you are a celebrity, bars, restaurants, etc. usually give you shit for free.

In Finland we have this "girl" named Johanna Tukiainen. She was sendind x-rated SMS to a top end politician (Minister of Foreign Relations) and she leaked it to the press. After that, she's been the most famous person in Finland and her wedding this month is very popular topic in coffee table. She's fucking hideous (check the picture below) and has no charisma, still she's trying to be a singer and dancer. Probably making good money from the tabloids.

Want to make money fast and quit your job? Become a celebrity!
J. Tukiainen - looking hot hot hot


So, good things about being/trying to be celeb:

- Easy money fast. J. Tukiainen got 10 000 euros (~13500 dollars) from tabloid for publishing those SMS's. I could live on that for 6 months, easily.
- If you have your "own" reporter that writes about you exclusively, just phone him and you can think of something crazy to do while you get pissed at local bar. In Finland we used to have this dynamic duo M. Nykänen (ex skijumper) and K. Merilä (journalist). Merilä took Nykänen to exotic places (Canary isles, etc.)
and bought him a lot of booze and Nykänen did stupid stuff. It was kind of a symbiosis and both got what they wanted: Nykänen got his booze and Merilä his story. I don't know if you have this sort of thing in the US tho, probably?

Bad things about being/trying to be celeb:

- Everybody laughs at you and think you're stupid (which you probably are). So don't do it if you bad self esteem
- You have to come up with new stuff ALL THE TIME. For example cosmetic surgery, getting into fights or sexual relations with other celebs.
- You have to hang out with idiots.

Create an international website - Good ideas done well usually make huge amounts of money. Both Youtube and Facebook were student projects. Think of a service that you would gladly use and is not yet found in the web. Even some (fashion)bloggers make crazy cash with minimum work. Expect to be poor for a fucking long time before your site starts making money, tho.

Good things:

- Low risk. Creating content is usually cheap, if not free, and the only effort you have to put into it is your own time.

Bad things:

- These sites require a lot of expertise and skill.
- Getting the readers, publicity, etc. can be tough.
- Self-sufficiency might take a looooong time. It may not happen ever.

Marry into money - This is easy for hot girls/women.

Good things:

- Money for the rest of your life

Bad things:

- Can't think of any.


Got better ideas? Write them in comments. If you want me to write about some specific stuff, also write a comment. Thanks for reading!

February 20, 2011

Make yourself irreplaceable

Finnish newspaper Kauppalehti writes that there are few ways to keep your job: 1) Learn things that other people don't want or don't know how to do. 2) Keep good relations to your boss and co-workers. 3) Ask if you're uncertain about new things.

These are good tips, but they're really not for me. Since I try to slack off and rather do something else (redtube for example) I've thought of few things that make me irreplaceable without actually doing a lot of work. Here they are:

Use old/strange techniques - If you're a coder, use Cobol or Assembler. No one will want to watch your code.

Jargon - If you write a lot, use difficult words, old latin, french, etc. and don't write text that is easily readable.

Documentation - Don't document any of the things you do and don't make any instructions.

Teaching - Don't do it. If you have no choice but to present your ideas/projects/etc. to your boss or co-workers, use Powerpoint. Make a presentation that has lot of pie charts, nice pictures and maybe even animations. Bosses love animations.

SPECIAL tip for developers: Use kludges everywhere. Even when you're coding the simplest thing with Javascript, make a moronic kludge that others will not understand.

Most of these work in the IT department, but not really if you're a cashier or a janitor. Do you have any good ideas to share about making yourself irreplaceable? Share them in comments.

February 19, 2011

Sitting on the shitter - Precious little moments

Working day in Finland is 7 and half hours. That makes 450 long, painful minutes and sometimes when it's REALLY boring, I count the time in seconds. At it's worst, working day is 27000 painful moments, each one more boring than the previous one. After many working years I have developed methods for making these moments shorter. Here are few of them:

Going to the toilet - You can have about dozen of these in a workday without anyone getting suspicious. Each one can last for 5 to 15 minutes and sometimes you can take an hour or even two out your day (on Fridays it's usually longer). It's even better, if you know that someone is waiting for their turn. If there aren't any magazines to read, use your cell phone / smartphone for spending time: install games, read feeds, listen to podcasts... If you don't have a phone, read what ingredients are in handsoap or make snowflakes out of toilet paper.

HARDCORE mode: take your laptop with you.

Lunch break - This should be a nonbrainer: Make your lunch hours long, but don't do this too often. You don't want your boss to get suspicious. In Finland lunch hour is usually 30 minutes, so just go for 40-45 minute lunch breaks everyday and once or twice a week you can extend it to a full hour. If your co-workers go out to eat, join them. These trips usually last at least an hour, sometimes lot more (especially on Friday).

Hospital visits - This probably works only if you live in Scandinavia/some other European countries with free health care or have somekind of health plan from the company. You can do hospital visits 1-3 times a month. Same rule applies here: don't do it too often or people get suspicious. Some good diseases are: Crohn's disease (nobody wants to hear the details), back pain (just say that you got it at sitting on your desk, they don't want to be blamed) or some exotic diarrhea bacteria (here you get a bonus: no one will come close to you). Don't EVER say that you're going there because of depression or sleeping problems - this WILL make them suspicious and will probably effect you at next cutoffs.

HARDCORE mode: Shave your head and tell 'em that you have terminal cancer. That should keep them off your back for a while. Try to look sick but positive: don't make them think you're going to drug rehab.

BONUS: Don't forget these: taking your baby to doctor, taking your dog/cat/pig/monkey to a vet

Sick days - You can have 1-3 of these in a month without anyone getting suspicious. Just say that you've been vomiting all night or that you have terrible diarrhea. Call your boss right after 7am (we go to work at 8am here) and he'll think that you actually tried to get to work. After this you naturally go back to sleep. After a night of heavy drinking and partying your voice is usually hoarse, so it gives you even more credibility. Therefore, drink during the week and stay at home when hungover.

What are your slacking tips at work? What do you think of my English so far? Is it readable? Does the sun orbit earth or vice verca? Just click the comment button below!

The blogger has spend a looot of time on this bad boy.

February 18, 2011

I hate my job (now also in English!)

So, I was at this international conference last week and there were some Finnish guys who were read my blog when I was still working at my old job (which I hated). They also did some translations of my blog entries to co-workers from other countries and I got a request to writing in English. At the moment I'm out of ideas, since I love my job, but I am willing to translate some of my old blog entries to English. So, here goes my first entry from 2009:

I hate my job.

I really don't get any satisfaction out of it. The most horrible day of the week is monday and during weekdays the most boring and repulsive time of the day is from 8 to 16 (working hours in Finland). Regardless, I've been working in the IT department for 4 years now, for three different employers. All of the work places had same phenomenons: trendy work slang, coffee chats of idiots, bad radio stations, surfing on tabloid websites... the list is endless.

I started working after I graduated from Polytechnic school with good grades. I was excited, and for a reason: I got my first permanent job straight after graduating! Quick orientation, new things I couldn't remember the next day, names I couldn't memorize and MANY phenomenons that I mentioned earlier.

Nonethless, I tried to keep positive attitude and I really wanted to be efficient, hardworking and ultimately a good worker. I wanted for the company to make profit, I was interested in all the business figures, sales, new projects, pie charts etc.

But in the end, the awful truth dawned on me... Work sucked. Work days seemed like they lasted forever and end of the week was like a winning on a lottery.

In this blog I will tell my experiences in work life. These writings are mostly from 2007-2009 but there's also recent stuff.

Hope you enjoy it!

February 17, 2011

Projects

Today I'm going to talk about projects. Ok, so nowadays in the IT all the work is gathered under projects. What this means, then? It means that when you're working on a certain project, you can't do anything else. All the work you do has to be on the fucking project. How retarded is that? Let's take a scenario where I'm a Java coder and they assign me on a project as Scrum master. Now, this other project needs some coding expertise which I'd be able to offer, IF they'd allow me to participate on that project. Well, do they? FUCK THAT, WE NEED YOU ON THIS EVEN THOUGHT YOU'RE NOT REALLY DOING ANYTHING (real life scenario, this really happened).

So, as Scrum Master I ain't doing anything since all the administration stuff is done for that day. I also cannot participate in a coding project and therefore do nothing. Is this good for the company? You tell me.


This is me, not giving a damn.

February 16, 2011

5 ways to quit & do what you love

Since my international fanbase has grown a bit and I've had some requests about writing in English, here it goes: my first English blog post!

5 ways to quit & do what you love!

#1

Way to quit: Smack your boss in the face

Way to do what you love: Move to your dream location.

#2

Way to quit: Strip down to your skivvies and start dancing to “Thriller” in a human resources meeting about sexual harrasment in the workplace.

Way to do what you love: Make an activity your livelihood.

#3

Way to quit: Stage your own death (by bagel knife) in the coffee room using ketchup as a prop, be sure to stumble out the front door and leave a “bloody” trail of ketchup from your office to the nearest large body of water so they’ll never “find the body”. Note: you may need several bottles of ketchup and a bus ticket if you are not immediately near water

Way to do what you love: Use a God given gift.

#4

Way to quit. Use the highest paid executive in your firm’s fax machine to send pieces of toast to the Boston office, if it’s doesn’t work the first time – add jelly.

Way to do what you love. Review it.

#5

Way to quit: In an effort to save on rent, move into your office cubicle and shower in water fountain using your latest memos as wash cloths.

Way to do what you love: Solve other people’s problem.

Computer rage!





Kannattaisko opetella käyttämään niitä tietokoneita, idiootit?