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. 

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.

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:

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.

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.