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.

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.

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: