Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Getting warm in the clothes?

Now my second week in Estonia has even become my third before I could sit down and write this, but anyhow. I'm just barely starting to get rid of the frustration of not knowing where my stuff is in the morning, feeling handicapped in so many things... but it's cool. It's been messy, but cool.

Like the other week. I think it was tuesday... first I could shower but not shave because our upstairs bathroom drain suffers from creative post-soviet renovation clogging, the cable guy is showing up (seriously, 4 Mbps, 70 TV channels and "free" IP phone for 230 SEK a month), my tempered boss calls me in the morning when I'm too far away to hear the phone, my prepaid card is empty so I can't call back and my girlfriend is somewhat edgy because she was not allowed to eat that morning... yeah, messy.

Actually that wasn't all, last wednesday was two days before a minor but first delivery, I thought I was on track but obviously my boss disagreed with me on where the track lay and... I have never, ever, EVER suffered such a verbal beating before. I think it is an understatement to call it "unswedish" to hold the poor guy who's been employed one and a half week responsible for anything your chaotic business, especially if he's obviously breaking his back for you while he's trying to adjust to a new place. You do not, in my opinion, threaten to fire him. It was terrible, yeah, I cried, and I shook, and then I went to the gym with baby who wasn't very happy about her day either, and a friend who was even worse off.

Fig 1: An excellent despair.com illustration

It wore of gradually though, I guess it was an unfortunate leakage of pressure from above, we did manage reasonably in the delivery and I worked until after midnight on thursday... the guy did came up to me, thanked me, shook my hand and for all that I know, seemed sincere. Cool. Insane. Insecure? Anyway, it did shake me up enough to remind me to take things very seriously, that we do not have much margins to play around with, and can't afford the luxury of lazy months for anyone. At all.

After a week like that it's justified to sit at home alone in the sofa, watch Kaurismäki's "The man without a past" in the dark, drink perhaps one or two beers more than what would be considered healthy... and re-see "Torsk på Tallinn" as well (check out my picture of Paldiski Palace taken one year later!). It's likely that we will hold weekly movie evenings at home now, people want to see that, "Ben & Gunnar", "Four Shades of Brown" and "Oldboy", etc. etc. ad nauseum.

Next time: The visit from Mr. Bush, and some more stuff.

PS. We went bowling tonight, I made three strikes in a row! (Though landed at a bottom line of 148... I think I can do better)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

In case you get tired of the Estonias I have a job for you. Would you prefer London or India?

Carl-Johan Sveningsson said...

Äitäh, aga ei äitäh. :-)

Thank you, but no thank you, we'll see but I doubt I will get tired of this place within at least a few years. In that case though... India please. :-P