I hope you don't expect your money back

I think that my blog addiction is maybe going too far. I spend about 20 minutes every morning to read them. It doesn't sound much but hey, we are talking about my extremely busy mornings. But blogs has been part of my morning routine as long as I can remember. I just need to learn when to stop. It's a miracle that I have not yet been late for my work.

Speaking about my work... All the other extras are now gone. It feels pretty weird. It used to be so full of life and now it's just me and my boss. Today she said that she couldn't do without me but she was exaggerating a bit. Yeah, she's totally hopeless with Excel but it's not like hard to help her. It could be anyone. Anyway. So far I have found out that my new job is definitely more challenging and time consuming than I expected. But in a good way. It feels as I was working as a detective. There are certain clues to follow but sometimes you just have to trust your intuition.

So what I do: People order stuff but sometimes they're not happy with what they get. So they send stuff back. Sounds easy, right? It could be if they've attached a note which says who's sending the stuff back, what stuff and for what reasons and to which order is the returned stuff related to. They usually tell like one of those things and I have to find out the rest. Once I opened an envelope that had only one pink post-it with the stuff they wanted to return. And guess what the post-it said? "This product didn't met our expectations". That's nice... It's just a shame that I'm not psychic.

Meeting online buddies

I received a comment:

wow! friends from online
This sure is sounds exciting

what if the online friend is not in Finland with you? How far to travel would it be ok?

If you're a nerd there is nothing particular about having online friends. It's just part of the scene, and not even that exciting actually. But I wouldn't travel abroad for someone I've met online. Definitely not. I guess it wouldn't be even possible for me to click enough with some foreigner in the first place. You know, I only meet the special ones, the ones I feel truly connected with. I wouldn't meet just anyone.

I guess I should summarize my weekend then, since it was out of doubt something extra ordinary. I rarely leave my home for more than few hours at one time. So I traveled to J.J. who lives at Tampere. He moved there about a month ago and he's still a bit lost there too. Anyway.

On Friday I was simply hanging out at J.J. digs since I got there so late. We did watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest though which is a great old movie in case you have not seen it yet. On Saturday he made us waffles for breakfast. Isn't that a good service? He also cooked us traditional macaroni casserole (if you're Finnish you know what I'm talking about) and some killer pizza. I tried to help him with the cooking part but let's just face it: I'm hopeless and completely useless in the kitchen. It's just not my cup of tea, or my piece of cake, or whatever.

J.J. has started to play acoustic guitar so of course he needed to show off his new skills. Which is awesome since I happen to love acoustic guitar. It's pretty much the coolest instrument ever. No matter how crappy you play it, it always sounds great. I have nice pictures of J.J. actually playing the guitar but unfortunately he's quite hysteric over his anonymity so I don't dare to post any of them.

On Saturday we also go to the cinema. We chose to watch El Orfanato though I was afraid it might be too scary for me. I'm not good at handling anything scary, I get nightmares. Anyway. It was a good choise. It was a bit scary but not too scary for me to watch. Anyway. It was indeed a good movie, maybe even better than el Laberinto del fauno. I have not decided about that yet. So in this movie there is a family: a mother, a father and an adopted son with HIV. The mother brings them back to her childhood home which happens to be an orphanage. And it doesn't take long when the son starts to have invisible friends... and to everybody's horror one day he disappears without a trace. I know it sounds lame but trust me with this one. If you like Spanish movies, if you liked el Laberinto del fauno, and if you didn't find the Others too scary, this movie could be just for you.

On Sunday we slept late as you're supposed to do on Sundays. Then we walked to visit Elina. She still had like the most coziest apartment ever. I'm almost jealous. And I am jealous for her armchair. Like is there anything more comfortable to sit on than an old armchair? Seriously? And she had piled some glossy magazines next to it. It's irresistible. And Elina served us glögg which was like heaven after the walk in the cold weather. Anyway. We compared the sizes of our laptops which is something that girls do all the time... or not. And then I headed back to the railway station since it was already time for me to go home.

So it was a nice trip. It was nice for change to hang out with J.J. face to face and to get to know that side of him too. And it was indeed nice to meet Elina.

Is this the real life you're talking about?

I have an announce to make: I'm going away for this weekend. Later today I'm going to travel to Tampere where I will meet my best online buddy J.J. I'm hanging out with him till Sunday when I'm meeting my other online buddy Elina. So out of doubt this will be the most socially active weekend of my life. But don't you worry, I'm taking my laptop with me. Life is not getting me that easily!

Whoa a job offer!

I have not given myself much credit for my job. Of course I have always done whatever I have been ordered to do, and I have tried to do everything well. I have also been giving my helping hand whenever possible. Not to mention that I have tried to be nice to other employees too. But I could have done my job so much better. Especially when there was actually some real work to do. For example when the boys were still there we used to have breaks much longer than 30 minutes. It's crazy how no one ever complained about us.

So now my days at the stock are running out. All the shelves are empty and there is pretty much nothing to do. Our boss simply sends us home after five hours. Today she even said that we can't even go there tomorrow because there is absolutely nothing to do. And the next Thursday will be our last day there. Then it's over. All the stuff is sent to Sweden by then and we are officially useless. It's no wonder since it's already looking like this:



I have not stressed over my next job. I have enough money and I know that I can easily get a new job via Varamiespalvelu, which is a Finnish staffing service. But to my surprise my boss came to me today and started to ask me what I'm going to do after this job. It turned out that she is willing to keep me longer. Just me. It would be a totally different job in a totally different position but I said that I'm definitely interested. But the problem is that the place is really far. It would take over an hour to get there. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that but I take the place anyway if she still wants me. I'm not sure how long it would last or if I'm going to be paid more. She was in a hurry so I didn't have time to ask any further questions. But she did managed to say that it's indeed a very nice place and that most of the employees are male.

But isn't this a real life proof how being characterized as a nerd can be an extremely powerful tool when it's clear enough? I'm 100% sure that she asked me only because I have helped her with Excel as I have also helped others with Enterprise and with other weird programs they use there at the stock. I have slowly build my reputation and finally it led to this. She needs someone who could handle Enterprise so it's actually quite obvious that she came to me first. I have already proofed myself.

Next time try listening

I feel myself quite dumb now. Because Ubuntu comes with two default workspaces I tought that's like all you can get. I have even been complaining over it! And today I suddenly realized that you can actually have as many as you want. But how could I have known? It never even crossed my mind that you can go to the settings and set the number of workspaces you want. I think this is super cool because it's like the number one feature that prevents me switching back to Windows. I just got to have more space than just one lousy desktop.

Little while ago O. asked me to try out Queens of the Stone Age. And when someone kindly asks me to try something out, I really give it a try. Instead of just listening to one song like once and deciding not to like it because "it just didn't sound like whatever the crap I'm normally listening to", I choose one or two albums and then I really listen to them several times - with thought.

I didn't like Queens of the Stone Age at first. I felt as it was seriously lacking some edge and therefore I couldn't understand the point listening to it. But I simply didn't gave up. The trick is to find the one song you could like. In my case it was "Skin on Skin" from the album "Lullabies to Paralyze" and I kept listening to it more than other songs. And before I even noticed "Little Sister" started to sound quite awesome too, then "You Got a Killer Scene There, Man..." Song after song Queens of the Stone Age just won me over. And you know what? It doesn't lack any edge. It's just a different weapon I'm used to and therefore it took more time to find it.

So next time someone sincerely recommends you a band, give it a honest chance. You might actually surprise.