Well this was bound to happen. After all, it’s such a huge operation that slip-ups like this is bound to happen. I am where I’m suppose to be, but all the stuff I need to do my work is stuck in Vienna. So my timetable is pretty much ruined. Isn’t that swell? Kinda “kick-in-the-crotch, spit-in-your neck fantastic!”? So I’m gonna take it easy for a few days, then I’m gonna have to work double-time to get it all done.
You know I love Jewel, right? That she’s in the exclusive bunch of people who can do nothing wrong (atleast in my world!). Then I heard Intuition. And although I could clearly hear it was her… I still couldn’t believe it was her. It was such a different track, different style, kinda Shakira meets Aguilera. I was actually kinda thinking “sellout!” there for a while. Then I saw the video. And it all made sense! Still can’t do nothing wrong!
But I’m not sure it’s a good thing that you have to see the video to get the point. Or perhaps I simply wasn’t listening to the lyrics…
The hotel doesn’t seem to be the only one that sucks… work-wise this has been the worst one yet. Lot’s of problems and the people at the office aren’t helping that much! But what the hell, it’s only a job 🙂 I’m really starting to enjoy this city. The casual style, the heat, the park, the food, I could get used to this! But we have the worst bartender in the history of bartending. We go down for a beer or two and all of sudden she decided to close it down. So we politely leave only to find out she’s suppose to have it open ’till 11. So next day we do the same thing, and so does she. And when we point that out to her… not appreciated!!
This was the suckiest hotel yet. I don’t even know the name of it, but it sucks. The first rooms we got didn’t have air conditioners, and it was pretty hot so we changed rooms (again!) to more way more expensive rooms (well I’m not paying for it!) that had AC… but it still sucks. Nothing on the TV … EVER! Small room, and the two beds is just a bad chiropractical joke! But the city is really nice! We had dinner tonight at a pretty popular restaurant/bar. And the women here are… I think exhibitionists is the right word. Really, REALLY tight and revealing clothes. And most of them have totally got the body for it, so I’m not complaining. But I already miss sweden…
And just as I was starting to really enjoy myself in Sweden… I’m off to Hungary. This time the job is in Europe and, more importantly, in the same timezone as Stockholm. That helps alot since some stuff needs to be synchronized and done at the same time in two places. And this time I’ll be going with two women as well. But don’t worry, both married with children. They always are…
I don’t know if I’ve been out of the country too much lately or why, but today I enjoyed Stockholm and Sweden more than I have ever! Although I had to work a full 4 hours (meetings and reports to go through), the weather, the atmoshpere, everything was absolutely amazing today! Another thing that helped to make it great was that it was graduation day for alot of high schools here in sweden. And one old tradition is for the students to board trucks and any other big vehicle and drive around town honking the horn. And everyone else honks their horn in a “congratulations, kids!”-manner. It’s probably one of the few times I can honk my horn at 18 year old girls without feeling like a dirty old guy 🙂 Check my pics for… pics…
And I don’t know what happened to the updates I had written over the past week, I’ll try to find them…
Jetlag is a funny thing. I’m writing this at about 5.30 am. This place is 6 hours ahead of swedish time which I thought would make it hard to fall asleep early and hard waking up at 7 am. But it’s the complete opposite – I’m falling asleep at 10 pm and now I woke up 4:45 am and I can’t sleep. It’s not causing any problems or anything, it’s just weird. But considering I went from Guatemala (swedish time -8) to sweden to Singapore, that’s 14 hours adjustment – the “wrong” way! Meaning the one that makes you lose alot of hours, it’s supposedly be a lot better the other way since you gain 6 hours on the flight. And about that flight – I’m lifting off at about 11 pm next wednesday, and touching down at 5.30 am. And that’s WITH the 6 hours I just “gained”, so that’s a 12 1/2 hour flight. And then I should land in Stockholm at about 9 am. And what do I do then?… GO TO WORK! 🙂
So here I am in Singapore. I haven’t been here for more than 4 hours and I’m already loving it! We took a stroll down the high street (Orchard Road) and I loved it. This city is amazing! And pretty cheap too, I was expecting everything to be expensive since we get $80 per day that we’re here for food and stuff. Don’t know where all that is gonna go since a normal BK meal is only $4…
Here’s hoping the work will go as easily as it did in America!
I’m about to head out the door to Arlanda, to Frankfurt then landing in Asia tomorrow afternoon. I don’t regret signing on this mission… YET! I’ve only done one job, and that was a team effort. This one I’m doing solo. Atleast the technical part, there is a guy tagging along but he’s not the techie of this mission. I am. “OH GOD THE PREASSURE!!”. But ask me in August, that’s when the first wave is done, and all the money have been payed in and out, then I can say if I regret anything.
Finally home! It was a very very VERY long flight here. We lifted off from Guatemala at 6 pm and landed 9 pm on the day after! Stopping in Miami and Madrid as well! But I don’t think my bed has ever felt better (with the exception of the few times I’ve actually had company in there).
Going back to Sweden today. And it’s been fun, but it’ll be nice going home, seeing some friendly faces, enjoying my bed and my local pizzeria! But as job goes, this has to be one of the best ones a computer tech like me can get!
One little interesting thing about this place is their traffic system. The capital is devided into Zonas, and the streets are a grid, like Miami’s, with horizontal “Calles” and vertical “Avenidas”. And most streets are one way, the first one in one direction, the next street in the other. And nobody respects pedistrians and there are hardly any traffic lights, everbody just honks when they approach an intersection. And funny enough – it actually works 🙂 And I just got asked if I wanted to do a special job in July in South America… poor me…
I had an update ready to post but I simply didn’t have enough time before I left for South America. And we just got the communication up with Stockholm so I thought I’d post a little “Greetings from South America” thing here!
The weather down here is just perfect for me, not too hot and humid enough for my skin to love it. And the food is excellent. Everything is pretty nice, although we haven’t had time to go out much for some tourist stuff, but hopefully we’ll go to Antigua or something this weekend.
My departure to South America seems imminent. I’ve got the flight tickets in my hand, valid passport and my dollar$. And I should be very excited, right? Hm… I didn’t even wanna do this thing because I saw all the practical problems and the risks. And even before I’ve boarded the plane there are big financial problems to solve, as well as a slight clothing-problem. I don’t have a suit that I can wear with a serious face, and they pretty much ordered us to bring one “just in case”.
So, as usual, just when I’m about to get my economy together something like this pops up. And today we had a good talk about security and some “Do-s and Don’t-s” “just in case you have a gun pointed at your head”. That was really exciting. NOT!
But I’m certain I can see past all these problems and turn it into something amazing!
At this point on my life I found out I had been selected to be one of 4 hired PC technicians for a government project to update the computer systems of our embassies. It was a big deal for our company and I almost passed since I’m the guy that doesn’t wanna disturb my routines more than I have to. But after some convincing from my friends and family I got to go around the world for 14 months. Unfortunately it was classified so I couldn’t talk about it anywhere or with anyone since I had such high access in their network so I couldn’t post about it while I was travelling.
But afterwards, when my security clearence was revoked and passwords changed, I posted everything.
So I’m on call this week. Again. For the third consecutive week! I work as a computer consultant, and one of our most important customer is this big lawfirm that I’ve been working at on and off for the past year. And as a part of us taking over their network, we have an on-call service for them. And I’m it again. There are three major points to being on call – 1) Be close enough so you can get there within the time specified in the contract 2) Make 100% certain you can answer the cell phone when they call. This includes staying up till midnight (can’t go to sleep and hope you wake up when it rings!) and also making sure there is a clear reception where you are and 3) be 100% sober. Now, any of these three things I can do, no prob. But combine them all, for an extended amount of time, and what kind of life do you get? No going out for beers with the pals, no going home to my parents, no going to the movies and you can forget about dating. And this is the third week in a row!
Naturally there is an upside – money.
But does that compensate giving up the freedom of just going to a movie if you feel like it, or to drive down to my parents for a nice dinner or something?… There must be some part of me that thinks so, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it. Again and again.
Guess it all goes back to the old saying – “time is money”. I just wish you could reverse it and buy more time 🙂
I’m having one of those days you just wish you never got out of bed. First thing I saw in my mailbox this morning was a mail from the CEO calling for an emergency staff-meeting today. “Oh oh, I guess we’re talking cut-backs now, hopefully not staff-cutbacks!”. Then I get out to my assignment of the day and my boss calls me up and tells me to skip lunch and take a cab to the office because he needs to “talk to me”. What could be so important that I actually need to get there A.S.A.P? Does he wanna congratulate me for being such a good little worker-ant? Does he wanna mention that I’m # 7 on our “who brings in most money”-list? Or does he wanna tell me “here’s your severance pay, good luck with your life”?
I think I can take being unemployed, atleast for a month or two, but longer than that and I’ll have financial problems. But that’s not the worst part. Had he said on the phone “you’re out of a job”, that’d be one thing, I can start thinking “what now?”. But not knowing is the worst thing! Being in this kinda limbo-state, I hate that! Still, can’t blame him, firing somebody has to be one of the worst things for a boss so I guess I will appreciate that he did it person-to-person instead of over the phone. So for the next few hours, hold your breath for me when I find out what my future looks like….
UPDATE: Ok, you can exhale now. It seems I get to keep my job, for the time being anyway. We’ll see how it goes during the next 6 months, if things don’t look better then, who knows. What saved my ass was a clause that said our employment would be transfered, not discontinued and renewed when we merged the two companies last year. So my employment date of “April -96” saved me, so I get to work here for a while longer.
Our department at work was invited to go see the Glen Killing gang at Gran Hotel, something I really wanted to do. But something, or rather someone, came in the way of those plans and I had to cancel, which turned out to be a pretty good choice. Besides, I have a really hard time saying “no” to women.