Best country to live in

According to Newsweek it is Finland.

Well, Finland is a great place to live. Not sure it's the best. Also not sure about some of the other rankings.

But anyway, the site has a nice layout.

Billy Anchors

It has been a quiet week so far and I haven't found any suitable jobs advertised. I'm hoping it's the holiday season.

I have been networking though, getting additions to my LinkedIn contacts.

Anyway the executives at my company want my remaining project to come in almost a month early. They tell me now!

They are putting a lot of pressure on a manager in the US who has been tasked to put pressure on me.

My project is an internal project. It reduces costs, a bit.

Really, if they applied as much focus to developing new products, making them with adequate quality and marketing them properly then I wouldn't be looking for a job (and I wouldn't be updating this blog).

Goodish news

If you live in Germany, according to the BBC, Germany has record growth.

There was a similar article on the front page of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. That's a major newspaper for people in southern Germany who have nothing better to do on a weekend than read a tree's worth of printed paper. With some arty photos.

In fact the business manager of that paper can also report a growth in sales as I purchased a copy. This was so I could survey which companies are recruiting.

Turns out, not many.

First one

After hearing the bad news on Friday I wasn't surprised but I did feel dejected.

In the afternoon I had a cursory look at Monster and saw a job of interest. I emailed it to my home account.

Today I looked at it.

Then I looked at it again. It was written in Foreign but I got the gist of it and actually sent off an application.

I was very please to have done this.

It is all very well (and important) to set things up - update the networking sites etc - but it is applications which get you jobs.

And I did one.

Curry later.

Got cracking

So, what have I done since my last post?

I've ...

• updated my c.v.-like details on LinkedIn and Xing
• upgrade my LinkedIn membership from Basic (free) to Business. That is $25 per month which is a daunting amount.
• upgraded my Internations membership from free to Albatross. That is a kinder €5 per month.
• tried to update my c.v. on my own web site. It is rather out of date but I've forgotten the FTP address for it. I've contacted the host ISP about this.
• Put a visible note on Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing and Internations to the effect that "TJHWNN is available for team and project management roles from Q4".

Get cracking

Right.

Although it is important to be a little bit crazed when job hunting a little bit too crazed is a bad thing.

So, I didn't do any job hunting yesterday (not least because of the effects of the evening before).

But today, Sunday, is not a day-off when it comes to looking for new work.

Time to get blogging hunting.

Civilised

The Germans are a civilized people.

None of this "you are redundant, leave now" nonsense.

My job will end at the end of November. But they estimate that I will be free by the end of September (depending on my currently running projects) and after that I am on gardening leave.

Plus I get a payoff and a voucher, of significant value, to a course which increases my employability.

Apparently, even if I get another job before end of November I still keep the payoff.

Gloomy Friday

I didn't have any plans for Friday evening.

Wasn't in a great mood.

But then some friends were meeting up for curry (the food of choice for expats in Munich) and I went along.

The alcohol made me feel better as did the curry of course.

Whilst in the restaurant we noticed that one of the customers was being escorted by bodyguards. They had earpieces and microphones and wore suits (a rare sight when going out in Munich) which were all unbuttoned. That last observation is sinister: it means they were carrying.

It's a small restaurant which meant that if shooting started there could be a lot of collateral casualties.

When they left a waiter told us that the principal (the person being protected) was a Yugoslavian foreign minister. Not sure which former part of Yugoslavia he meant though.

Anyway that was the excitement for the day. And the evening was good.

Oh, and in the morning I had been told my job would end at the end of November.