Labour Day

Interesting how to celebrate Labour Day those in labour don't do any labour.

Today was my first day as a full-time employee.

That's right.

I've taken a permanent job.

Well, it's the same job that I was doing yesterday, as a freelancer, but now with less money.

But a few benefits.

Like being paid on a public holiday which today is in Germany.

Permanent jobs. Oh, these days that's as believable as a Zimbabwean election result.

So, now is the time to get my job hunting act together.

The time to look for a job is when you are in a job.

So, I'm going to start taking networking more seriously again.

And updating this blog.

OK, I'm happy where I am and things are going well (not least as they asked me to go permanent) but in the fickle world of work it makes sense to be paranoid.

Should, or when, this job comes to an end, for whatever reason, I want to be ready.

Passing fad

Try this one, videojobshop.

Could make comments but I don't think I could make any original ones.

(Hat-tip to the Downloadsquad)

Good weekend

On Saturday (and only Saturday because on Sunday it's illegal in this country) I bought a couple of things:

- an external monitor for my PC
- lots of RAM for my PC.


It took a while before I could get the monitor working. My PC is actually a tablet and the key combination expected to work didn't.

I now have four times as much RAM, although my PC isn't four times as fast.

But why? And why did I blog this?

Culture

Last week I attended a two-day seminar on understanding Chinese, Japanese and Indian cultures and how to work with them.

Apparently simply telling them to get on and do the job just isn't enough these days.

Still, I've been working on a project out in Beijing for the last five months so it's good to know where I've been going wrong.

Today, via The Register, I saw an article on just about the same topic in Blognation.

Nowadays everyone seems to be banging on about how important China is for world business. So, learning about handling the culture is no bad thing.

Social network envy

There's LinkedIn, Xing (openBC), Facebook ... and now there's Plaxo.

Yip, Plaxo is getting all social-networky, bless 'em.

Now, where's the value in all this?

The German efficiency question

A response!


"Thank you for your application and your interest in working for xxxxx.

After thoroughly checking your application we have to inform you today that we cannot consider your application for this position.

...

We thank you for your interest in our company and wish you all the best for your professional career."

Gosh, those Germans really are thorough. I applied on 20th December 2006 and had two interviews at the beginning of this year.

I received the above reply a month ago.

Not a big problem as I'm working as a global project manager based in Munich. To give you an indication of how global my job is, this posting is being written in Beijing.

And just because I have a job doesn't mean any let up in the job networking front.

So, more later ...

Big Monday

That's right, on Monday 1st November it's International Project Management Day.

I'm a project manager, I have an international background, and I work internationally.


So really, it's all about me.

Gosh

It's been over a month since I last posted?

Bad blogger! Bad, bad, bad blogger!

It is, of course, always a teensy, weensy little bit difficult to maintain a job hunting blog when you're not actually job hunting.

But what's made it more difficult is that in this new job I'm travelling all the time. In fact I'm going off to Beijing for the third time ... now.

Procrastination

Interesting article in The Sunday Times about this civilising activity. Most of it is why many are reluctant to job hunt.

It doesn't go into it in enough detail for my liking.

I tend to procrastinate though, ironically, not when job hunting. It's in my nature and is, I believe, in many ways beneficial to where I work. And I try to conpensate the negative effects by strong time management.

I haven't been procrastinating when it comes to this blog, honest. But it is very difficult writing about job hunting when you're not job hunting and especially when you've just been on long business trips.

But I will be writing more.

There's a war out there

... and it's not between vampires and werewolves.

Well, not the war to which I'm referrring.

It's the social networks versus business networks battle and it might get nasty.

The BBC news website posted a link Skrentablog which has an article about how people are switching to Facebook from LinkedIn.

A couple of weeks ago I received an invitation to join Facebook from an old friend. As in, not a young friend. As he is older than me I was surprised that he was on a social network which seemed dedicated to teens and young adults.

Anyway, if it's free it's for me so I joined. I then found other friends on it too.

It's rather nice. There's an immediacy to it; thanks to its Web 2.0 functionality you can see what your friends are up to. And that gives it a currency which you don't get from business networks like LinkedIn and Xing. Those have a file and forget feel to the contacts you amass. At least compared to Facebook.

Anyway, now - in the last month - it seems that Facebook is being taken more seriously. People are using it to maintain potential business contacts. At least that's what Skrentablog writes. But I can see it happening.

Nevertheless I'll keep using LinkedIn and Xing as well as Facebook.

By the way the comments are as good as the article itself.

How much?

So that's where all my money went?

Germans I know say that "Munich is zo expensive".

I tell them that actually it's quite cheap.

They reply "ah but you are having ze madness, nein?"

"Actually", I retort, "I used to live in London".

"Ah zo", they concede, "you are having the right, Munich is cheap".

And it is. Today the Mercer list of world's buggeringly expensive cities was mentioned on the BBC's news web site.

London is the second most expensive city, just after Moscow.

Helsinki is 22nd and Munich is a pathetic 39th. That's cheaper than Glasgow, Madrid or Amsterdam.

So, I don't want to hear any complaints about the cod-accents I used above. If Germans moan about Munich being so expensive they deserve all the mocking I can be bothered to give them.

Planet Meetings

Last week I was in Sweden.

Well on Monday.

On Tuesday I flew to London.

There I attended a meeting which lasted three days. At one stage I felt I should have worn flight socks, as I was sitting around all day.

In the evenings I met up with friends.

At first I found it difficult going back to London. It's just not very nice compared to Munich.

But on Thursday and Friday I rediscovered the vibrancy against which Munich cannnot, and does not really want to, compete.

Still, they could clean up the place.

Well, that was a complete waste of makeup

Went to the airport.

Checked in.

Went through security.

Sat in the departure lounge close to the gate for the aircraft. I was a bit peeved that my travel to the airport was so smooth I had loads of time to kill.

Mobile rings.

It's my colleague phoning from Sweden. The trip to China has to be aborted.

Er ... ok then.

Try and eventually leave the departure lounge. Not easy.

Go to the office but can't do much as there's a spate of public holidays in Europe this week.

Now going for a curry in Munich. I hope that isn't cancelled too.

That's a relief

Yesterday I had to be in the Swedish office for an announcement.

I was a little bit worried by the use of the term "announcement". Tends to be associated with the word "redundancies". And having just joined as a contractor ...

Anyway the announcement was made by the CIO. It was his strategic and tactical vision for the IT department worldwide.

After about 10 minutes he said that this new strategy wasn't a cover for redundancies. In fact, his problem is finding people. The department remains in a state of growth.

Phew.

Now flying off to Beijing.

First day

Well, it was fine.

In fact, rather remarkably, I had computer and voice services ready and waiting for me.

They did, however, spell my surname wrong. But that's not unusual.

And on Friday I'm going to the Swedish office. Just for the day.

This means a very early start.

And worse, tomorrow I have a networking dinner at Xing. Which won't finish early.

I am, of course, still networking. When you have a job is the best time to do it.

Plus, being a freelancer, I am open to other opportunities if I can fit them in.

Anyone need a consultant for occassional use?

More ITIL

Apparently there's a new version of ITIL out.

Foundation exams can be taken from 13th June. I suppose I better get round to studying for it.

Shirts

As you can imagine it hasn't been easy to find shirts in Munich that won't make me vomit. Or don't have short sleeves. Or don't have logos on their breast pockets.

But I've managed it.

I've also polished my shoes, had my suit dry cleaned (I hope to only use it this first little week) and printed out a map to the actual site.

Scanning

Today I brought a scanner/printer/photocopier device.

Last night I read up (on the www, where else?) about the HP F380.

There were mixed reviews.

Today I went to the shops to buy one. I was just about to make the purchase when I saw an HP C3180 at only €10 more.

Er.

So, I ran out of the shop and found an internet cafe where I spent an hour researching it.

This model has slightly fewer grips on the internet.

Anyway both were cheap. My needs are simple. Scan in receipts for my work (for expenses), maybe print off a few things, maybe, just maybe the odd photocopy. The other important thing is that I wanted it to be small. I don't have much desk space and I have no desire to have a big-ass machine which I will seldom use.

Spent the rest of the day casually setting it up. Not that easy when there aren't any instructions for it written in English.

Anyway, I've checked it out and it seems to work fine.

I've even scanned in the receipt for it as it will be a business expense.

Interestingly, HP have a policy of not including the connection cable to the PC. Now, this thing can work stand-alone, as a photocopier, but then why would you buy a multi-functional device? Buying this cable added €10 (that's seven quid) to the price.

Bit of a delay

One thing you need to know when you start a new job is where will you be actually working.

I didn't know this. And it would be no use saying go where I was interviewed. Because I was driven by the agency from their office to the client's office.

Another good thing to know is when to start. Some companies start before 9 am (bad ones) and some at 9 am (just about ok ones).

So, I emailed the manager whose contact details I had been given. But my email was bounced by the client's spam filter. I tried again using a different Reply to address (I know, I should have also changed the From address). Same result.

Then my phone rang. It was the manager I had just been trying to email.

By coincidence he wanted to talk to me anyway. He felt it would be better if I started on Wednesday next week as then I'll be able to meet another manager with whom I'll be working.

Very fine with me.

A summary of the problems facing Germany today

Today I tried to buy some new shirts to go with my new job, starting next week.
Pretty easy: go to downtown Munich, go to one of the large department stores, go to the mensware department, find the shirt section ...

That's where the trouble set in.

First of all it wasn't clear if I was looking at shirts or pyjamas.

Secondly, Germans clearly do not appreciate removeable collar stiffners.

Thirdly, practically all the shirts had logos on them. Discrete but still logos.

Fourthly, a lot of the shirts were short-sleeved ones. In a modern, advanced, democratic society there really is no excuse for that.

Fifthly, the shirts which did not have logos but had long sleeves then didn't have breast pockets. Just about acceptable except for ...

Sixthly, the colours and patterns could only have been designed by ... well, by Germans.

Tomorrow I'm having another German lesson and although we don't do phrases I may ask my teacher the best way of formulating, auf Deutsch, "Please could I buy a shirt that doesn't make me vomit".