Previously in the ‘Employment’ Category…
Skjuter jag mig själv i foten?
- June
- 5th
- 2009
Jag undrar om inte Rick Falkvinge har rätt i sin dystopi. Jag undrar nu om jag inte skadar mina egna intressen genom att offentligt stödja Piratpartiet på min blogg.
För tillfället söker jag arbete, vilket jag gör cirka 7 timmar per dag. Detta har jag gjort under de senaste 45 dagarna, vardag som helg. Att söka nytt arbete är ett heltidsjobb.
Är jag inte ett praktexempel på vad AF vill ha?
Jag brinner också för frihet, integritet och demokrati både politiskt och ideologiskt, och bestämde mig på ett tidigt stadium att blogga om detta, för många ingrepp i vår personliga frihet som inträffat de senaste åren.
Jag tror dock att jag får omformulera mitt tänkande, och dölja mina politiska åsikter, då jag kanske skrämmer bort potentiella arbetsgivare.
För alla som läser tidningar vet att pirater är
- Lata snyltare
- Laddar ner olagligt material
- hyser sympatier med pedofiler och stödjer people trafficking
- Inte är ett riktigt parti
- oseriösa
- en säkerhetsrisk
Det är så man utmålas även om man aldrig laddar ner något olagligt, är politiskt engagerad och har god personlig integritet. Jag är också en stor förespråkare för Open Source, och utnyttjande av lagliga tjänster för nedladdning som har bra marknadsintresse. Inte heller tycker jag om pedofiler eller people trafficking – men det är väl ändå åsikter som är ganska självklara?
Är folk verkligen så rädda för piratpartister att det pågår en utgallring av folk med vad företagen anser vara åsikter som kan skada företaget?
Ska jag behöva vara rädd för att stå för mina åsikter som jag är stolt över? I dagens samhälle är personlig rakrygghet något som har fått stryka på foten, med alla politiker som svänger allt för att få röster. Ingen säger vad de menar, och de menar sällan vad de säger.
Jag har alltid ansett mig själv vara brutalt ärlig och rättskaffens – något som mina tidigare medarbetare och arbetsgivare har uppskattat. Tycker jag något är ogenomtänkt så kommer jag säga det på ett diplomatiskt sätt, för annars sköter jag inte mitt jobb ordentligt.
Ska jag nu efter 14 år behöva ändra på detta?
Kommentarer mottages tacksamt.
Våga inte göra något
- April
- 14th
- 2009
Arbetslös bloggare kräver besked om a-kassa – DN.se.
Man kan undra vad arbetsförmedlingen och a-kassorna tycker är rimligt att en arbetssökande ska syssla med.
Tydligen finns det enbart några få godkända aktiviteter som en arbetslös får göra – så länge de organiserar dem eller godkänner dem. Man får tydligen inte marknadsföra sig på något sätt, eller göra vilken fritidssysselsättning som helst.
Jag antar att de helst vill att arbetslösa enbart ska sitta hemma och stirra på telefonen och vänta på att den ska ringa, och enbart använda datorer för att söka jobb. Jag visste inte att husarrest var ett av villkoren för a-kassa, men jag hoppas verkligen inte att de får rätt i detta ärendet.
Bloggning kan vara en givande sysselsättning där man marknadsför sig själv gentemot den del av internet som kan vara intresserad.
Jag har själv min bloggadress tryckt överst på min CV, för att hjälpa potentiella arbetsgivare att lära känna mig.
Om det är bra eller dåligt låter jag vara osagt, men det lär ge dem en hyfsat sann bild av mina värderingar, min portfolio, min stavning och förmåga att stå för mina åsikter. Även om jag åker ut på första gallringen, så har det redan där besparat oss en förstahandsintervju som kunde vara fruktlös.
Nu är jag jäkligt glad åt att jag har ett arbete, för nu hoppar a-kassorna upp på min lista av folk som kommer ställas mot väggen när revolutionen kommer.
Min lista
- a-kassorna
- telefonförsäljare
- mäklare
- advokater
- oärliga politiker
- tjänstemän på Hammersmith Council
- Politiskt korrekta människor som aldrig kan säga vad de tycker
Attack of the office zombie
- September
- 6th
- 2008
You see them every day, moving slowly down the street. Drool and mucus from their lips and noses, and a thin coating of sweat covering their pale greenish complexion. They move without thought or care for human beings around them, and in contrast to zombies in the movies, they just need to touch something, or breathe a raspy moan to spread their disease.
Welcome to your work place
Presenteeism in todays society, is valued more than any individuals health. Thanks to the wonderful system of guilty until proven innocent, no one dares to take a day off work, out of fear of accusations of skiving off, or jokes about heavy drinking the night before.
They come in and spread their germs and viruses, and faster than you can say George A. Romero, you will find that it has spread across floors bringing down half the office.
How do you avoid of being bitten?
There are a few tricks of the trade. Simple steps to avoid infecting your fellow man are
- CALL IN SICK – call your manager and let them know you will not be in today. It is not only for your own good, but for the good of the company.
- Let people have their water cooler moment guessing if you are skiving off or not. Loose speculation is not worth the paper it is written on.
- Delegate your responsibilites. Delegate to someone you can trust have the work done by the time you are back. They will not want to take your job away from you.
- If you must – work from home. It is the 21st century, with high speed computer access available everywhere. Don’t over do it though. You are supposed to be resting.
How can you help an office zombie?
When you see them shuffling slowly down the corridor, instead of running, try and do the following.
- Tell them to GO HOME. You do not want their illness, and neither does anyone else.
- Volunteer to do an urgent task, to make it easier for them. Wouldn’t we all want to worry less?
- Eat garlic and bring in some greasy food if you sit next to them. Garlic will help your immune system, and the greasy food will probably smell so un appealing that they decide to knock off early.
Polar Rose AB
- August
- 1st
- 2008
Started:2008/08/01
Title: Front-end Developer
Hired as a front-end developer for this up and coming image service provider. Polar Rose helps users sort, search, and share their digital photos based on the photo content. Using superior computer vision technology Polar Rose can tell who’s in a photo. Polar Rose’s partners are photo sharing and media sites who use Polar Rose’s services to activate their users’ underserved digital photo archives, grow pageviews and increase ad revenues.
Responsibilities include all front-end code for the company’s website and search-engine, as well as especially developed web-applications for the use on partner sites. Usability, accessibility and coding standards is under my control. This means of course that my main tools are HTML, CSS, microformats and jQuery javascript library.
Polar Rose is a nice company to work for. Situated in the western harbour of Malmö, it attracts workers from all around the world. Currently employees work in Malmö, Warsaw, Nice and San Fransisco. The international environment brings with it a relaxed attitude and high professionalism. The job is interesting, and while fairly technical in nature, allows for a constant and quite steep learning curve.
Everybody speaks English
- June
- 30th
- 2008
I have had a few people asking me:-
“You are Swedish, and you are looking for work in Sweden. Why is your website only in English?”
Well, I have several reasons:
- I am not ONLY looking for work in Sweden – the world is my market place.I would like my website to be seen as international.
- Most people in Sweden have a grasp of English from school (it is compulsory for about 6 years) so really it is not a problem for most of them.
- The lingua franca of the internet age is English. At least until China has a proper democracy.
- I lived for eight years in London, so I still think and dream in English.
- English is a very beautiful language that lends itself well for graphical descriptions and poetical recitals (Yeah, as if you would find THAT here)
Freelance vs. Employment
- June
- 3rd
- 2008
Well, my job search is starting to pay off. I am starting to get call-backs, which is encouraging, but I feel the need to explain a few things in detal.
At heart I am a freelancer and I like the concept of moving between projects and being my own boss. This on the other hand, does not mean I am not looking for full-time employment. Actually, at this point in time (just starting out in a new country, looking for a house, trying to settle down) full-time employment would be a lot better, if only to stand on my own two feet.
Another drawback for a freelancer is that you need to have contacts, and returning clients, something that I also lack as most of mine are still back in the UK.
So does full-time employment mean that you have to stop being a freelancer?
I would say, “Not necessarily”. I mean, it depends on your outlook on things and how much time you can spare on weekends and evenings. Also, even full-time employment can be seen as a sort of freelancing. The jobmarket these days fluctuate not only between years but even between months. At least I know I can always fall back on freelancing if the market goes down. My motto has always been “Do not depend on anyone to keep you busy. If you want to do something – then do it”.
Doesn’t freelancing make you an unreliable employee?
I can not see why a freelancer would make a worse or better employee than someone who is not. I guess employers might be scared that the employee with a freelancing background might jump ship at some point, but surely this is the same for everyone these days. As a freelancer I take a certain pride in my loyalty to my clients and employers. I don’t care if it is a short project or a steady job. When I get hired I stay the course and work hard (because I take pride in my work) and make sure they know that my mind is in the now, not the next project. Frankly, there are only a few things that would make me consider leaving a full-time job contract:
- Bad management
- Expected excessive and un-compensated over-time
- Pass-the-bucket mentality of blame instead of focusing on solutions
- No more challenges and you reach Status Quo where you either are not allowed to or hampered in doing your job effectively.
Doesn’t full time employment make you an unreliable freelancer?
Can you have the cake and eat it too? Of course, with full-time employment I will not have the time to work on as many projects – but it gives me the chance to work on the projects that really matter to ME. I can cherry-pick the jobs. Ideally if I get a benevolent employer who don’t mind sharing my skills – or the skills I do not use in my day job, make a deal with them to take small unpaid leave to endulge. Most freelance artists and writers do that to their “day jobs”. Or they work in positions with 65-90% work – perfect. As long as it does not impact on the work produced, does not involve a competitor and it keeps the employee happy – then why should I not freelance?
Well that is in the ideal world. If that is not possible then there are still other avenues like evenings, weekends and holidays – like I have done for the 10 years before I went full-time freelancing. Turn around times might be a bit slower because of this so a 5 day job takes up to two weeks to complete but in general the production quality is the same if not better.
Anyway, end of rant.
Freelancer in Sweden
- May
- 22nd
- 2008
Since I am not a guy sitting on my laurels (or Hardys), I have taken a first step at freelancing in Sweden. It is a good way for me to get to know different types of industries, and for companies to find out what a reliable resource I can be. Plus, the hours are good.
I just signed up with Creative Section , where you can see my full CV . I guess I will have to pay for the full listing,but it is only a first step. Pretty soon everyone will know that I am back in town, open for business!
The Swedish business model
- May
- 10th
- 2008
Have now relocated back to Sweden, and am seriously looking for new projects.
This is a completely different experience from looking in London, for sure.
So far I have found about 5 different roles in the area closest to me but will expand my search to include, but not be limited to:
- Kronobergs Län
- Kalmar Län
- Blekinge Län
- Skåne Län
- Västergötlands Län
Lets face it, I usually commuted for about an hour on the Tube in London – IF the trains were on time. The difference in Sweden is that I can work with a larger area AND the trains are on time. I will of course get myself a car as soon as possible to make it easier to travel, but first my priorities are:
- Get a job, sir
- Get a car
- Get a house/flat closer to work
As far as plans go, I know from experience that the simpler they are the better.
As for now, I will drive to the coast and have a swim – no matter how cold it is in the Baltic. Laters!
GT – Good Technology
- April
- 3rd
- 2008
Started:2008/04/02
Ended: 2008/04/17
Title: Site Builder
Was hired as a freelance coder to mainly work on the Xbox Newsletter for Microsoft for the upcoming months (17 languages and used in 13 countries) and templates for the new ASDA.co.uk website. Working on existing code can be excruciating but managed to create a pretty good replica of the Xbox Newsletter that worked in all email readers and browsers – Yes that includes Google Mail, the most un-standard of browser email-clients. Was not able to test for Office 2007 and its new restrictionson HTML emails, but I hope I avoided most of the pits in the sand.
The ASDA.co.uk website was a hodge-podge of inherited code on a project that started back in early 2007. Needless to say, I was not the first coder to work on it, but defenitely one of the better ones. (My predecessor appearantly came in, sat down, looked at the code and promptly resigned) We were a team of 4 talented freelancers working on the site at any given time, fighting bugfixes with bugfixes. I seriously think we would have been better off completely revamping the code from scratch, because that way it could have been finished in one week instead of three.
But as it were, the team were already halfway through bugfixing and checking for compliance with IE6,IE7,IE8b,FF1,FF2, FF3b, Safari and Opera, as well as W3C standards. All you could do was spit in your hands and dig in. And you know what? We did it on time and on budget.
