When there are many things to tell

[oloriel]

we usually lack the time to do so. But I'll try to make a start, at least!

Firstly, thank you very much to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday! It was an OK day. Because it was a birthday, OK is disappointing. Your messages made it a little more special, so I really, really appreciate them. I'll try to thank you all personally, but in case I'll take a bit longer to do that, I already wanted you to know that I'm very grateful. <3

A very happy belated birthday to everybody whose birthdays I missed! Especially hamnar, of whom I was today reminded because bossman told me to contact "our IT guy", but not to be surprised because "he lives in the Far East".
Moi: "You mean the Near East?" (Most of the new guys on the team are from the Near East, except for new boss colleague, who is from the Ruhr area.)
Bossman: "No, the Far East. Saxony. What's it called. Here, thingy, Freiberg."
And I thought OMG FREIBERG IT GUY CAN IT BE hamnar?! OH CRAP YOU FORGOT HIS BIRTHDAY!
It wasn't him, but I still felt really guilty!

So yeah, "the team" and "colleague" and "bossman". I'm a grown-up Hobbit now, which apparently included stumbling into a job. That was another funny thing. You may remember that I've been freelancing for a regional magazine. Just after Easter, I got a call from bossman that he wanted to talk to me about something. So I, feeling apprehensive, went there. First, bossman plucked an article by me to pieces. Then he asked how I was envisioning my future with their magazine. I thought Oh, here goes, I'm gonna get the boot, so there was nothing to loose, so I said "Well, if I get to make a wish, I'd like permanent employment, really. But I can only work part-time because of my kids."
Bossman: "How many hours part-time?"
Moi: "Like, 20?"
Bossman: "Well, you can't replace S. (the editor in chief) on 20 hours."
Moi: *WTF HAVE YOU SECRETLY BEEN OFFERING ME THE EDITOR IN CHIEF POSITION WTF WTF* "Yeah, I know."
Bossman: "We can call it a traineeship though."
Moi: *WTF WTF*
BUT I am apparently a ~raw diamond~ and bossman is a ~visionary~.

The proper technical German term is Volontariat, which sounds like volunteering, which isn't really what it is - it's a paid traineeship. The misleading term comes from the olden days when teens, being not yet of age, were put into apprenticeship by their parents, whereas you put yourself (voluntarily) into a Volontariat, which generally requires having finished university (at which time you have come of age, even in the olden days when the legal age was 21). Anyway. I got myself into a voluntary paid apprenticeship?
I basically came back home from that only to learn that in fact, the mother-in-law won't be able to look after the kids even 20 hours a week (+ driving) after all. So either I'll get them kindergarten or daycare spots REALLY SOON (hahahahahahaha) or the traineeship will be over before it really started. Haha.
(Also, this is basically ALL MY PROBLEM. Because Jörg has OTHER PROBLEMS. Guess who encouraged me to apply for stuff BEFORE the childcare situation is securely resolved? DING DING DING! To be fair, Jörg has been fighting pneumonia the past weeks, but it was ALL MY PROBLEM before the pneumonia hit him, too.)

The editor in chief has been replaced by the guy from Dortmund. Who is nice. But although he's got more job experience, I don't really feel that he's more qualified than I am. Except in that his wife takes care of his daughter. So he can work full time. So he is boss colleague and I am the trainee. BECAUSE I'M A GIRL.
Before you can get your feminist boots of rage on (and believe me, I'm sometimes tempted to do so), I have to admit that it can be quite a relief to be only the trainee. Like, boss colleague had to stay in the office until 19:30 today because Something Important (TM) came up. Whereas I managed to leave at 5 pm, yay.
Or today:
Bossman: "And one of you can coach the Syrian guys."
Boss colleague and I: "AHAHAH WE'RE JUST FINDING OUR OWN FEET HERE!"
Bossman: "C., can you do that?"
Moi: "Um, not sure I can do them justice in my time here?"
Bossman: "OK, J., you do it! You can start by organising this and that appointment ~"
Boss colleague: "....... I'm just finding my feet?"
I'M SO HAPPY I'M A GIRL.

The Syrian guys are the result of bossman being a ~visionary~. It's not enough that he's running a regional magazine that manages to do decent journalism in the middle of nowhere. He also wants to run a regional magazine for refugees. Awesome plan! But do you have to start a complicated new project when your editor in chief is leaving the team and you have to teach two newbies the ropes? Except with the whole new editorial team for the additional magazine, there actually are six newbies on the team? With whom you not only have to set up a whole new thing, but also battle German bureaucracy? YMMV.

BUT it's been tremendous fun so far. Which is very dangerous, because I'm like "eh well, I'd be blogging now anyway, so I can as well feed the magazine's Wordpress calendar a bit". So I keep on working at home. Instead of updating you all on the EXCITING THINGS going on in my life. (I'm trying to be positive and say EXCITING rather than SCARY CRAZY.) I'm terrified it won't work out in the long run, because I like the job description and, in spite of the warnings from the parting editor in chief, think bossman is pretty cool. And finishing a traineeship would certainly be useful in the future. Still not certain that I want to be a journalist forever, but at least it's high on the list of things I want to do. Even though I'm already discovering that I'm actually lacking the ambition to be more than a ~raw diamond~. I'm happy with being a ~raw diamond~. It must be tiring being a Silmaril.

Speaking of which, when I came home all exhilarated after the traineeship offer only to be met by indifference and awkward news, I had to go and write a lot of awkward, repetitive Nerdanel and Fëanor bickering for Golden Days. The new chapter is now 9 pages long, completely stuck, and probably a horror to read. I haven't yet had the heart (or time) to give it a second look. The trouble with writing as a job is that I can't really turn to writing as a leisure activity anymore.

Anyway! Exciting times. I hope I'll figure out the childcare issue. And the work/life balance thingy.

Comments

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Belated happy birthday wishes. I hope this year brings good things and that you can sort out childcare soon.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for the kind wishes.

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

Happy belated b-day! I hardly was online that day, and missed posting!

Your job sounds very interesting!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I was hardly online that day either ;)

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Belatedly, a very happy birthday to you! And best of luck for the new job!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for both!

[independence1776]

Best of luck with the job!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you. We'll see how it turns out!

[satismagic.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the job! \o/ I hope it will all work out, and that you'll not only earn money but have fun in the process. ♥

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'll probably have more fun than I'll be earning money, especially if half of it goes to pay childcare fees. ;)

[chili-das-schaf.livejournal.com]

Belated happy birthday and congrats to the job! I think J.'s behaviour is apalling. Those are his children, too.
Work/life balance is tricky, but finds itself after a while. A very exhausting while but at some point you get there.
Good luck with the daycare situation. Have you checked with your local Jugendamt? They always helped me out rather effectively, actually.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!

To be fair, Jörg has been operating close to burn-out for over a year now. (Which is also why the - presumably - same virus that gave Felix and me two weeks of occasional coughing, gave him a fully-fledged pneumonia.) So it probably isn't willful negligence, but genuinely a matter of "no spoons". Really, really annoying, but not actually done on purpose. I try to remember that whenever I want to get offended, but I'm no angel either!

Mmm, I have some prejudice against the local Jugendamt, though I probably won't have much of a choice in the long run. :/ It's made more complicated because Felix' new kindergarten is in another town, so I'd prefer to find a spot for Julian there, too. It'd make a serious difference in fees. But being neither a local nor planning to move there, that's even more complicated. Blah. Beggers can't be choosers, I know. Nobody - myself included - expected that I'd suddenly have a job.

[chili-das-schaf.livejournal.com]

Why the prejudice?

Well, you have been looking for a while, or did I understand that wrong? But yeah, my own job also hit me quite surprisingly. In the end, everything got sorted. I'm sure it will be in your case, too.

Finding spots for siblings in kindergarden around here is easier but yeah, they do put local kids higher on their lists, too :/

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Because from everything we've encountered so far, they're basically an office designed to (or organised to) prevent actually having to do anything other than sending out form letters (predominantly the kind of form letter that asks you to pay for something). Case in point: They (supposedly!) do not know where in town there might be free childcare or kindergarten places. They are happy to provide me with a list of phone numbers for all local kindergartens and childcare ladies (WHICH I CAN GOOGLE ALL BY MYSELF), but then I'll have to ask them, one by one. WHAT.

The other town seems to be better (or, at any rate, more centrally) organised but the problem remains that local kids are higher on the priority list. I tried to be tricksy and went for the Lutheran kindergartens first (because technically, the Lutheran congregation there and the Lutheran congregation have been unified a decade or so ago, so it's officially the same community in spite of stretching across several towns). Still no luck. "We can put you on the waiting list but I must warn you that all places for 2016 and 2017 are currently filled." Hurrah!
(And while I'm busy begging for a place, I'm also effing annoyed, because if we get a place, we're going to have to pay the second highest rate. (We're eaten by our running costs, but on his paycheck, Jörg looks like a rich man.) So they'd be doing themselves a favour by finding a place for us.
And then I feel ashamed about these thoughts because OMG PRIVILEGE! Urgh.)

[chili-das-schaf.livejournal.com]

Short-ish because mobile: Well. It was not much different in my case - they did know which childcare ladies had open spots but I had to do the phoning myself (and I was very glad for the list because no, not all of them can be googled) If there is no central service provided by the city in question (Cologne has it, Bergheim not) the JA can only work with what they have.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

But who would run such a central service? Yeah, the JA. So yeah, they can only work with what they have, but what they have also depends on them. (Well, them and their budget. But I believe my point still stands.)

ETA: Moreover, they do - centrally - know what capacity the kindergartens have, and they know how many children are a) going there and b) going to go there next term, because they're the ones who collect the fees. So while they may not have access to the waiting lists, they can at the very least see which places are already at their limit, and where there might be a bit of a chance.
I, on the other hand, phone every single place, and you know what they tell me half of the time? "No, I don't know how soon we can help you. Did you check with the Jugendamt?"
...!

[chili-das-schaf.livejournal.com]

What I mean is that the JA does not give you this list out of spite or because they are lazy but because not cities have this central service - the reason why is surely not because the JA does not want to. Funding, as you mentioned, city internal decision, who knows. Fact is that it's not necessarily because the JA is unhelpful. Ours is super helpful - although they do not have the centralized system.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Hmmph, but even I (and I'm not an Excel wizard!) could write an algorithm to bring the numbers together. So clearly it doesn't need to cost a lot. -- It's not necessarily that the JA is unhelpful, it's just that they aren't exactly trying to be extra helpful. It's a bit frustrating to run from A to B and be sent to C only to be told that A should be the right address. "If they don't have the numbers, who does?" INDEED!

But yeah, of course I'm also super-biased. I'm sure they can deliver stellar service in some cases. And I know I'm a problem case. It's just unsatisfying all around.

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

"write an algorithm in excel"...
I guess a very big part of Germans (and Austrians of course too) does not know what an "algorithm" is let alone that you can do such things in excel.
Besides that, stupid me only learned that you can put visual basic scripts into excel in an excel course at my new company. In my old company, everyone used some alternative spreadsheet program because "in excel you cannot do any programming". lol.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Okay, that's useful to know. So I can claim to have expert knowledge of Excel after all. (Mind you, the new place uses Apple Numbers. I'm hoping it works basically the same way...)

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

If you have some basic VB knowledge and know how to apply this to Excel, you DEFINITELY have expert knowledge of Excel. And: you live in Germany. That means when writing job applications, you have to exaggerate. A LOT. Because if you only write e.g. good knowledge of something, they assume that you already exaggerated and in reality don't know much more than "I've heard that this exists".

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

Frankfurt (yeah. big modern city. at a second glance: no. not modern at all.) only adopted a central kindergarten system about half a year ago. Before, they had individual waiting lists for each kindergarten. Usually parents, who don't immediately get a place in a kindergarten (and thats about everyone), put their child on a waiting list position in every single kindergarten they think could be possible to be reached between getting up and going to work. And since parents don't care about cancelling their waiting list position once they have found a place somewhere, Noone knows how many of the waiting list kids are really waiting and how many are only "ghost kids" who had already found a place somewhere. This leaves parents who haven't found a place for their kids more and more desperately phoning through their list of waiting list kindergartens, while the kindergartens themselves only find out who is coming or not on the very day, when the waiting list kids are expected to appear. Then - for some mysterious reason - 90% of the waiting list turns empty and the parents who previously thought they'd never get place, are offered 3 or 4 possible places. Totally nerve-wrecking game for both sides.
But yeah, a few month ago, they centralized the system, so that every kindergarten can see if their waiting list kids already have a place somewhere els and it suddenly seems to work with much less stress for everyone.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

*tears out hair*
It seems that I should ditch the job at the magazine and instead become counsellor and coordinator for our municipal services...

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

Ich denk mir so oft, dass ich dies oder jenes so viel besser machen könnte als es im Moment läuft. Und ich würd's so gern machen. Aber ich hab nur 24h am Tag und so seh ich zu, schlag mir vor den Kopf, und leide still.

[arwensommer.livejournal.com]

I seem to have misplaced your birthday in my memory, for which I offer apologies. Oh, and belated congratulations!

The job situation sounds interesting, and I sincerely hope it works out!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

And a happy belated birthday to you, too! I cannot actually place it securely in my memory, but I think I remember it being shortly before mine. So my apologies for missing that, too!

Thank you.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I'm excited about your job. Hope you figure out the child care question--that is always the hardest part! (Laura has no idea how lucky she has been to have me around!)

I got my first journalistic experience writing part-time for a small regional newspaper and used it find other jobs over the years, including freelance work pretty much whenever I needed extra money also. It's really very useful. Also the experience of learning how to write to different editor's taste and requirements.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

It's the same everywhere, it seems... :/

I'm sure it would be massively useful. It's proper job qualification, so even if I can't or don't want to stay with the magazine once the two years are up, I can point at that when I apply elsewhere. Heck, with two years of job experience in any field, I can even try to get into teaching (though German and English are a lot less sought-after than, say, Chemistry; but still!). So it would be valuable in every way. And I think that although I'm already slightly exasperated by some of bossman's habits (e.g. I HAVE AN AWESOME NEW IDEA THAT'S MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVERYTHING ELSE! - um, but we have to send the next edition to the printer next week? - LISTEN TO MY AWESOME NEW IDEA!), the team is pretty cool.
So, yeah. I hope I figure it out.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

(e.g. I HAVE AN AWESOME NEW IDEA THAT'S MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVERYTHING ELSE! - um, but we have to send the next edition to the printer next week? - LISTEN TO MY AWESOME NEW IDEA!)

OMG! That sounds painful. But it means that he is lucky he has you, because you are very focused! (He may even realize that on some at least semi-conscious level. Whenever I have been in a position of hiring someone, I did not hire someone with my own faults simply because we would be more compatible, but someone who would push me to do it right thing when I needed to be pushed!)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

He did ask whether I was an organised person. I'm not! I couldn't lie! So I sort of evasively said that I'm a control freak, which is certainly true. He liked that. XD
That said, being the trainee, I'm not sure I'm gonna dare being firm and either pushing him to, like, finish his texts before deadline day rather than after or ignoring that sparkling new thought for another week. Confident I am not!

[http://users.livejournal.com/macalla_/]

Verspätet aber trotzdem sehr von Herzen: Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!
*knuddel*

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Vielen Dank! *zurückknuddel*

[hhimring]

Hope it all works out with the job and you can sort out the difficulties. It sounds good!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! I hope so too.

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

Just a moment ago, I talked to our neighbour. She's about my age, married, mother of 2 (8 and 13), just moved from Serbia to Austria, busily learning German, got her work permit and is searching for a better job than those 3 few-hour-jobs she has right now. Her husband is not much of a help. He'd rather have her stay at home with the kids.

And it's the same story with a friend of mine, high-professional, chemistry phD with 2 kids (1 and 3), living in Frankfurt - guess who told me the kindergarten story ;) Her husband would rather have her at home, but she feels not really bored, but also not challenged. And she'd like to change that.

And the same with some other friends of mine.

All the guys don't even think about changing their lives for the kids. But they expect their wives to do so. I more and more see that it's not the community and not the companies who are anti-feminists. Wherever I worked, all my bosses were super-cooperative when talking about my personal issues on a business-level. The problem is not in laws. The problem lies in every single family. The state is completely behind me if I want to start working soon after giving birth to kids. My sister proofed that. Her husband stayed at home for 8 months after the first 3 months she had to stay at home. Some men start thinking about such things. But I don't know many who think about working part-time. It's the woman-thing to work part-time. And it's the same ideas that are deeply implanted in my S.'s brain. If I ever happen to get pregnant and keep the thing,... well... this is gonna be a hard challenge and I don't know yet how I will cope with that.
I am not the kind of person who likes to quarrel and debate about such things with my husband and he's not the one to think in a modern emancipated way.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I am not the kind of person who likes to quarrel and debate about such things with my husband and he's not the one to think in a modern emancipated way.

So much this. Instead, when I'm angry because he said something seriously sexist (not about me, about others) and I try to explain where the problem is, he's just all "You really like to play the suffragette, don't you". NO! I DON'T PLAY! IT COMES TO ME KINDA NATURALLY, BEING A WOMAN AND ALL.

In our case, it's made more complicated by "rational" thoughts. He has the 4-digit monthly income (far more than gets recompensated by "Elterngeld") and we have high running costs, so it just doesn't make sense for him to stay at home so I can make € 800, even if it's an investment into my future. But that's not what I'm asking, anyway. I'd just like him to help me search for and contact places and people. He knows how much I hate calling people and asking for favours, and he always says that I'm not negotiating hard enough. Fine then - so help me do it! But it's currently "all too much" for him. I, in turn, know that he's been operating close to (or possibly beyond) burn-out these past years. So in some way, I feel guilty about asking yet more. In another way, I'm pissed off because if you know you're burnt out, find an effing doctor who puts you on extended sick leave? That way he could even take care of the kids. OMG. No, his employer won't like it and will use it as an excuse to get rid of him (as the company is running out with the last of Germany's nuclear power plants anyway), but on the other hand, he needs to find another job anyway and maybe could use the time to write a series of applications? But of course maybe I'm making things too easy for myself, thinking that way, because a diagnosed burn-out would put too much of a stain on his CV? Urgh.
So, yeah. Complicated.

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

I don't want to talk you into a quarrel with your husband, but it's the same thing I experience. And the same thing so many friends of mine tell me. They always have so very rational arguments. As long as they feel like it and as long as it fits with their wishes.
He has the 4-digit income? True. But there is also someone who was kind of secretely offered the editor in chief position and would get a better income out of this if she could have accepted it. And why couldn't you? Because you'd feel guilty against your children if you left them alone all day long. He doesn't think this kind of thought. He doesn't think that for his kids it's terrible to have a burnt-out dad. He is egoistic in this point. You aren't. We girls tend to always care for others. If we behaved like the guys, a lot of things in this world would crash. But we don't dare because we fear the crash. And the guys rely on us to keep the world from crashing.
In my relationship I am the one with the high 4-digit income. Do you think this would change anything? He is so rational. He feels responsible for his athletes who rely on him and he cannot let them down. So it's either I keep on working full-time or part-time. It's my decision if I want to be the good or bad mother. He'd do whatever he wants and be a good father anyway. Because he kinda brings home the money.
If I were like the guys, I'd just keep on working and not care.
He says, you don't negotiate hard enough? Might be true. So many women don't feel like quarrelling and therefore do not negotiate hard enough. I think, I did really well in my negotiations. Yes. I lied. I told them, I had an alternative offer of some still-realistic height. And they didn't pay me that much, but much more than my 2 colleagues who have about the same qualification as me. But this comes from experience. I already had a job before. And the second time, everything is so much easier.
Anyway. What I wanted to say: He tells you to be more self-confident and less obedient, but on the other hand expects you to be so in your relation-ship. Understanding and putting yourself back behind his wishes, while he is not in the mood of going to a psychotherapist, which would help you. But is uncomfortable for him. And no - a CV is no argument. Even if he were out of his job for some time he could write into his CV whatever he felt like: "took care of the kids, while his wife worked", "had startup enterprise which finally was not the thing that made him happy", CV's are full of lies. There's no problem in adding another one.
No, my life isn't any better than yours. My husband is absolutely the same (except for the point that he supports my occasional feminist ramblings and thoughts) and I don't have any recipe for this situation. I just sometimes think "what would he (or one of my male colleagues) do/think/decide in my position?" And then I think about it, if I want to do/think/decide like a man. And if I want it, I try to get it. Because I am no second-class-person just because I am female. And it's ME who can change it. Noone else in this chauvinistic world is there to support me. There is also noone to support the guys. They get their things only by being hard negotiators, too. It's hard for me. But thinking about this "what would he do" helps me to see that my wishes are not anything unrealistic. It helps me to see that I am worthful and it's allright that I want them in spite of all the guys and the community and everyone who tries to tell me the opposite.