Real eyes realise real lies

I was listening to a song which had the title that I gave to this entry. The song is about the situation in America in the 1990's. The song is a bit old, but I think the message is still the same. Now you're probably wondering what this has got to do with work. Honoustly I have no idea. If you have any, please let me know through a comment or something like that. I just thought it's a funny title and well in fact there might be some thruth in it. Only how do you know if you have real eyes to realise the real lies that are being told to you by all kinds of institutions and information services? It's a difficult question to answer, and I don't think I know the right answer. It will probably be a different answer for everyone, since everyone has their one true version of things that happened, happens or will happen. I think I'm still a bit naive sometimes, I believe people that they are telling me the truth when they want something for me. Companies like insurance of finance companies usually call you up at dinner time to sell you their products. They always say they are the best, cheapest, truthfulliest or whatever they want you to believe that they are. They talk about changes in legislation thay could effect my finacial future. I usually have no idea if thise changes are true, or will effect my financial future, so I sometimes believe them in telling me the truth. But as I have learned along the way, they usually aren't completely honoust with you, they just want to suck you into their client-database. And after you being sucked into, it's damn hard to get out again. So I think I still don't have the real eyes to see their real lies.


If you have some time, also read this blog: http://watchingdaysgoby.blogspot.com/
It's from a dear friend of mine. And you won't need real eyes to read her blog. Just read it, and maybe leave her some nice comments.

Finishing Up!

On coming monday I'm finally finishing up my project at a company called CIZ (www.ciz.nl). It has been a real experience for me, the last two weeks mostly negative.
But I'm glad to have experienced it, it does make me wiser and maybe in the future more protective of my capabilities. Maybe for my readers, if I have any, the last sentence doesn't really make any sense, but I will try to explain it by telling what happened since 22 march, the day I came to work at the CIZ.
The first few weeks weren't that awful, I had nice collegueas that showed how to work and what to do. Nice ladies, not beautiful ones, but very nice and socially concerning about each other. Social lives were often the topic of conversation at the coffeetable. I got to know them quite rapidly, because I like coffee, so whenever I had the chance to drink it, I took it and listened to their stories about children, grandchildren and so on.
But then I had to leave for a week to finish up a project that I had worked for in the beginning of the year. We just needed a week to tie up lose ends. My manager told me not to say anything to the leaders at CIZ, the office will do so. So I went, said nothing and left my collegueas with big questionmarks above their heads. After a few days being away, I got the message that I have to return immediately otherwise I didn't have to bother coming back at all. The leaders at CIZ threatened to withdraw every person from my agency if I didn't came back. So I went back at the orders of my manager only to find out that they didn't really needed my help. After only two weeks of being back, the leaders at CIZ thought it would be nice for me to do some archive-work. In simpler words, simple, and shitty, archive filing work. Removing 2007 applications from the files and make it into a new file. They thought within 2 weeks I would have been done with their whole archive of 2005, 2006 and 2007. After the third day, they realised it wasn't possible, so they counted how many days it would actually cost. Guess what, it is well over 10 days. Even if you let the work be done by two people. Luckily for my sanity I had a few days off and yesterday I got the great news that after coming monday I won't have to come back, even if they get down on their knees and beg me to come back.
Because my capabilities are not really suitable to do such a mindnumbing work. File after file have passed through my hands the last couple of weeks and all brain activity has ceased to function normally. I have to write on a yellow little post-it to remind my self to take a break now and then, to ease my eyes and hands. So hopefully my readers, if the ones I have, haven't abonded me yet, get a small idea of how happy I am that I'm leaving this company. Hopefully never to return again.
Next week I will work for PGGM, a pensioninsurance company, one of the biggest in the Netherlands, and that is what I'm still studying for. So maybe I get my brain back and my will to study.

It's been awhile 2

It has been awhile since I actually wrote something on my blog. Today I have a free day from work, so I might as well as put some words here again.
The last couple of weeks have been interesting and very busy. Interesting because my girlfriend and I decided to look for a house to buy. We found one and are currently in negiotiating on the price. Hopefully we'll get the house for the price we want it for.
Also interesting is the fact that I now no longer work in the banking business. My boss has shifted me to a more social, less financial business. It is a totally different environment, much more social and slower in work pace. It is fun for a change, but honoustly I like it a bit faster than this. The decisions are being made too slow to have any result and by the time they start showing result, they change them right back to the way it was. As an outstander it is fun to watch it, but you can't help to get more and more involved and when the changes directly effect your work, it is not so funny anymore. But I don't feel bad about the choice to get out of the financial section. In the future I will probably go back to it, maybe in a different way, but for now it is nice to relax and just do simple work with hardly any numbers.

Besides working

Sometimes you need to get your work out of your system. I usually do that by biking. And well since this is my own space, I'm gonna just put up some pics of my bike and the one my girlfriend is riding.

Hotel life

Well after a well deserved vacation, the time has come again, or actually, it already had come, that I am forced to do what I'm told to do. Yes, I'm working again, for the ones that don't read between the previous lines. And well my boss thought it would be funny to send me far far away rightaway. Not yet in another galaxy far far away, but I do have to cross the borders with Belgium to get to my working place. My boss and I don't always think alike. I have yet to discover the fun part about being here.
Could the fun part be that now I have all the time at night to study for my exam (again)? Well I don't study for fun, I study to get ahead. Just read an older blog of me about getting ahead in life. So that ain't it.
Could the fun part be that I can see almost everything on tv since I don't have anything else to do in the evening when I'm alone in my room? Well no, because most of the programs in the evening kinda suck. Or they show old and boring movies. So that ain't it either.
Could the fun part be that the city I'm staying in has a very interesting nightlife? When I'm done at 18.00 hours, every shop is closed and so are most of the four bars I found so far. So no nightlife here, hell there isn't even a daylife.
I think I just have to ask my boss what the fun part of living a hotel life is.

Vacation

If there is one thing I like about working, it is that you can actually get paid without working. Some people call it vacation, or holiday. I like to call it the happy days of a job. Unfortunately you don't get that many happy days a year so you have to be careful how to use them. But for now I'm just relaxing and enjoying my happy days in Portugal. So no fuzz about working, getting up early, being responsible and all that other shit that comes with a job. Nope, it's just relaxation at last ( or as Elmer Fudd would say "wewaxation at wast").
So this will be a short one, because it will also mean that I won't be thinking about things related to work. Just wanted to drop it on the ones that actually read this shit, that me and my mind have taken a holiday.

To study or not to study

In your lifetime you'll always meet interesting and sometimes wise people. Those people might be teaches, counselors, personal coaches or any other random sort of people one meets during their life. Sometimes these people try to help you to reach a higher platform in your life. They encourage you to get the best out of yourself. They do so by sometimes saying that through study one can get better job opportunities and chances. I also had those people in my life, and I still do have them in my life, for which I'm thankfull.
Right now, one of those people encouraged me to follow a study to get better career chances. So I chosed a path for me which will eventually get me to be a pensionplan advisor, hopefully. To get there I have to study, and well, since it's been awhile since I saw a studybook up close, it is pretty difficult to get started again. But I have succeeded in starting, and today I'm going to do the first exam. After that I still will have to do two more exams. So maybe by the end of next year, I'll have done those two exams and I can get started with the beginning of my new career chances.
But why do people say that study is the only way to get ahead in life? Where did they found that sort of wisdom? Was it passed to them by older generations? And if so, where did the whole idea of study start? My best guess would be with the ancient Greeks of Socrates, Plato and Aristoteles. They more or less discovered that by asking questions and learning from their answers they reached a higher level in their life. At that time some questioned their methods, which lead to the death of one of the first philosophers. Nowadays people still questions the ones that seek knowledge, but luckily for them they don't get punished for it. I don't question the seekers of knowledge, since I consider myself to be one of those seekers. I seek knowledge through study, through reading and through the experience of life. One can get to a higher level not just by study, but also by observing the world and all of it's inhabitants. Most helpfull are other people. When observing other people you can learn a great deal, about life, love, happiness, fortune, but also about the misfortune, unhappiness and unlove.
But for now, I'll focuss on my exam and try to get just that little step up to the next level in my life.

It's been awhile

Well my plan to weekly tell something about work, or my own work for that matter, didn't really work. In the end, it was my own work that more or less kept me from typing just another entry to my blog. Luckily for me, I'm sick now with a throat infection. So that gives me a couple of sick days from my work. And thus it gives me an opportunity to type the second entry.

In that last couple of weeks, since I first wrote the blog, I had all sorts of ideas for new ones, about everything and nothing related to work. But most of those ideas pop up in my head while I'm driving to or from my work, and by the time I get home I usually have forgotten them. So maybe I should rethink my plans of writing a blog every week and just write a blog whenever I have time. But I do have to find something to keep those ideas in my head or on a piece of paper so that I can work them out at a later time. But did you ever tried to write something while you're speeding over the highway? I haven't so far, and I don't think I will try it someday. The roads are nowadays way too dangerous to try a stunt like that. Just last week when I went to work, I saw an accident every day at the same spot on the same highway. Most of the accidents were just small crashes, with only the cars being the ones that were injured. Luckily. I remember an accident a few years ago when I saw a car that was under a truck, I mean really under it. The firemen had to cut the people out of the wreckage using some sort of pneumatic scissors. Now those accidents are the scary ones. The ones from last week were just small timers. But I don't think it's such a good plan to try to write something while driving. Maybe a voicerecorder is something that would work, and I can work the spoken thoughts out later when I'm home safely.

First One

Today I started my hopefully weekly blog about work, my work, other work, or just in work in general.
I have been working now for like 6 years in different jobs. Most of them were at offices doing mostly light administrative work. Nowadays I still do administrative work, in a bank. I have this job now for more than two years and it is the first job I have had for so long. The company gave me a car to go to all the places they need me to go. It used to be an Opel Corsa, but in august I received a new one, since the leasecontract had ended on the Opel. Now it's a Renault Clio, the latest model. Nice to drive, you don't really have to work in it, so you can save all your energy for the work that needs to be done on a daily basis.

Sometimes I wonder if it is possible to not work at all. But then I start to ask myself how I can pay the bills that will be stacking up in no time. Life have become expensive to live, so work is a necessarity to try and pay all the bills that come in my mailbox on regular base. I sometimes see homeless people and I wonder if I could ever be like that, without though the usual addiction to booze and drugs. Just be homeless and not have to worry about working all day. Maybe I'm romantising the homeless factor too much, because most of the homeless people I see look, quite frankly, like shit. And I'm a bit of a vein person, I do like to look good for myself and for the people that see me during a day or night.

By the way, the dude on the right is me.