A small change

Hi Fellow readers, bloggers and friends in general.

I'm sorry not to have written you in a long while. The fact is I didn't have enough things to tell you as nothing has really changed since last time.

I told you I've been changed to another department but I still didn't have a computer of my own. The fact is everything is still the same but I'm working really hard. I managed to have a computer for the last week (with the help of my new boss) and I could work. Today I did have one also, but I'm not sure about tomorrow. The problem is I have some urgent work to do and my boss wants it to be made as quickly as possible, but as I said I'm not sure about having a comp for the next days, so how could it be done? The good thing is I haven't been that bored last week and times goes faster if you have something to do, so it wasn't a bad week. I also met some people and made a new friend at J&Js. So it was a really good week.

Unfortunatly I still don't feel happy about my job and my new life. I know I have to be patient, but it's hard for me. And also things happen slower when you want them to be faster, that's a fact.

I might say also that I have a feeling of life being a bit unfair with me. I hope you don't blame me for being too negative, but for the last months every time something good happened to me it turned into crap at the end. So I'm a bit suspicious at the moment about any good news. I had a good one last week, it has to do with the people I met, but then, even when is not turned into crap yet it has turned into a complicated thing with means to be crap at the end. I should say it could turn into something really good but I told you I'm suspicious at the moment.

I started to feel again the need of leaving my country. Last week I sent some CVs to the Argentinian branch of my company and this week I even considered to move further away (yes, it's possible). I still have the ache of travelling and living at different parts of the world, but I also know I need some more time and money (and also courage). I know my family won't be happy if I do it, because my new plans are about moving really far from Spain. I'm still not happy here, even when there's a lot of new things, people is still the same, and my company is still spanish even being American. But I need to do some CV adds before that, if I have a year of experience it will be easier for me to find a job outside Spain. I'll be patient or, at least, I'll try to be, the reward could be great.

Anyway, I want you to know I'll still be here, even if I don't write that often, telling you about my life's changes and everything that comes to my mind or I just want to tell you.

I must say my ex-work-mates were very nice with me and they still are. I told them about my blog today and about the fact that some people would like to read about somebody else thoughts and/or experiences. They were fascinated and it made me really happy that they were. I wish they read it today and they read this post, so they'll know why you read me. I'm also happy to have so many fellow readers (I feel a bit weird complimenting you) but that's the only reason I keep writing, it makes me feel better to tell my feelings anyway, so it's both sides.

Farewell and hope things get better to everybody.

Manoel.

Things going well

Hi bloggers.

If you were worried about me, I might tell you things are getting better. At least I do know now I'm not getting fired, and also I'm going to work for the new department and not being moved to another place, wich means I won't lose money (I don't want to be mean, but life is rough enough). I still don't have a computer of my own, but I'm treated better. My "new" boss asked me to do things without asking me if I knew how to do them, and I did them, and did them well. So I believe he's happy with me. That's quite a step, don't you think?

But I'm also afraid of being too positive. I tend to be negative, but in the past, when things were getting better there was always something bad that happened, so I decided just to be cautious.

I'll mantain you well informed about anything that happens to me, specially because my "new" boss has some peculiarities I'd like you to know, unless I forgot about them. I'm sure I won't.

Farewell.

Manoe.

More of the same

Hi and Good Morning.

I wish I could tell you I have a really good job. Unfortunatly it's not true yet. Yet I'm being payed, and also I'm being payed for doing nothing and I know some guys who would be really happy to have that kind of job. But, knowing me, that's the worst kind I could ever have. It's almost three months and I still don't have my own desk neither a computer. I was finally moved on thursday to the new department, but not because they have a place for me, but because they have some empty desks and seats, meaning I can at least seat my butt. The problem was my boss (and I believe she's ex-boss now, she was the sleepy one) arrived so I had to leave her desk, and as nobody was on holidays or ill that meant there were no desk at all for me. So either I move to the other department or I stand up the whole day or go for walking. I would rather preffer walking than anything else, at least I like doing it better than doing nothing, but of course they didn't want me to do that.

I called my boss (the big one) and he told me to move, but without giving me the feeling of it being permanently. He was supposed to come and see us this week, but he didn't. Some of us wanted to talk with him, about important matters, some of them quite important, specially mine (beacuse it's important for myself, I mean). He's our "Team Manager" meaning he's supposed to be our voice in front of the bigger bosses and clients and also he has to make a crew into a team wich should involve being there when he's needed. But of course he's real matters are those related with the ones that pay, the clients, and it seems they're much more important than us. He "works" at the main office and I put it into quotes because I never saw him working as he's not neither with the client or with us. My new boss told me yesterday that he'd came to talk to us, well he really told me he'll come to talk to me, that only means he has another ideas for me, but he didn't come.

I'm not afraid of being fired, as they don't pay me that much, compared with the money they give to others, and also compared with some others that are payed much more and works much less (yes, it's possible). And also because they do know it's not my fault but theirs. And also because they could have done it before without having to pay me anything (well, they still can, it's just another week and they'd have to pay me). I'm not afraid of losing my job, and as I tend to be negative that only means I really believe they're not going to fire me, so don't be worried, there's blog for a long time.

I'll mantain you informed about my working days.

Cheers and Farewell.

Manoel.

No new news

Hi Bloggers.

This last few days have been quite boring. I have done nothing during the weekend and also I might say I didn't during the week, even at my job. It's being a terribly boring time, and doing nothing is something that tires me as much as doing too much. I still don't know where I'm going to work at, or if I'll have some work to do. I decided (with the help of my fellow Faye) to talk to my boss, not the sleepy one, she's at the "rocio" (look in google what the hell is that, I'm not going to explain it, in fact I'm not sure what's all about) but my the highest one. I'm going to tell him carefully how bored I am and the waste of my talent and time wich it's being at my office. I hope he'll understand but if not at least I'll feel better. Anyway, I'm almost sure it's going to be another boring week, unless something happens, but this is Spain and everything is slow here.

I spent the last days doing nothing, and the only things I did where repetitive tasks wich didn't involve using my brain at all. I'm afraid I'm getting stupid, or untrained. But the most stupid, apart from my brain, it's the fact they're paying me for that, and it's just a fools doing, it's a waste of money, time and resources. I'm sure they don't earn as much money as they could in spain, but I'm afraid it has to do with the clients and not only with my company. In fact, I believe it's not my companies fault, but the client's, wich is quite cheeky. But my boss could do something more.

Well, I hope I'll have some exciting news next time I speak to you, meanwhile I hope at least I'll meet some new weirdos then I'll have something to talk about.

Cheers and sorry for being late again.

Farewell

Manoel.

Weirdos from Madrid

Hi blog readers.

As I don't want to bore you with more office stories (I'm afraid you might like them) but this time I want to talk about freaks.

Living on a big city means meeting a lot of people. I told you more than once how much I enjoy waatching people, everywhere. The tube is a good opportunity to practice this hobby, and also the bus. So I have a few freaks wich I would like to talk about.

I'l start with the one I call Gollum, or Smeagol. I decided to call him both. If you had seen the Lord of The Rings movies you will understand it better. Gollum has two different personalities, and so he speaks with himself, one of them is Gollum and the other Smeagol, the evil and the good. I met him at the bus, and I travel with him a lot, so I started to know him well. He's as skinny as the proper gollum, and except from not being bald his face asembles a bit of him. But he's not Gollum because he looks like him, he is Gollum because he's two guys at the same time, although I only hear one of them. If you don't know him you might think he's chatting on a hands free mobile, but he's not. He has proper conversations, he talks a lot and about multiple subjects. Today I was beside him, so I could hear the entire conversation, he argues quite a lot, but he's never angry with himself. I heard him saying "no, men, it's not like that" with feeling, and then "well... I'm not sure". And then he asks himself if he likes Salsa dancing, I believed he didn't, but he replied once more "no, I really like it, although I agree bossanova is better". It's funny in some ways, and a bit scary in some others. I believe he's squizofrenic (I'm sorry if I don't spell it right).

Then here we have this other old chap, he's fine. But he always smiles to everybody and sometimes he's rude with the bus driver. He talks to anybody if he has the chance. I was never beside him, so I didn't have to speak with him. I heard him talking about Galicians and he made some mistakes trying to speak like one of us, but it's sweet anyway. He's not really a freak, just a too friendly old chap.

Then, and again on the bus, we have a retard (I'm sorry if I'm not being politicaly right, but I don't know another word for this). He's really sweet with his baseball hat, and his perpetual smile. He gets up a lot loosing his seat, just because he wants to see something. But he spends most of the time sleeping. Sometimes he listens to music and sings. Sometimes he reads a newspaper, wich is really brave, I believe.

So as you see I hadn't a lot of them, I see the same 10 or 20 people everyday, as they go to work at similar time as I do. Some of them are strange, but unfortunatly I don't have so many freaks yet, I'll have some more in the future, I'm sure.

And now, changing subject, I want to tell you a really short story. It's just something that happened to me last saturday when I came back home from going out. It was on a bus, and it was just this really weighty chap that fall complete sleep on me. I really mean on me, or over me. I couldn't really bare him, he was quite heavy. But I didn't want to wake him up, except that I had to leave the bus and I was at the window, so I really had to. I did, but it didn't really matter to him he continued sleeping. But the girl in front of me had a really good time, smiling or laughing at me.

See you soon and farewell again.

Manoel.

How to ruin an American company

Hi bloggers.

I'm just back from having a couple of pints at a nice bar, it's called J&Js and you can speak english there, with Spaniards and also foreigners. I'm glad that I went. I had some chatting and made some new friends. And I also really needed it.

I want to explain about the blog's title. It's just as simple as this "put spaniards in front of the American spanish branch of the company and it will turn inmediatly into unefficient crap". I couldn't have had a worst day. I spent the day doing nothing, I mean nothing valuable for the company, but it wasn't my fault. I spent the whole day looking at the screen and trying to hack the system to get internet, wich I almost did, I finally got some internet, but unfortunatly i couldn't get access to my blog, so don't expect me to write more than I do.

You know, or you should know if it's not the first time you read me, that I'm being moved to another department. The problem is, I still don't have my own computer at both departments, so I can't really move to the new one. I talked to my new "boss" and he told me not to expect to have one on the next 20 days, wich I belive it's going to be more than that. Then, I talked to my old boss, but still my boss, or at least that's what I think, although I'm not too sure about it, and she told me she preffer me to be working there. The problem is my "old" job mates don't want to give me new jobs, because I won't finish them if I leave. I believe I'll spend the whole month doing more hacking and writing (I also spend some time writing stuf for my own self, just silly crap I'm afraid).

But also, and this means going back in the past, I'm considered as the best of all the people that made the course with me, and those aren't my own words, that's according to the teacher, my mega boss, my boss and all my course mates, so it's nothing I just made off, I promise. But all of them, including my flat mate Marivi are working, and I mean really working. Just take it like this: you have a really good programmer and another 5, and you have to decide where should they work at; then you take the laziest of them and you give them something to do, wich they don't because they're lazy, you know; then you choose the best of them to be at the worst place, doing nothing; and if you're not happy enough with it, let's just say my company recieves money for all of them (I mean, we work with another companies who pay my own company three or more times the same money we receive) except for the best of them. I believe that's just unbelievable. The other companies pays for the lazy guys but the BSCH (the bank I work for) pays nothing for me? and that's because I don't have a computer, meaning I'm not working at all, well, I really do work, and I'm sure I did more than my other course mates, because I'm damm fast (I promise I'm not being arrogant), but they don't pay for my work.

There's also another problem wich I expect it won't affect me. My company is losing money at Spain, it's not hard to belive. And they're going to fire some people. They decided to fire the ones that earn more money, wich means more expenses for the company. And also, being at Spain I'm sure they are going to fire the ones whom the bosses don't like even if they're good at their jobs. But I'm afraid they might fire me. There's just one simple reason for them doing it, my company spends a lot of money on me but they don't earn anything at all. For instance, my flat mate Mariví earns 1000 euros a month, but they earn 3 or 4 times that quantity, meanwhile for myself they spend 1160 euros a month without any earnings (we don't really receive that much, we have to pay taxes, bloody taxes). That's what I'm afraid of, they might lose a good programmer just because a bad deccision (sorry for being arrogant once more, but it's just the truth).

I hope it won't be true, and I still be here, earning money, trying to make the company better (as none of my working mates wants to be a boss, I really want to, at least I believe I'll make things a bit better, I mean, less spanish). I might tell you sometjing else before I leave, I'm not sure I had told you before but, they had a meeting at Paris, the entire company. People came from all over the world, Norht and South America, England, East Europe, Russia, Japan, ... and they had a conference. It was on english, I should take it for granted. But the spaniards couldn't get a word of it, and also the translators on headphones seemed to be boring, so they decided to leave the conference, in wich the BIG BOSS was talking about the new company strategy (something I belive vital for the company's future), and they went to have some fun at the DisneyLand resort or just having a short walk at Paris. The company payed a lot just for hiring an entire hotel for the whole company bosses but the Spaniards thought better to have some fun. And they don't regret it, they didn't have any remorse about it.

That's just another example of us, Spaniards. Sometimes i'm ashamed of being one of them, I'm really sorry for it.

Well, I hope next time I'll tell you some good news, I'm sure I will.

Farewell (I'm falling in love with that word).

Manoel

For my fellow Bloggers (and also new ones)

Hi all of you.

I recently got some telling off from some fellow bloggers. The problem was I wasn't writing as much as before, and they really love my blogs. That's something I'm really proud of but, at the same time, puts more pressure over me to write. Writing is something I do when I feel like it, I didn't pretend to make this blog as a diary of my entire life, and I believe some day it'll stop, meaning that some day I'll be happy enough not to write about it.Although I believe meanwhile I can make somebody's life happier and/or make them laugh a bit I think it really worths spending my time.

So here I am again, I'm back at Madrid. Although I know I'm not where I would really like to be i's kind of. I'm going to have terrible times being at my office, and I'm sure you'll enjoy them as soon as I write about it. My life isn't that easy I would like it to be, but I hope that's the same for everybody. Being here is being kind of a test to me. I'm testing my strenght to face things without any help, and I'm also learning a lot about Spaniards, more than I did before. I can tell you about working, living and having social life at Spain, but I'm also sure you'll not learn anything useful from myself, as my work is not what I expected, my living is almost the same as at my old town, and also I'm not having any social life at all.

Well, I hope I'll write soon. Farewell and be good.

Manoel.

A Short visit to my old City

Hi folks.

I came back to Pontevedra for a short visit, just a few days. After a long trip on a Bus wich took 8 hours, and after my legs started aching, I arrived and I could notice no changes at all. Well, it was just one month since the last time, but I expected more. The fact is I really miss my old town, but not at all meanings. I miss the green colour and the smell of the sea. I'm just scared about being at Madrid on summer with my suit at the tube. I'm sure that's going to be horrible, but that's life.

I was talking with my friend and fellow blogger Colin about some things and he asked me if I noticed differences between Madrileños and Galicians. So I said the Madrileños are a bit more "chulos" (Arrogant) but I couldn't say anything else. The fact is I realized we are exactly the same thing, we expect the same things from life, wich is being a civil servant or "funcionario" in my own speak. We just want to have fun in the same way and we're all as closed to foreign cultures/food/... as them. Of course the possibility of finding somebody whom is open at Madrid is higher than here, and of course as we live on a very small town, we're less open minded. But after all we are Spaniards, and I believe that's all what makes us being what we are.

Anyway. I'll come back to my office life on Thursday, and I hope I'll learn some more about that subject, so you'll have some more funny stories. I still have to tell you more about the "fat bastard" and some other characters, and also about the money spent by the bank and the idiocy I see there. The BSCH city is not finished yet, so I see them still working on it, and I see how inefficient they are. But that's something I'll tell you another day. I'm still wlking on my town, smelling the sea and hearing the "gaviotas" wich is a bird I don't really like, but that now I see I miss a bit.

Farewell!

Manoel.