The taxi from Oslo Central Station to the IBM office smelled like cherry air freshener, I got a new job as a Compliance Advisor (maybe a demotion from compliance manager, but whatever, I focus on development, skill coaching, and special projects), and I am making great progress on entering a month’s worth of credit card charges into Quicen for reconciling (which means I can run reports necessary to me for expense account submission)

*does that fat guy middle management dance of joy* (like the kind of joy Pavorotti must feel when there is a free 13th donut in the box)

EVERYTIME I pass through customs in Norway, I get stopped. Every single time. No exceptions. And I don’t play the race card game, but come on, being stopped 6 of 7 times (the one I was not stopped they had stopped an Asian woman at the height of the avian bird flu scare) is NOT coincidence. That is called targeting. But when I ask for anexplanation, none of the customs staff can provide one. Well with treatment like this at customs, I have no plans to in be Norway again anytime soon.

Well it was good to see Markus again. He’s nice to talk to and to hang out with.

Weekend In Review

So I am visiting Trondheim, Norway this weekend. It was personal travel really. Or at least that is how it started out. A call from someone in IBM changed all of that, so I had to find the local IBM office in Trondheim and work a bit. It was all ok…just wish it wasn’t on my vacation day. Some talks with my career manager and that was also fun.

Anyway, after a 3 hour work session, a came back to Markus’ place. A nap (since I had been awake 05.30) and some dinner later (dinner was unique and good dinner requires a post of it’s own), we went out to Luna Lounge, a R&B place. It was nice too. Then we came back here and I was exhausted, so I went to sleep.

Oh yeah, and Flat Eric is still the best. puppet. ever. And you have to see The Family Guy episode where the mom becomes a model, the baby starts a pyramid scheme, cookie monster is in rehab, and the daughter is mistaken for a sea cow 🙂

I so owe you all an update to the public blogsphere. It’s just been so crazy, and I’ve been a bit lazy (when it comes to my personal life), my mind’s a bit hazy (from the drinking), but but if you wait a little longer you’ll see, a whole entire post that will read like poetry. 🙂

Love and Hugs to all 🙂

So I have been in Copenhagen this week. Strangely enough, I have accomplished a lot of work this week, even though my job is most likely going to change. It is getting very strange to work in the Nordics because everytime they give me a new job to do, I simply just do not have enough time to get it done because they pull me back into other projects. So once again the organisation is re-organising around my area of work. I am told not to worry and that everything will be fine, but I am not given much of an understanding of what my role will be.

This gets frustrating. Everyone says that I have so much value to add, and certainly there are more requests for my time than I have time to give. But I can’t help but think that sometimes it would be easier to go work for my former x2 manager, where I have a job assignment waiting and a defined mission and the support for that mission.

I have also begun looking into this coverting to a local employee business. It seems like something that I could do, based on the comments that the business needed to cut costs. However, since a former colleague of mine is getting an 2 year assignment, I feel like they could afford one more year of me being on an assignment and then I could coinvert to a local employee for a year.

I don’t know.

The good news is that things outside of work has been going quite well.

The fact that many, if not all, Danish residents own and use a bicycle is cool. It is also cool that I managed to get a room at the Copenhagen Marriott. I think it is the best hotel in Copenhagen 😉