Tea Time

I am a worker again, and I gotta say that I enjoy it. I’ve often heard how unhealthy it is to define yourself through your work. Well, I do, and I don’t care that it isn’t healthy! I think that there are degrees of unhealthy and healthy though. I am so-so about leaving my work at work – I’d say about a 60% success rate on that. And I try to leave my ego out of the work environment. But honestly I do like the structure of working. I like that I have somewhere to go everyday and certain tasks that I know how to do. I also like that sometimes I have tasks that I don’t know how to do – a bit of challenge.

There does seem to be less of an emphasis here on defining yourself by what you do. Where you come from and who your family is seems more important. That is a huge generalisation of course, and I do think with the move to more people in urban centres working in large companies, what you do is becoming more important. But I do feel that I am not asked as much “what do you do?”

So far, my job is great. Second week was very stressful with several deadlines that I was scrambling to meet and fearing the response if I didn’t meet them. But the people are very friendly in this company. They have all been very helpful and solicitous – I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been asked how I’m getting on.

Now the two-hour (total, one hour each way) commute. Again so far, not bad. I’m withholding judgement on two counts: I have only had to make the drive in heavy rain once and light rain twice. And it is still light out in the mornings and evenings. Pouring rain and dark, I am not looking forward too. My drive is mostly on a national highway. This one happens to be quite nice. It is mostly two lanes, but there are two stretches with passing lanes. And there is actually shoulder for much of it – very unusual. But it also goes through three villages where we must slow down to 50 kph (although I seem to be one of the few people on the road that obeys this). In one of the towns, I go through two roundabouts where I have to make 90 degree turns – again this is a national highway! Having grown up being lulled to sleep by Interstate-5, this is amazing to me.

The rain is especially concerning. What do you think of when I say Irish weather? Rain, right? You’d think with all this rain they’d know how to drain it from the road. On one part of my drive I’m actually on the national highway that goes from Waterford, one of the five major cities in all of Ireland, to Dublin. On this road recently, I drove through a lake at least 40 feet in length with a major pothole in the middle (in our little Opel!). Luckily I was behind a line of cars dealing with this lake and noticed the car in front of me slowing for the pothole. And it wasn’t raining heavily just spitting, not a good sign.

Outside of the towns I look mostly at pastures with cows, sheep, horses, harvested wheat or other crops. And green hills and the River Suir. It is really pretty. (I can’t resist mentioning that the accompanying farm equipment on the road isn’t so pretty when the speed limit is 100, and I’m trying to get to work.) All in all though it is a beautiful drive, and I’m enjoying the autumn colours of the many trees.

We clock in at 9 and finish at half 5, which is 5:30 (in Germany it would be 4:30 which makes more sense to me – I keep meaning to ask our German friends if that confuses them). I get an hour lunch, and we have a very nice canteen. Canteens are very typical for companies of any size here. Many jobs advertise subsidised canteens as part of the benefits package. Ours is good, free coffee and tea (hubby has to pay for his), scones are 40 cents, lunches are a few euro. Pat of butter however is 30 cents! There is a great tradition of morning tea here (F & M you’d love it). At 10:45 we head to the canteen collecting the rest of our department along the way (our offices happen to be the furthest away). It is supposed to be 15 minutes, but I have yet to see less than 30 (it takes 5 to walk to the canteen).

The other really cute thing is at the end of lunch, which we all eat at the same time in the canteen. As we are all finishing, one or two people at the table start asking everyone else if they’d like tea or coffee (the canteen is self-serve cafeteria style). Then as the order takers are getting the tea or coffee, they go over and buy a couple chocolate bars, which are brought to the table, broken up and shared. We all throw our extra change in the chocolate cup to fund this and different people get the tea/coffee everyday, in self-regulated rotation.

I’ve noticed a few examples of this – I don’t know what to call it – sense of community? It feel like it is more a part of the culture here. For good or for bad, US felt more individualistic.

Before I get too deep, back to working life...

There are three of us in my department, my boss, co-worker and me, and we all shared one room until last week. We are a sub department within marketing that basically supports the sales staff. We moved offices to an area that is newly refurbished and is next to the rest of marketing. I’m hoping it will be a little tidier – I’m not in my element working in such a messy place! We deal in a lot of stuff – shirts, glasses, candles, etc, which are in boxes all around me. As a temp, I’m trying to ignore it and hoping that it won’t all come to our new offices with us.

Moving day has come and gone. Very strange moving day too – all of a sudden, we were moving! Honestly, there was no organisation, no planning – or maybe I was just out of the loop. We were working one minute, then picking up our stuff in our arms and taking it down the stairs the next – no boxes, just pile it in your arms. I made sure not to pile too much around my desk, so I’m much more comfortable. We now enjoy windows that open and look over the front garden where rabbits roam.

(Your Irish phrase of the day used in context even): Our new office “suits us down to the ground!”