Friday the 6th of January I had to bring my daughters to the airport in Trondheim again. For the first time I would drive all alone. Already in the morning it started to snow and there was a lot of wind, especially in the mountains. We were a bit scared that one road would be closed because of the weather but it wasn’t. It didn’t make the trip easy though. Because of the heavy wind there was a lot of snow on the road itself which made it hard to drive. But we made it well in time and the girls to go to Holland with only a small delay.
For me the real challenge begun as I had to drive the same road again but now in the dark. 249 km took me almost 5 hours’ drive. Pitch dark so you need extra lights but at the same time a lot of snow which made it hard to use the extra lights. Due to my inexperience driving in this weather I took it slowly (40-50 km/hour), while some Norwegians (real dare-devils) passed me with at least 90-100 km/hour.
During the same period I was contacted by the owner of a local company whether I was interested to have a job in his factory as they were looking for a new production manager. That didn’t take me long to think about as it can bring us more security. So after some negotiation I was offered the job and started last Tuesday. Marga came back from Holland on Monday so that was perfect timing. Instead of travelling 140 kilometres a day I now have a job just around the corner with a lot to do.
Instead of using plastic cards for business cards, hotel keys, gift cards and so on are we making them of wood. As they just have installed new equipment I could join the training together with my employees. I can tell you, it was a hectic week. And it promises to be a challenging future.
I also started the SFI training again. In the past few months we tried to join the daily classes, but that didn’t work for us. Now they are trying to change their strategy a little bit and started an evening class that we can participate after work. I hope this will work as we definitely need some extra training. We always ask people to correct us whenever we make a mistake but Swedish people are very polite and don’t want to do this. They understand what we are saying and I guess we understand most of the time what they are saying to us, but we are still missing the details. In time we will learn though. At work I will only speak Swedish so that is a very good training and some colleagues promised to correct me whenever needed.
/Chris
For me the real challenge begun as I had to drive the same road again but now in the dark. 249 km took me almost 5 hours’ drive. Pitch dark so you need extra lights but at the same time a lot of snow which made it hard to use the extra lights. Due to my inexperience driving in this weather I took it slowly (40-50 km/hour), while some Norwegians (real dare-devils) passed me with at least 90-100 km/hour.
During the same period I was contacted by the owner of a local company whether I was interested to have a job in his factory as they were looking for a new production manager. That didn’t take me long to think about as it can bring us more security. So after some negotiation I was offered the job and started last Tuesday. Marga came back from Holland on Monday so that was perfect timing. Instead of travelling 140 kilometres a day I now have a job just around the corner with a lot to do.
Instead of using plastic cards for business cards, hotel keys, gift cards and so on are we making them of wood. As they just have installed new equipment I could join the training together with my employees. I can tell you, it was a hectic week. And it promises to be a challenging future.
I also started the SFI training again. In the past few months we tried to join the daily classes, but that didn’t work for us. Now they are trying to change their strategy a little bit and started an evening class that we can participate after work. I hope this will work as we definitely need some extra training. We always ask people to correct us whenever we make a mistake but Swedish people are very polite and don’t want to do this. They understand what we are saying and I guess we understand most of the time what they are saying to us, but we are still missing the details. In time we will learn though. At work I will only speak Swedish so that is a very good training and some colleagues promised to correct me whenever needed.
/Chris
