The New(Est) Era

On the 2nd of December (2018) my previous boss wrote to me. It was a little strange, because we didn't communicate that much out of work. He just wanted to know if I was back in Estonia and if I was looking for work (because he wanted me back to his team). I was back, but I wasn't interested in going back. First because I didn't want to move backwards and also because the previous Friday I had had a job interview in another company and was waiting to hear from them.

About a week later (11th) he wrote me again to ask if I got the job. I did. By that moment I was already on my second day at the new place. He didn't want to let go and offered a higher salary and said he'd still prefer me in his team as opposed to the people he had interviewed so far. To be honest, this was exactly what I needed, because I wasn't that happy in the new place. Sure it was all new and there was A LOT to learn, but I still felt that wasn't for me. So by the time evening had come around, I had already made up my mind and wrote to my previous boss that I accept his offer. It was a little funny though - I declared to him that I accept and he said that I'd still need to do a round of interviews (still an official place, so have to follow official channels and stuff).

On Tuesday (13th) I snuck off during lunch to go do the interview. Our own local HR was on maternity leave, so I was being interviewed by the HR in our Spanish office. She didn't have many questions to me, because I knew the answers to everything she asked me [(hypothetical questions like what I would do in different situations etc) because I had already done that job before for two years]. After the short interview, I went back to my new job.

The same evening came the positive answer. So the next morning I went to the new office to finish up my contract and by noon I was back at my old place, reviewing everything I had learned before I left and all the new details that had come while I was away.

Since I'm writing this in January 2023, I can't really remember what Christmas was in 2018. But I do remember spending the New Years Eve in Tallinn with friends. Lots of alcohol and the evening ended in an adult venue. I remember going home to the village with an early train on the 1st of January hungover like hell. I tried to sleep, but at some point mother came home and she was also not feeling well (meaning she hadn't stopped drinking since whenever she started). Leaving out the unpleasantness, let's just say it was not a nice day.

Luckily an old friend offered me a place to say and on the 10th of January I was on the late train with my suitcase and stuff. His place was not big - just a one room apartment - in one corner there was a shower section (which was basically a meter by two meter box in the room), then a kitchen area in front of that "box", then his TV and bed/couch and my sleeping area would be then at the top part of the "box". Not much, but I was happy to be out from home again and happy to be back in the city, back in civilization in a way.

Time slowly went on and life kind of went back to the same place it was before - work, home, steps, home, sleep, work, home, steps and so on. Add TV shows and some hanging out with friends and it was like it was before.

In June 2019 there was another big change coming. One big project was coming to our company and they needed people. Since they didn't have that many people to choose from (I guess) the recruitment team turned to me and offered me a position there. Since the salary was a little higher, I was tempted. Also another selling point to me was that I wouldn't be handling hundreds of different things at the same time and would focus on one thing only (ish). The offer was for two positions - something called a Super-User and an RTA. Super-User would be the person who'd help advisers with whatever difficult cases they'd have and then RTA was that I'd be checking the phonelines and making sure there are no queues or whatnot. After short consideration I accepted it.

Since it was a huge client who was going to have call-centers in different countries, then in order to train all new staff in one go they flew me and my co-worker to Amsterdam on the 16th of June (Sunday). On the following Monday we'd start our two-week training. I must say it was a really fun time to learn about the project and to meet so many different people - there were people from South Africa, Athens, Pristina, UK, the Netherlands and maybe some other places I am forgetting. 

Rabat! I'm forgetting Rabat, Morocco. There's a "funny" thing with that also... Since in Tallinn the project was supposed to launch in August and earlier in other places, then me and my co-worker were originally supposed to fly to Athens after the training to help the local trainers with the on-boarding. But apparently the trainers from Rabat were not able to make it due to some issues with the visa. But on the last minute they did make it and attended the training in Amsterdam, but no one told our local bosses in Tallinn about that. So still on the 28th of June me and my co-worker sat on a plane and flew to Rabat.

Here I must say that though it was an interesting place and I met some cool people, I also had never been so bored in my life than I was there. Since the trainers still attended the training in Amsterdam, then they were the ones who also conducted the training in Rabat. But the thing is that they did it all in French and I, nor my co-worker, understand that language. So most of the three weeks during day time we spent sitting at the back of the training class, just doing our own things - either playing some games on our phones/laptops or watching some TV shows or whatever. Occasionally helping out with the training when the trainers ran into some question they didn't know how to answer, so we checked it with the Amsterdam team. Most days after work we'd head back to the hotel and remain there. Mostly because even though it wasn't the most dangerous place, there was still some danger, so it was safer to stay inside. Also being that it wasn't a touristy city, more of a city for lots of offices, there wasn't that much to see anyway (other than the beautiful Old Town and a few other historical places). I was also especially afraid, because being gay is illegal in Morocco, so I didn't want to take any risks that my wrist would accidentally loosen a little and give out any signs for the local thugs or something.

During the weekends we'd hang out a little with one of the team leaders from the office. One day I remember he took us to some racing event - we'd watch how some cars raced on some parking lot one by one. Another time he drove us to Casablanca, because he really wanted us to see the biggest mall over there. He was a sweet guy for doing that and showing us around.

My co-worker flew back a week earlier, because he had some wedding to attend to or whatever. I got to stay back and see how the project was launched and the first week of actual work of the newbies.

On the very last evening me and three locals went out to eat. I had made some friends and I wanted them to show me some local food places. They took me to some very small street food place and I got to taste some delicious meat things. Can't name any of them, but I will never forget the way they looked like (not bad, just the events on the following day kept them in my mind). Basically they next day I woke up with a headache. My flight back was supposed to leave in the afternoon. The whole day my stomach was upset, my head was spinning and overall I didn't feel good. At that point I was the only one out of the four of us who was not feeling good. After half a day between laying on the floor in the corner of the office and running to and from the bathroom, I said my good-byes and a taxi took me to the airport in Rabat. Most of the time I was sitting down, because standing up was not that good. Flight to Germany was a nightmare, though luckily I was able to stay seated the whole time. Original plan was that I was going to binge through the last season of "Orange Is The New Black", as it had just been released the day before and I downloaded all episodes on my Netflix account. That's why I had declined an offer from my company to get a hotel from, because the connecting flight from Germany to Tallinn only left early next morning. Well, sufficed to say I did not feel like watching any shows. All I wanted to do was just die there on the spot. So most of the night I spent on some bench in the airport, trying to get some sleep and praying none of my stuff gets stolen while I'm out of it. Somewhere around three or four in the morning they opened up the security checks. I still remember barely being able to stand while in that long queue.

When I got home, I spent a week in bed. Half of the time with one end on the toilet seat. Luckily the project over here launched a little later and they were still setting up the office for it, so I didn't have to be here and I could feel like shit in peace.

Later I heard the food-poisoning also caught up with the other three, just not as hard as it did me. 

While on the trip in Rabat, my co-worker had changed his mind. Originally he was supposed to be the trainer and the team leader, but he wanted to swap the trainer part with me. At first I was a little scared, but then in the end I accepted it.

The first group of local trainees in Tallinn was my biggest - 17 people of all ages (adults of course). I was very nervous for the first few days (first because I don't really enjoy being in the center of attention and then also because I didn't even know fully the material yet or completely understand it yet). But somehow we got through it together and made it fun. Though we, in Amsterdam, were trained for two weeks, the training with the advisers was planned for three weeks. Once the three weeks was over, they were ready for the actual work. The phonelines opened up on the 9th of September. Sadly/luckily I wasn't able to see how that went, because on the same day I started with my second group of new hires.

In the beginning the work was rough - I'd do my training and then after the training session I'd have a long list of advisers who had written to me throughout the day because they had some issue they couldn't solve or didn't know how solve or just needed me to say "yes, what you did here was correct". So in the start I'd do lots of overtime (which I could take out as equal time off, instead of getting it paid out). I sort of got used to that, but as the training sessions got less frequent and people got used to their jobs and finding answers themselves, my life got a little easier too.

In august 2019 I finally got my own place. I got extremely lucky to find a cheap(ish) place that was only a 10 minute walk away from the office and I basically signed the contract on the spot. The apartment was small and needed a little repairing, but it was enough for me. I didn't need anything fancy, just enough room for me, close to work and close to stores (so I wouldn't have to haul food from far away).

Somehow life went pretty quiet after that. I settled in with work pretty nicely, but it mostly became all about that. Friends sort of went into the background because the stress of work took over and I was pretty much drained after work and didn't want to see people - all I wanted was to go home, relax in silence, turn my brain off with some TV shows or games and just sleep.

2020 was a quiet year. When for most of the world things went to shit, for me nothing much changed. Since I had already been living this sort of hermit lifestyle - work, home, work, then it just stayed the same for me. When the pandemic hit, then in my country there was no mandatory lockdown. The government recommended people to stay home and most people did that. The office basically ran empty and it was quite nice and quiet to go there. Since I'm sort of a mini-boss over there, then I had my own little cubicle and when going to the office I only had to walk for a short time, never using any public transport or walking through some crowded streets where I could catch something.

So the year just basically flew by.
Sadly communication with friends also kind of died out. There was this little group in Viber that we were all in - me and my three best friends whom I had been hanging out for almost 10 years now. In the end of 2020 there was some drama, so one of them left. After some comments I also decided to leave and basically ended all communication with all three by the time 2021 had rolled around. The New Years Eve of 2020 was the first time in my life that I had been completely alone. It was super sad to watch the fireworks alone from my balcony, sober and on my own. Luckily after that I had a joint which made me feel better and then I played some "Breath of The Wild" until around 3AM and then went to sleep.

2021 was a year of change for me. First - no friends. Though I missed the heck out of them, I also felt this immense relief, like a huge pressure had been lifted and I could breathe again. Not directly connected to that, but I made a change in different areas of my life - first I started waking up at a consistent time. Before that I had always woken up whatever time the alarm was set to, plus quite often hitting the snooze button once or twice or three times. Now that changed - same time, every day (even on days off). I started watching more what I eat, trying to make more healthy choices. I reduced smoking cigarettes, though even today that is still quite a struggle to quit fully. I made two attempts in joining and staying in the gym. Both times I managed to be consistent for a few months until something came up and the consistency was broken and I quit (as I usually to).

The best and most amazing thing that happened in 2021 was that I had finally paid up all my loans and depts. For the first time in my whole adult life I didn't owe any company anything. I was 32 years old and that was the first time I felt this kind of liberty and I must say - it felt amazing! :D

One moment I turned around and BAM - it's three years since I started working in the new project (with the intention of doing that only for a year), I've lived three years in the same apartment and for three years I've been doing the same thing over and over again and nothing has changed. I remember when I came back from Australia, I asked my friends what had changed and they said nothing and I was shocked on how so much time (=two years) had passed and nothing could change and now I'm in the exact same place.

I don't know what's ahead, but one thing I'll try to do more - write. :) Michelle Wolf said in her stand-up "Joke Show": "Blogs are conversations no one wanted to have with you." And as true as that MIGHT be, I find it therapeutic and I'm not doing this for anyone else. I'm doing this so that when I'm 90, I get to read back and remember all the stupid things I had done and forgotten.

Until next time! :)

Here's a song for you. According to Spotify statistics, this is the song I've been listening to most in 2022 and in 2021: Dido - Just Because