Here we go...

Well... tomorrow the whole world will have their eyes shifted on London as the G20 Summit begins. Protests on our doorstep... world leaders galore... We are currently staying literally 20 minutes walking distance from where a lot of protesters will be converging, namely the Bank of England... It'll be an interesting few days hopefully leading to better place... I offered to sleep on the couch so Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel, or one of the other hot shots could use the room but it was declined ... something about security... i told them "hey, we're on the third floor, there's no chance for anyone breaking in"... sheesh... :-P

As for me though I have a busy schedule as well... tomorrow I have yet another meeting for Lon-Doers which is really beginning to gather speed... I've also got a meeting with a Business Advisor about becoming a sole trader (ie. starting my own business) and some other fun stuff planned for the evening so times are definitely not dull... my own business would be more of a self-employed type of thing, being able to offer my skills to companies without them having to hire me... freelance a little...

Once the initial "there's nobody tellin me what to do" dilemma calms down, its actually quite nice working for yourself, now I just need to work out a way to be self-employed and earn money.. the dream of everyone around probably... :-P


Anne and I this afternoon after she finished work went down to Dalton ... an area in North London which is home to a number of different ethnic races and nationalities. Felt like I was in a completely different country. Quite nice that you can get such incredible changes by travelling a few minutes by bus...

I'll be sure to report if I see any peculiar happenings now that the town will be full of protesters... :-P so stay tuned...

21 Observations

I thought it was about time to write down some observations I'd made over the past week.


1) Granted there are a lot of busses in London, there are a lot of less than ethical people too. But it is quite surprising how often a person refuses to pay to get on a bus here. For any of you who have not had the fortune to experience this phenomenon, the bus driver turns off the engine and announces that he's not going anywhere until the person is off the bus. In my case, last Sunday, I arrived in the middle of one of these "The bus ain't moving till your fat @$$ is off the bus" episodes at Euston Station. A man had gotten on, showed his ticket unclearly and walked straight on by the busdriver who asked the man to come back...the bus had been there for around 15 minutes as the man refused to get off the bus. The Police were called and ultimately the guy got off the bus. But this is not the first and only case of this happening. Incredible when you think about it. It must work sometimes otherwise the guy wouldn't fathom doing it again?

2) The police that came to that very same event drove like maniacs to the scene. I wonder if there are different speeds for different occurences. Surely "man that hasn't paid his fare for the bus" or "we've got a 392 at Euston"... can't be the most urgent and dangerous situation of the lot. The police jumped off as if they were going to face 10 hoodlems throwing stones... it was midday... quite entertaining.

3) Everytime I'm out, I meet more unemployed young enthusiastic hungry and driven individuals. This town is full of them. I've heard that a lot of people have left london and re-patriated (gone back to their home countries) whereas I am doing the complete opposite. Everyone of us seems to want to work... are willing to do quite a lot to get the work, but the opportunities aren't available.

4) I wonder how much people who have never been unemployed, who aren't feeling this frustration really understand of the situation. I've met people who have been working and months later have been made unemployed and said "I didn't know it was this crazy. I thought I had enough experience not to fall into this situation but I just can't get anywhere". "It's taking a lot longer than I thought"... "unemployment only hits unskilled and lazy people"...

5) Which leads me to the fact that I feel unemployment still has a very negative stigma attached to it. You are seen as lazy, unintelligent, unambitious and downright strange.

6) In a posh store called Liberty off of Regents street I saw articles of clothing and bags that were more expensive than my car in Sweden. And I mean double or even triple the price of my car for a piece of clothe that would hardly cover my left kneecap... I was seconds away from going up to the shop-floor assistant and asking... "Hi Could I ask you a question about this bag over here... what does it do?..... (pause...) what do you mean it carries things..nothing else?...Does it carry things that are 10 tons and make it feel like its 10 grams?. No??? So you're telling me it won't make me fly? It's not some kind of a device that will telepathically enable me to communicate with individuals around the world and possibly even those in the International Space Station... so I'm paying £3000 pounds for something that will carry my tooth picks... I will have to have a minute to think about it"... minutes later out on regents street I saw two girls walking down the street with the exact same bag... their sunglasses 10 times the size of their eyes... at least the glasses make it near impossible to develop any kind of eye disease because the eyes are well covered for the 3 days of Sun england gets every year...

7) Condoleeza Rice was speaking to an elite group of NFL owners and coaches in the US this past week. She said something which I think sticks true in a lot of different areas.

"history has a long arc, you have to take a long view of things. If you're always chasing the day's headlines, you'll eventually become so reactionary you'll ignore long-term good for short-term satisfaction, and you'll fail."

Condoleezza Rice

8) I read a very interesting article on the Death of Cold Calling as a means to increase sales. As I wrote my dissertation on the Balance of power in negotiations I felt this was extremely interesting and its sooo true when it comes to cold calling. The article said:

Many negotiating experts agree; perception is everything. Even if you have power, if you’re perceived as being 'needy’, you have no power and all negotiations will be carried out on that basis

Ultimately what I'm doing when I'm looking for a job is a form of COLD CALLING. Currently the power is in other peoples hands. Unfortunately the article leaves the reader without any concrete alternatives. In my search I am trying to build the relationships needed that somewhat alleviate the perception that I'm needy but rather that I'm curious and could help.

9) For those of you who haven't heard, the G20 Summit (aka circus) is coming to London town this weekend and

"Staff in the City are being advised to dress down and postpone non-essential meetings amid fears that they will be forced to run the gauntlet of protesters."

Dress down... I so have to go down to the CITY next week and see if people are walking around in holiday clothing... hawaii shirts, flipflops... will be crazy to see... then again... knowing the horrendous actions of the anarchistic protestors they won't care who they hit, throw stones at, insult, they're just in it for the fight... let's hope its a peaceful week...

10) Think back to what you were doing ten years ago... Scary thought huh...Think where you thought u'd be... scary thought... now think what you're going to do in 10 years time... :-)

11) Bikers seem to think they rule London only because they are taking the environmental option. They scream lude and rude things when they bike by if you just happen to walk in their way... obviously they are as unprotected as you get in traffic... and they are probably super nervous everytime they are out on the road but why take it out on the poor pedestrians who are even more vulnerable... I envisage the day I see pedestrians walking around London with helmets on...

12) I saw a bunch of kids playing footie in the park with a coach the other day. The pure emotions that were spilling over on the pitch are exactly why I think Sport is one of the most truley incredible phenomenon made by man. Physical activity, comraderie, nerves, passion... The pursuit of constantly improving!!! It can also bring out the worst in people. It can also clearly divide people of different abilities and leave some feeling terrible. It can be used to get out aggression in the wrong way but when done right its similar to music and art in the way it evokes the emotions. Especially among young people.

13) I found the Google Calender application just this week. What a fantastic application: I know they have it on Microsoft Outlook but this is just the application I need to be able to keep up to date with what Anne's doing and know when we are both free etc. Only negative is that Google now knows my every step...

14) People are a lot friendlier when the sun is out... a lot friendlier. Now I'm not talking about people on the tube or in shops, I'm talking about recruiters and companies. I know rays of sunshine produce enzymes or something but its incredible what a difference it makes. Especially in a country like England where Sunshine is rare... You kinda understand why warm sunny places are generally more careless and carefree...

15) One word that I hear a lot from recruiters and employers is "you're too junior for this role"... ie. you don't have enough experience for this role... but I like the fact that they call it junior. There's a paradox here... there's an incredible fear of turning 30 amongst fellow people born in the 80's... only a few years left...oooo ahhh... everytime somebody has a birthday its ... oh i'm so old... but when you think about it... we're still considered Junior for a lot of things unless we've done the same thing since graduating. If we want to try something new... "junior"... My genuine curiousity and unwillingness of acting and employing a perception of being someone I'm not gives me the tag "junior".

16) Talking about JUNIOR...Look at the following three pictures of kindergarten classes... one from the 50/60's, one from the 80's and one from the 21st century.



It's quite funny to compare ... the haircuts, the clothes and the teachers all change slightly...but kids will be kids...

Inspiration for this observation received from my friend who posted the picture on FB from her kindergarten years...

17) Coats, Jackets, boots, jeans fly off faster than you can say "8 degrees" here in London. As soon as there is a slight appearance of sun, you see people walking around in T-shirts, shorts, flip flops etc... but no sun lotion... :-D I can tell you that many that wear shorts in this weather end up with colds cause its not warm enough yet...

18) Those people that stand on the street and try to sell you stuff, try to get you to join in different groups... they must have one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Together with telemarketers. It's very rare I'd like to stop and chat to them. You kinda feel as guilty at not stopping as you do at not giving a tip sometimes.. its that awkward... I REALLY Don't want to stop/pay... but is it the right thing to do?... They employ loads of different tactics but none of them really work... imagine this though.. imagine instead of young nobody's (sorry but thats what they are.. strangers to u and me)... you saw Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Lance Armstrong, Madonna etc standing and trying to sell you these things... trying to convince you to join green peace... you know what.. i think you'd stop... but of course their time is far too valuable for these kind of things... but perhaps if you could get look-a-likes... to do it..:-P people would be more inclined to stop... eh eh.. see where I'm gettin at :-D

19) I was made fun of for ordering a Lemon and Ginger tea last week... "That's a very manly drink" the waitress said sarcastically... hey!!! I happened to like the flavour of lemon and ginger... never heard that it is a womanly drink? It's not like I'm going to order a glass of whiskey for breakfast on a Sunday morning...

20) Do you think the Queen ever goes to a window of Buckingham Palace and peaks out at the masses of tourists standing outside looking at the building? I know if I were her (if that makes any sense at all) and there were loads of people always standing outside my window I'd probably invest in a telescope and when I got bored look at the different people around and realise how many different people there are out there. Maybe even buy one for my partner or for a random other person so that we could have something to talk about. People watching is absolutely fascinating. While sightseeing with John B last weekend we sat at Westminister and Buckingham Palace for a number of hours and just watched people... we saw a whole group consisting of at least 8 kids and 8 adults run across a busy road far away from any pedestrian crossing area.. there was this little girl who was holding her mothers hand as they started to walk and then a few cars came speedin in the groups direction, the girl let go of her mothers hand and ran as if her life depended on it... getting almost 5 meters ahead of her mother in a short space of distance, her facial expression as she ran was one of utter fear... but she was in her "survival instinct mode" and as she realised that she had made it across safely onto the sidewalk, her face suddenly swung around as if to think "Oh my god, where's mom, is she alright" and an almost as worried look came across her face. Interesting... It's also interesting how people find one another, we saw our fair share of couples... and I must admit, without being particularly rude or intending to poke fun at anyone, the world of Love is very strange (and as such wonderful)... we saw people who by society's standards might not be considered "overly blessed by god with eternal grace and beauty" who had found partners who might not have been "overly blessed by god with eternal grace and beauty". Nothing wrong with that as beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder and is not based solely upon appearance...We saw 2 meter tall men with 1.4 meter tall women and all the difficulties they bring, we saw a family of obese people who clearly share a love for eating or coincidently both have a low metabolisms... we saw kids holding hands with their parents and others where parents were scolding and screaming and on the verge of hitting their kids, we wished that we could get 1 pence for every photograph taken of big ben, we saw suits and ties and we saw khaki's and loafers... its incredible what you see when people decide to go out and show themselves... and somewhere someone saw me and John and had their own perceptions... If I were the Queen, i'd definitely spend 5 minutes everyday looking at the people who congregate outside wondering what goes on inside...

21) My last observation will be a question. Feel free to answer it in the comments if you want or just think about it... How often do you get a chance to stop, look at the world, think about things you've read, seen or heard and comment on it...? In my case, not very often!!! Whats one thing you've observed in the world around you today? I'd be really interested to hear...

let's catch up...

Last week was a very productive week. Chasing down a bunch of different leads and creatively addressing others. Every day I had a meeting scheduled with different people and I was in contact with a number of others by phone. In between I had the time to apply for a few jobs but this time with a bit of a difference. I applied to one online travel company and a sales/business development/marketing role... but as times are as they are and as I know that i'm basically pissing in a bucket anyway I decided to be creative about it. I wrote my cover letter in the form of a Hotel description... this is a little excerpt:

Richard Strom

Position X

Versatility 5*

Analytical skills 5*

Ability to Communicate 5*

Project Management 4*

Online marketing techniques 3*

Richard offers an extremely versatile marketing candidate with broad background ideal for sales, marketing and operations. Primary basic advantages of this candidate are:
...

Now I know what you might be saying... nobody's goin to take you serious if you write like that... at the same time though... there are 1000+ candidates... the role wanted someone creative... and ultimateily I have absolutely nothing to lose... and last but not least, its quite entertaining writing a bit of a different cover letter/CV... who knows, it might be more noticeable, memorable etc... now I've done that with a few that I think that it might be suitable to do it with...

I also had a number of meetings with different people who are unemployed currently and finding it near impossible to find work like I am... As I have mentioned before I have started this group called Lon-doers and we are meeting this week again on Wednesday in Angel. So far we're 4-5 that are going to be there so should be an interesting discussion. It's surprising how many people are redundent, might be made redundant and who are generally unhappy at work due to the times... don't really know if this is as wide-spread across Europe etc but London definitely feels it...

So week was good and ended at the Australian High Commission on Friday night where Anne and I were invited by Bridget (an Australian living here) to come along together with her bf Sam and Alex (Gemma's bf was there too) ... it was their St. Patricks day celebrations...anyway, was nice and they had Aussie beers, snacks and meat pies...!!!

On Saturday my friend John B from Malmö (he's originally from Connorsville Indiana... BIGGUP to INDIANA)... came to town and we walked around and around and had a lovely Lunch at an American Diner near OldStreet/Liverpool Street... good place for American food if you fancy link is here... then we went siteseeing, hopefully he'll send me a picture we took at Buckingham palace that was quite nice... we also ended up people watching.. one of my favorite past-times... you get a really interesting blend here and with the Euro so strong you see loads and loads of Spanish, Italian, French, German tourists everywhere... and one or two american's two...

While I'm on the subject I'd just like to say a great big THANK YOU to the Swedish Krona for strengthening so incredibly against the English pound, as all my savings are in Swedish krona I've saved loads and loads of money on the 1.5 SEK drop in the past few weeks... !!! LONG Let it continue (until I get a job) ...

Back to the story, was great having John B here.. Saturday night we went to Brick Lane for a curry ... it was AWESOME, i love spicy curry's... mmm mmm.. now i'm afraid I don't know what i ordered because I dislike tomatoes I asked the waiter for a quite spicy non-tomato based curry... and he delivered!!! oh did he deliver.. mm mmm... Anne on the other hand didn't realise that one of the "peppers" in her dish should probably not have been eaten and she was on the verge of passing out in front of a chorus of laughing Bangladeshi men... I'm happy to say luckily she survived :-)


I have an interesting call scheduled for Thursday that could potentially lead to some work so fingers crossed on that... I'll go into more detail if anything materialises but I'm not really one to get ahead of myself and thus don't really like writing about any opportunities until they are almost done!!!

I plan to do a 20 observation post next time I write so look out for 20 observations from London... I already have a few of them in my head now which I'll probably forget but you know how it is...:-)

travel note of the day

It'll be a short post today and one dedicated to my "travel"...

Spent the evening with a university classmate of mine... Davide ... from Italy... fantastic evening with lots of interesting discussion... on my way home though my "Travel note of the day" happened...

I sat myself at the back of the bus... its a double decker so there's space upstairs as well but i was sitting at the back on the bottom... there are five spaces... next to me there was a little korean girl... next to that was this fairly big (ie. probably 120 kg) african lady... next to her a free seat and next to her a slightly skinnier african lady... (90kgs)... suddenly... conollel sanders (KFC guy) or Santa came on.. this big 130kg white business guy came on... and decided to sit in between the two african ladies... the 120kg african lady gave the american 130kg guy the look of death.. she looked at him as if to say.. "man you are FAT!"... it was hilarious seeing these two obese people squishing into the seats together...

that was my travel note of the day...

as a little added bonus.. I bring you this news.. within 10 meters of me on the very same bus... sat one african woman, one american guy, one asian lady, one middle eastern lady, one french girl and what appeared to be a few south american guys... within literally no space at all..!.. that's london...

A little bit of this... a little bit of that

The past three days have been absolutely fantastic... weatherwise... its incredible how the weather can lift your spirits but I'm fairly sure thats only because we've also experienced less than lovely weather... Having wandered out today I came across quite a few people who clearly thought they were in Hawaii or Rio or on some beach in Spain... it was nice weather but it was certainly not "Let's get naked" weather...

I was due to meet a fellow jobseeking mate to talk a little about Lon-Doers and about our situations etc... but he had to re-schedule ... luckily for me I'd already left the house before I got his SMS and only received it once I was at Baker Street... Lucky you may ask yourself? Why of course... it got me out of the flat and out in the glorious weather... knowing that I didn't have any firm times to meet I decided to walk back to Old Street from Baker Street via Angel... was a very easy walk of approximately 30-45 minutes... good time to think to yourself while getting exercise and air.. (was going to say Fresh air but thats not necessarily the case)...

Once I got home I got a phone call from a recruiter who was looking for someone for a sports betting company... it sounded like an interesting role and as it was to do with sports its obviously interesting too... we decided to talk more tomorrow ... definitely not the first one who has called and probably won't be the last... I've received quite a few phone calls but having my CV out on at least literally 30 different recruitment sites etc you'd hope to get a few every now and then... some are basic "Swedish Telemarketer jobs" but most of them are Sales jobs of some kind...I think that the ability to sell or understanding the role of Sales in any company is absolutely CRITICAL and thus it is a role I wouldn't say no to if the product was right, the company was in an interesting industry and there was potential for the company to grow... anyway... there's always a few leads to run with.. always.. which is nice... keeps you busy during your 8-5 working day...

Wanted to share this article with you... about a store in New York, a FREE STORE:..click here to read about it... basically everything in the store is free.. you walk in and you have to go to the cashier and formally purchase it but its FREE... all you have to do is explain why you need it... quite an interesting concept... as it is a piece of art I'm sure they will compile all the answers and make something interesting out of it.. but it really is "the right time" for such a stunt...

Also came across this... As London is one of the most touristed cities in the world and as a city that people generally come back to time and time again for shopping, shows, musicians, sport etc... it means that people who have been here 3-4 times will have seen the usual stuff... Big Ben, Nelsons Collum, London Eye, etc etc... but here's a fun little video for those of you who have the time to watch bout where to go to find some quirky london sites...!!! :-) Inspired by the Evening Standards (a newspaper sold at Tube Stations when people get back from work) daily offerings of a booklet for 200 things to do for FREE in London...



It's nice to be free... it's nice when things are free... its nice its nice its nice..!! Best make the most of all the things that are Free while you can!!! :-)

The King of Pop....

So the big news of the day...

I managed to get tickets to see "THIS IS IT!!!! THIS... IS... IT!!!... This is it! This is... IT!... This... Is IT!!!"... Michael Jacksons Last show (x 50)...:-P (if you haven't seen it.. below is his annoucement when he punches the air and repeats, THIS IS IT!"



I registered to get some pre-sales tickets and got the code today, after trying for a while to get tickets I kinda semi- gave up for a while.. but then I went on again in the afternoon and got four tickets for the show on the 12th of January 2010...

I've always wanted to see Jackson live... unfortunately it might not be during his peak and I'm just contributing to pay this guy but at the same time, the guy's one of this generations absolute greatest personalities... it's like saying that you had seen Elvis or someone like that... pricey tickets.. 75£ each but it'll be quite a lot of fun... going with my sister Mathilda and her bf Simon and obviously Anne as well!!!! Promises to be a night of if not great music at least a little comedy...:-)

Really looking forward to the weekend now...my sister Antonia is in town from New York so I will hopefully see her tomorrow night... and then there's some great football on tv as well during the weekend...

I'll leave you with some vintage Michael as its the topic of the day...




Love him or hate him... he's one of the people who will be talked about long after he is, i am, and others are gone

What a difference a week makes...

One week...

it feels like a lot longer.

Last Thursday I took the chance to visit my parents in Brussels for the extended weekend. What an incredibly lucky guy I am to have two super supportive and understanding parents who believe in me and in the decisions I've taken. I must admit that one weekend away has given me a new-found energy to continue attacking this most difficult of challenges. Either its something in the water in their home, or just their wise wise words and relaxing nature but it was awesome.


I must say, the EUROSTAR is incredible.. 2 hours from London to Brussels... and as I take the early train due to my "busy" schedule... its practically empty... so I jumped on the train in the morning (alone may I add.. Anne left London later that evening to go back to visit her mother in Sweden)

The whole situation is quite luxurious though... have you ever heard of a person job hunting going on a Business trip and working remotely... well that's what i did... Thursday and half of Friday were normal working days for me and I got some good work done with some CV's and other research... Friday afternoon however it was time to welcome in the weekend with some shopping. Always great to shop in another city, country, place...

At dinner that night we decided that we should go on a "day-trip" and after having suggested Gent and Antwerpen I then mentioned Amsterdam and Paris to which my parents quickly insisted on Paris... so Saturday morning at around 9 we set off to Paris in the car... 3 hours later... I was driving down the Champs du lycée... and around the Arc de Triomphe... now what I can tell you is that the Swedes and French have completely different ways of looking at city planning and particularly road markings.. in Paris there quite frankly are none... and as a Newly-found Swede this chaos created anxiety in my little organised mind... nevertheless...I survived.. while in Paris we managed to get Tourist shots at the Eiffel Tower (pic by myself), Notre Dam, Saccre something or other up on a hill and we drove to Versailles (pic with dad)... we truly lived the EU dream...



after 5 hours in the beautiful capital of France we drove back to Belgium and returned at 20.00... Paris... I'll be back with Anne in the "Spring/Summer/Autumn" when far more of the flowers have bloomed but except for the fact that my French is horribél... it is a great city...

On the Sunday we went downtown Brussels to the royal castle to go see an exhibition of cartoonists in Belgium... funny story... there was one lone demonstrator outside the castle with a large Jewish flag... and there was this BIG Police truck... a water cannon truck... for one Jewish demonstrator.. quite comic the view (look at the picture below)...


we later found out that there was a demonstration for something else which we couldn't work out just down the next block so the cannon was probably there for that... let's hope Belgian tax-payers aren't paying to hose down one sole protester...

With great food, great talk and a relaxing quiet atmosphere, I managed to focus my mind on my continuing pursuit... and I must say the results are clear from my first two days back. I've been far more productive than the past two weeks and I'm raring to go... go go...

Now it might seem a bit sad but up until recently I had not met or spoken to anyone else who is in my situation... ie. looking for work in these frustrating times... its quite tough fighting alone which is why the last few days have been interesting. I've started getting in touch with some others that are currently looking for work... either made redundant.. or changed job at the wrong time or whatever the case... for this reason I've started a group which I've probably introduced before... namely

Lon-doers... for people in London who are currently out of work and frustrated because they want to do something... its a group that will meet for coffee now and then and just share ideas about potential projects we can work on together or merely just talk to each other and share our trials and tribulations... I think its healthy to talk to others in the same situation as yourself...if you know of anyone in London who is currently unemployed or looking for work please let me know... our first meeting is scheduled to be this Thursday...


Spoke to a recruiter today who once again reinforced my situation... he said

"The problem is that a year ago, there were more jobs than candidates and companies were more than willing to take slight risks with people and not require the candidate to have exactly the right experience, but now the whole thing has turned upside down, now there are more candidates than jobs and employers are being extremely picky with who they choose."

This position I was calling him about was a telecom sales role at O2 (an operator) towards the public sector... a fairly simple role really which I don't think required any particular insight into any different industry.. the recruiter filled me in on a little more detail of the role.. namely that the public sector was primarily selling to the Police... and he said that at least 5 candidates applying to the role had worked for an operator in London and sold to the Police... is it just me or is that crazy... 5 people who are looking for work already have the exact criteria... it's quite nuts really because yes, there is an advantage gained by already having contacts in the police etc... but C'mon... this wasn't a senior position, this was a junior-ish position... I'm just waiting until there is some job that says:

"Looking for a Swedish 25-27 year old male born in May who has experience from Marketing, Sales and operations who has lived in at least 10 cities around the world. He must be able to prove examples in which he has written................................, It would also be an advantage if candidates enjoyed playing soccer and has a profound love for Schnitzel. Preference given to those with international school background."

Fancy that... funnily enough there'd be three others like that here... and someone who managed answered the following question with a higher number... "How many schnitzels have you eaten in your life"... :-) I'm definitely not giving up though and I'm in a real optimistic and enthusiastic state of mind right now!!! Long may it continue!!! :-)

I also arrived at the conclusion that perhaps I should begin learning the texts to all the national anthems in the world.... I mean, as my own boss I now have the time... and with that kind of a skill I'm sure you could make a decent living... might be a novelty that would rub off... but in the meantime the exposure of being on the Letterman show, Late night with Jonathan Ross, Xi Hua Guang Gau Hu show might mean that I can get my voice heard... if nothing else I can put on my CV that I can speak at least 50 words of every language on earth!!! now to decide which anthem to start with.. perhaps perfecting my Swedish would be a good place to start :-) Du gamla du fria du fjäll....

Recruiters...

Now forgive me to all my recruiter friends out there but currently I am no big fan of recruiters...

I realise the market is really bad.
I understand that they are getting more applications and CV's than they have ever gotten in their lives.
I realise theirs is an extremely important job and often thankless...
I know that I got my first "real" job through a "recruiter"ish type of person in Sweden
I understand that its boring to go through CV after CV...
I realise they have to pigeonhole people
I in no way underestimate my own flaws in being the one that must effectively sell myself ....

BUT...
Of the oozes and oozes and oozes of them that I've spoken to/contacted they haven't been able to help me at all... they've been courteous (I wouldn't say friendly because you can tell its just being polite in most cases) but my profile is really not bad and its not like I'm applying to become a doctor with a degree in art or a French interpreter with no French language skills at all... The past week I've been concentrating far more on jobs in marketing, in sales, in business development... I've been concentrating on telecom, upstarts, marketing companies etc. which I have experience in... and a strong profile in.. Now I realise that they probably have 3000 CV's of which 200 of them have exactly the 7 years of experience in ... oh i don't know lets say...in creating campaigns for the rights of animal, can speak to a wide range of animals including Chimps, Moose and jellyfish...they have lived with animals all their lives including on a 3 month tour of south america, and have experience of working with them in 3 different EMEA (Europe /Middle East /Africa) countries... how can I compete with that??? i can't... not when I'll be sent away immediately by recruiters...

Now like i said before, I really understand that they don't have the easiest job right now... but that doesn't stop the fact that at this moment in time... I'm not their biggest fan...



Today I happened across a very kool company that has a very cool technological product. I'm not going to go into it just yet as I'm goin to contact them shortly but the company was founded by two Danish guys and some of their plans for the future are VERY cool... I will see what I can leverage when I try to get in touch with them... but thats at least exciting...


I'm currently contemplating taking a trip to Bruxelles this weekend as Anne will be heading back to Västerås and it would be great just to relax at "home".
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to have dinner with Mathilda twice... on the Saturday night and on the Sunday night... it's great having your sis around for a nice relaxing no-expectations kind of night... we ended up watching Milk, the movie about Harvey Milk for which Sean Penn won an Academy Award for best Actor. I thought it was a very good movie. I love historical movies based on real events. I know its kind of a reoccurring theme throughout a bunch of my posts but I am inspired by people that DO.. that follow their dreams and DO...

While its obviously quite sad that it is thanks to Hollywood that I find out about this man and his courage and not thanks to history class or even the History channel but in some small way its important that these historical figures are recognised... and that our generations understand what they have done for human rights... for every Harvey Milk in the US, there are others in Europe and in Asia and Africa etc... and there will be others in the future... who make a difference...

At the moment, without the help of recruiters I'm not only determined to, but I'm convinced that I'm going to be the one that will ignite my future...

I'll leave you today with a quote from Harvey Milk:

"The important thing is not that we can live on hope alone, but that life is not worth living without it."