Well it's been a couple weeks since my last post, and that's because nothing terribly exciting is happening. Just settling into the daily grind of going to work and doing various things in the evenings.
Fortunately the weather has been co-operating with us over the last couple of weeks and the greens are starting to come around quite nicely. The Stone Course greens are still in REALLY rough shape, but I think they'll start coming around.
Otherwise it's been a fun few weeks. Last Saturday went to Eva's dad's girlfriend's (I think) place out in Nõmme for a BBQ. Beautiful afternoon spent outside having a couple drinks and laughs with friends. I've pretty much been working one day every weekend so far, but I'm going to try and get in some more hours because I know the end of June and into July are going to be pretty hectic.
Today's plans include cleaning up around the apartment a bit, going to see the Sõleke rahvatants group perform, then definitely hit the grocery store as I have absolutely no food in the house.
Hope you're all doing well.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Learning and Adjusting
So for all intents and purposes I've finished my first two weeks of work. Needless to say it is completely different from my experiences at Thornhill Golf & CC. There it was a large staff that was constantly on the go. From upper management to a summer university student, everyone was busy all the time! Here it is a staff of 10 (I think, some people are there some days, others they're not) and it's a far more relaxed pace. The work day starts at 7am, and that means people show up at 7, make coffee and head out the door 15-20 mins later. Needless to say I'm a bit of a maverick showing up before 7 and heading out the door pretty much on time. I knew coming over here that the European work ethic isn't quite what it is in north America, so I this kind of stuff really didn't surprise me.
During the first couple of days it just seemed like chaos to me. That's pretty natural when you get thrown into a new situation, but it just seemed like people went out the door to do whatever. Later I learned that pretty much everyone has their week routine so unless something changes, people can go out without asking what needs to be done. My first few days were spent getting to know my way around the course, learning about some of the problems they have, and doing various jobs.
One of the biggest differences I've noticed is the quality of the equipment and personnel. At Thornhill it seemed like we had the latest and greatest gadgets and equipment to get the work done. Here with a much smaller budget a lot more creative solutions have to occur. I've already discovered that most of the equipment doesn't work the way it's supposed to, so you need to learn the quirks of each machine as you go. Also, I haven't exactly figured out what the mechanic at the course does. With so much faulty equipment around, I'm not sure what he does to fill the day. One thing though that I am enjoying a little bit is re-learning some of the stuff I learned at school. Working at Thornhill the mechanics took care of changing the heads on cutting units and making adjustments, whereas that is something I'm re-learning since I haven't done that in a number of years....it's coming back pretty quickly though. My two bosses here are interesting as well. The other assistant is there all the time, but it seems like the Superintendent shows up around 8 or 9 and is kind of off doing his own thing. Also seems to be a little unorganized, but that could just be that I don't know him well enough yet.
I've also had a couple of brief conversations with upper management at the club during my first couple weeks (club GM and President). They seem to expect quite a bit out of me and hope that I can be a big part of improving the quality of the playing surface at the club. Apparently they want to get together with me for lunch one day to talk about the course, and hopefully some of my Dad's ability to shmooze has rubbed off on me.
A little bit about the golf course. I'm working at the Estonian Golf and Country Club in Jõelähtme, which is 25km east of Tallinn. It consists of an 18 hole championship Sea Course, and a 9 hole Stone Course. The Stone Course is your basic links style of golf course. Wide open, not too many bunkers. The Sea Course is an AMAZING looking track. Stunning views, difficult holes, and plenty of length to challenge even the best of golfers. The Stone Course greens are still in pretty rough shape (Ok, I'd say they're pretty well dead, but we're working on it), and the Sea Course is starting to come around nicely.
One of the cool things about this golf course is they encourage over time hours. Like most places it's a 40hr work week, so any hours that we work overtime get banked. So we get our 28 days paid vacation, and those hours we bank get paid to us in the winter....So I could potentially have 3 months worth of paid vacation. And unlike previous experiences weekends here seem somewhat optional. Come in if you can, if you can't no problem. I'm going to try and get into some kind of routine over the summer so I can bank as many overtime weekend hours as possible, on top of those that I get during the week.
I'm also waiting to see what my first pay check will look like. I knew coming over here that I would be taking a substantial pay cut (which I did), but I'm trying to keep my expenses to a minimum in hopes of putting some money away to do some traveling in the winter. Some things here are pretty cheap, but other things are EXPENSIVE. So people in Toronto I don't want to hear you complaining about the high gas prices. I'm paying 1.24euro per litre.
Otherwise things are going well. Everyone that came over here for Volber has gone back to Canada so I've had a chance to detox. Now it's just a matter of finding some kind of hobby to keep myself busy after the work day.
Hope you enjoyed the read!
During the first couple of days it just seemed like chaos to me. That's pretty natural when you get thrown into a new situation, but it just seemed like people went out the door to do whatever. Later I learned that pretty much everyone has their week routine so unless something changes, people can go out without asking what needs to be done. My first few days were spent getting to know my way around the course, learning about some of the problems they have, and doing various jobs.
One of the biggest differences I've noticed is the quality of the equipment and personnel. At Thornhill it seemed like we had the latest and greatest gadgets and equipment to get the work done. Here with a much smaller budget a lot more creative solutions have to occur. I've already discovered that most of the equipment doesn't work the way it's supposed to, so you need to learn the quirks of each machine as you go. Also, I haven't exactly figured out what the mechanic at the course does. With so much faulty equipment around, I'm not sure what he does to fill the day. One thing though that I am enjoying a little bit is re-learning some of the stuff I learned at school. Working at Thornhill the mechanics took care of changing the heads on cutting units and making adjustments, whereas that is something I'm re-learning since I haven't done that in a number of years....it's coming back pretty quickly though. My two bosses here are interesting as well. The other assistant is there all the time, but it seems like the Superintendent shows up around 8 or 9 and is kind of off doing his own thing. Also seems to be a little unorganized, but that could just be that I don't know him well enough yet.
I've also had a couple of brief conversations with upper management at the club during my first couple weeks (club GM and President). They seem to expect quite a bit out of me and hope that I can be a big part of improving the quality of the playing surface at the club. Apparently they want to get together with me for lunch one day to talk about the course, and hopefully some of my Dad's ability to shmooze has rubbed off on me.
A little bit about the golf course. I'm working at the Estonian Golf and Country Club in Jõelähtme, which is 25km east of Tallinn. It consists of an 18 hole championship Sea Course, and a 9 hole Stone Course. The Stone Course is your basic links style of golf course. Wide open, not too many bunkers. The Sea Course is an AMAZING looking track. Stunning views, difficult holes, and plenty of length to challenge even the best of golfers. The Stone Course greens are still in pretty rough shape (Ok, I'd say they're pretty well dead, but we're working on it), and the Sea Course is starting to come around nicely.
One of the cool things about this golf course is they encourage over time hours. Like most places it's a 40hr work week, so any hours that we work overtime get banked. So we get our 28 days paid vacation, and those hours we bank get paid to us in the winter....So I could potentially have 3 months worth of paid vacation. And unlike previous experiences weekends here seem somewhat optional. Come in if you can, if you can't no problem. I'm going to try and get into some kind of routine over the summer so I can bank as many overtime weekend hours as possible, on top of those that I get during the week.
I'm also waiting to see what my first pay check will look like. I knew coming over here that I would be taking a substantial pay cut (which I did), but I'm trying to keep my expenses to a minimum in hopes of putting some money away to do some traveling in the winter. Some things here are pretty cheap, but other things are EXPENSIVE. So people in Toronto I don't want to hear you complaining about the high gas prices. I'm paying 1.24euro per litre.
Otherwise things are going well. Everyone that came over here for Volber has gone back to Canada so I've had a chance to detox. Now it's just a matter of finding some kind of hobby to keep myself busy after the work day.
Hope you enjoyed the read!
Monday, May 2, 2011
May 2nd, 2011- The Day Reality Set In
I was planning on putting off writing for a couple days, but today just seemed like the appropriate time. The last few days have been wild to say the least. People started showing up from Toronto on Tuesday, so it's been one big party since. Miku arrived on Tuesday afternoon when I went and met him and Valjo at the Tallinn C!Q! for a couple drinks. Tuesday wasn't necessarily an early night, but much earlier than the next few.
Wednesday, Mikk and Heili flew in from Sweden, Nick K, Kalle and Kristiina arrived from Toronto. So true to form, we meet up at Raekoja plats for a couple of beers in the sunshine. From there we moved onto a restaurant for dinner, and Nimeta afterwards for the soccer game. Met up with a bunch of the Tallinn Vironia guys and moved about town until the wee hours of the morning. Thursday was much of the same, but I actually ended up taking it a little easy as I had to go into work on Friday.
Friday was a beautiful sunny day, and my boss had asked me if I'd like to play in the Sea Course opening tournament...And when the boss asks you if you want to golf, the answer is always yes, and you better let him win. It was a Florida scramble format, which I'm not too keen on, but had a great afternoon and got to meet some pretty awesome people. Unfortunately I couldn't stay around for the dinner as I had to get back to the apartment and get some stuff done in preparation for the weekend. Got home, had a shower and packed for the weekend down in Tartu. I met up with a couple of guys at the C!Q!, grabbed a few cases of beer hit the road. A bus had been arranged for us to pick the 14 guys arriving that night, so we grabbed them at the airport and made our way down to Tartu. We arrived shortly before mid-night, and sat around the C!Q! having a few beers. I decided to go to bed early (2am) as volber was going to be a pretty long day.
The forecast for Tartu was supposed to be pretty crappy for the weekend, but we lucked out pretty huge with the weather. Little on the chilly side, but the sun was out, so why complain? As is par for the course, myself, Mikk, Heili, Miku, Juri, Kalle, Nick and a few others had a few pints in Tartu raekoda plats. At this point I'll mention the sweet accommodations Heili and Kristiina found. We had a nice little apartment between 4 of us right on Raekoja plats. Cheap, clean and couldn't ask for a better location.
Volber was an absolute riot. Walking through the streets of Tartu with a couple hundred frat members is something that every Estonian needs to experience atleast once. After the parade we went back to the C!Q! where we gave our rebased their colours making them full members. After a couple of beers we decided that a meal was in order because it was going to be a VERY long night. A quality pizza, and we were set to go back to the C!Q! for, you guessed it! Beers! We sat around singing and drinking until mid-night, at which point we piled ourselves into cabs and headed out to visit the other frat houses. During the course of the evening we swung by the Rotalia, Sakala, Ugala, and EUS houses. Great parties, great music, great people. The intention finish the evening by going by Allan Liik's apartment for a late evening/early morning saun. Unfortunately we couldn't get the saun to work, so Eerik and I headed out towards the Vironia C!Q! I ended up getting back to the apartment sometime around 8 or 9am. Helluva party!
Sunday was a bit of a write-off as I had to get on the bus to head back to Tallinn. People tried convincing me to stay, but as Monday was my first work day, that wasn't much of an option. I said good-bye to my Toronto friends, and poured myself onto the bus. Slept most of the way back, got to the apartment and slept like a baby.
Monday morning still not feeling 100%, I woke up early to head in to work. I'm used to 6am starts at the golf course, but here I'm spoiled with 7am starts. Still entertaining the thought of starting at 6am just so I can get out a little earlier. Things are increadibly relax at this course. It's a tiny staff, but it seems like everyone knows what they have to do, and they go about their business. To me, it seems a little bit unorganized, however it might just be that I need to get familiarized with how they operate. I've already noticed some things in my first day that I think could be improved or changed, but those are things I can deal with in the coming weeks.
So today getting home from work, the reality of being in Eesti hit me. Until now, I've still felt like I'm going home in a couple of days. But having done the first day of work, and coming home it struck me that I'm here for a long haul. I've surrounded myself here with great family and friends, but it's still a little unsettling that I won't be seeing my family for quite a while. I'm sure over the next couple days and weeks I'll get into some kind of routine and get used to the day to day life here.
I think these coming weeks will really help me figure out how long I feel I want to live in Eesti. It was the best time for me to take the plunge and move over here when I left, but there are always a lot of unknowns. Once I start figuring out some answers, I'll start to feel more relaxed.
Hope you enjoyed the read.
Wednesday, Mikk and Heili flew in from Sweden, Nick K, Kalle and Kristiina arrived from Toronto. So true to form, we meet up at Raekoja plats for a couple of beers in the sunshine. From there we moved onto a restaurant for dinner, and Nimeta afterwards for the soccer game. Met up with a bunch of the Tallinn Vironia guys and moved about town until the wee hours of the morning. Thursday was much of the same, but I actually ended up taking it a little easy as I had to go into work on Friday.
Friday was a beautiful sunny day, and my boss had asked me if I'd like to play in the Sea Course opening tournament...And when the boss asks you if you want to golf, the answer is always yes, and you better let him win. It was a Florida scramble format, which I'm not too keen on, but had a great afternoon and got to meet some pretty awesome people. Unfortunately I couldn't stay around for the dinner as I had to get back to the apartment and get some stuff done in preparation for the weekend. Got home, had a shower and packed for the weekend down in Tartu. I met up with a couple of guys at the C!Q!, grabbed a few cases of beer hit the road. A bus had been arranged for us to pick the 14 guys arriving that night, so we grabbed them at the airport and made our way down to Tartu. We arrived shortly before mid-night, and sat around the C!Q! having a few beers. I decided to go to bed early (2am) as volber was going to be a pretty long day.
The forecast for Tartu was supposed to be pretty crappy for the weekend, but we lucked out pretty huge with the weather. Little on the chilly side, but the sun was out, so why complain? As is par for the course, myself, Mikk, Heili, Miku, Juri, Kalle, Nick and a few others had a few pints in Tartu raekoda plats. At this point I'll mention the sweet accommodations Heili and Kristiina found. We had a nice little apartment between 4 of us right on Raekoja plats. Cheap, clean and couldn't ask for a better location.
Volber was an absolute riot. Walking through the streets of Tartu with a couple hundred frat members is something that every Estonian needs to experience atleast once. After the parade we went back to the C!Q! where we gave our rebased their colours making them full members. After a couple of beers we decided that a meal was in order because it was going to be a VERY long night. A quality pizza, and we were set to go back to the C!Q! for, you guessed it! Beers! We sat around singing and drinking until mid-night, at which point we piled ourselves into cabs and headed out to visit the other frat houses. During the course of the evening we swung by the Rotalia, Sakala, Ugala, and EUS houses. Great parties, great music, great people. The intention finish the evening by going by Allan Liik's apartment for a late evening/early morning saun. Unfortunately we couldn't get the saun to work, so Eerik and I headed out towards the Vironia C!Q! I ended up getting back to the apartment sometime around 8 or 9am. Helluva party!
Sunday was a bit of a write-off as I had to get on the bus to head back to Tallinn. People tried convincing me to stay, but as Monday was my first work day, that wasn't much of an option. I said good-bye to my Toronto friends, and poured myself onto the bus. Slept most of the way back, got to the apartment and slept like a baby.
Monday morning still not feeling 100%, I woke up early to head in to work. I'm used to 6am starts at the golf course, but here I'm spoiled with 7am starts. Still entertaining the thought of starting at 6am just so I can get out a little earlier. Things are increadibly relax at this course. It's a tiny staff, but it seems like everyone knows what they have to do, and they go about their business. To me, it seems a little bit unorganized, however it might just be that I need to get familiarized with how they operate. I've already noticed some things in my first day that I think could be improved or changed, but those are things I can deal with in the coming weeks.
So today getting home from work, the reality of being in Eesti hit me. Until now, I've still felt like I'm going home in a couple of days. But having done the first day of work, and coming home it struck me that I'm here for a long haul. I've surrounded myself here with great family and friends, but it's still a little unsettling that I won't be seeing my family for quite a while. I'm sure over the next couple days and weeks I'll get into some kind of routine and get used to the day to day life here.
I think these coming weeks will really help me figure out how long I feel I want to live in Eesti. It was the best time for me to take the plunge and move over here when I left, but there are always a lot of unknowns. Once I start figuring out some answers, I'll start to feel more relaxed.
Hope you enjoyed the read.
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