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!