16.-20.5.

Hejsan alla,

16.5.

We got to choose, which one would go to The Point and which one to Baystreet. I went to work on The Point and surprisingly it wasn’t as frustrating as it had been earlier.

The tasks weren’t any different, I just patrolled and answered to the customers questions. A lot of customers actually came to ask something, Monday’s magic.

17.5.

I went to work to the office and continued doing the same things, engagements, terminations and filing. I really  got a hold of those things and it wasn’t as boring and dull as I thought at first. And I did an alright job, because I was let to do those things several times. That was the work I enjoyed doing the most.

18.5.

The Point, again. Nothing changed, only patrolling and I got asked fewer questions.

19.5.

It was our last day at the office. We returned our uniforms and received our contracts, job certificates and final grades about our internship. We also got reference letters. I don’t completely agree with the grading method, but it’s their company and as they saw us as workers. It’s nothing personal and I get that.

20.5.

Lavinia gave us the last day off. We decided to use the opportunity to visit Popeye.s Village. It’s a theme park, the movie set of 1980’s Popeye film. I’m not a huge fan of theme parks (mostly because the overly pushy mascots) but this one was great. It was well preserved and there were just enough activities to keep the day interesting.

A lot of films have been filmed in Malta due to the amazing views and landscapes. And if I recall correctly we visited at least two more (Game of Thrones and By the sea) but I can’t remember where they were. 

Overall experience about the internship trip is that it was good. It wasn’t what I expected (I really tried my hard to not to expect anything and just take what was given, but apparently I  still expected something.) but it was at least different from what I was used to, the country and the work.

I got to travel and live abroad and that’s what I wanted. I would go again because it’s always a unique chance to actually be a part of people in a country and not just a tourist. 

-Mirja

9.-13.5.

Hey,

9.5.

On Monday I worked in the office. I did some engagements for clerks that already had a contract. I also made them files (Or more like attached the red cover of the file with a fastener and some plastic sleeves.) and sorted their papers out into the file. he I did their name tags and attached them. I really enjoyed working on those files, because I felt like I know how to do my work and that I was trusted to those correctly really gives me a boost.

Friday hadn’t gone that well, because I also had to correct one contract I had done incorrectly on Friday. Not a biggie though, I had just put in the wrong ID number. I also had to find the files we had done back then and put in their place (Those cupboards are bursting out of their seams, by the way.), because they still needed to be put in the payroll system.

10.5.

I went to work in Baystreet. It was the same as usual, patrolling at first, then car park watching. They had managed to fix the indoor car park barrier, which I’m really glad about. I also did something I guess could be called hot work surveillance. And believe it or not, that’s how it’s called in English.

What happened was there was a guy changing the flooring in the elevator and I was told to change shifts with the other security guard watching the guy work.

I wasn't given any specific directions on what to do, but my best guess is that I was supposed to do hot work surveillance (but there was nothing to put out a fire near, nothing) and watch that no one comes to interrupt him working (a.k.a. to be a work safety hazard).

PS. It’s getting so warm here that the mosquitoes have awakened and currently they’re trying to invade our apartment, one bite at a time. And these aren’t nice little mosquitoes like in Finland. You can’t feel when they bite but oh **** does it sting and itch later. And it itches for days (and I’m not even allergic). Seriously, my right arm looks like a meth addicts face.

11.-13.5.

On all of the days above I worked in the office. I did the same things everyday: engagements, terminations and updating database, occasionally copying some documents.

On Friday however on top of those I got to print engagement and termination notifications from ETC and file them in their file.

The wages were also finished, so I cut payslips (like with scissors from paper), enveloped them (not sure if that’s even a real verb…) and wrote the addresses on and stamped them with Signal8Security’s stamp. Posting stamps they already had. I liked doing Friday’s tasks. Especially putting payslips into envelopes and writing the addresses. Because I never get to do that anymore, so it was fun. (What I define as ”fun” might be the reason why I have very few friends…)

Anyways, next week will be the last week here. And I would apologize for not blogging until now, but deep down I know that nobody cares.

-Mirja

5.-6.5.

Hi,

5.5.

I went to work in a different Lidl, in Santa Verena. This change of physical location did not change the fact that the work was the same and equally frustrating. I also wish that the staff members would had told me with more details what they wanted me to do, than just let me do something and then come saying I was doing what I did wrong.

What I did there, was the same thing as in the Lidl before. I patrolled, looked that no one stole anything, that the customers didn’t open any packages or try anything (clothes, shoes) on and that no one ate anything they hadn’t paid. Basic retail security. I also helped customers if they asked me something.

6.5.

I worked in the office. I enrolled engagements and terminations, made contracts and scanned a few things. I’ve got quite good with those things, to be a bit proud of myself. Human resource managing isn’t as bad as I’ve always thought.

I’m sorry this is a bit brief, but I’m sick and have fever. New stories and better condition on Monday.

-Mirja 

3.-4.5.

Hejdå,

3.5.

On Tuesday I went to work in Lidl in San Gwann, My job was the basic retail security job, watching that people didn’t steal, check the customer’s purchased items if the alarm gate went off and do customer service. An add to those tasks was also checking that customers didn’t open any packages, used gloves when taking food items on the ”daily baked” section (You know, that section which is in every Lidl where is bread, donuts etc.) and didn’t eat anything before paying for it. The San Gwann Lidl is the busiest (read ”the most lucrative”) Lidl in Europe.

The customers weren't too nice to the staff and there was more than one occasion where there was a disagreement about whether or not they have to follow the rules and whether or not I was doing my job right. 

The store in itself was nice, though. And the people I worked with. They showed me what I was supposed to do and showed the products that make the alarm gate go off (There were a few items that made the alarm gate go off regardless of the item had been paid for or not, because those items get stolen an awful lot.). I can’t say I enjoyed working there, but it was useful. It was different to work in a retail market than in a mall. And at least it wasn’t boring.

4.5.

Today I worked in the office. I got to submit some engagements and terminations, make contracts and name tags and fill some dates in some sort of a working hour system. The day was quite busy,but I liked making contracts and submitting engagements and terminations. I also did a few copies of some papers and filed contracts after they were ready. 

-Mirja

2.5.

Hi,

Today I worked in the office. I did the same job as last time: updating database and filing the papers afterwards. Today the papers were a mess though and it was really hard to find their files. There were papers fr past employees, current employees and new employees without files. So most of my time went to trying to find the files. I also filed monthly time sheets.

The work wasn’t too bothersome, though. I didn’t have to ask everything and I realized I can check if the employees are still working from the database. I also had my own working space, so it was easier to do paperwork.

In the afternoon I spent my last working hour ”guarding” the office. Lavinia and Kim had to go somewhere and Jovan hadn’t yet come back, so I sat there for an hour (because officially the office is open 9-17). David was upstairs, though, so I wasn’t all alone. I just had to say if someone came there to come back tomorrow. One person actually did come there, but he just had a bank detail paper, so I collected that. 

-Mirja

29.4.

Hi,

Today I went to Baystreet. I started by patrolling, and today they let me do the patrols on my own. On every patrol I checked the hotel floors and shopping centre floors, and looked out for the same things as I’ve explained before. I did in total four patrols along the day.

Some more excitement for the day brought the non-working parking system barrier and the traffic in the road next to the parking area. The barrier of the incoming traffic was broken, and despite the efforts to fix it, was still broken when I left. Due that, we had to in the morning write the parking tickets for the incoming cars. Later on the ticket machine at least started working, but after that we had to keep an eye on that people coming in actually took the ticket. If we didn’t keep an eye on them, they didn’t and then came to complain, when they tried to leave, that they couldn’t get out (because you have to have a paid ticket to get out). The human race never fails to surprise me…

In the 0 level’s corridor is a scaffolding, and today the construction workers came there with a pick-up car to pick up (See what I did there?) some scaffolding materials that were stored under that. I went there to check that others than the workers walked under the scaffolding and let them work in peace. (Clear explanation is clear…) So I guess I did some kind of work safety supervision.

But to be honest, I mostly stood on the bridge and told people whether or not there’s space in the parking area, that including going around the parking area and counting parking spaces.  

-Mirja

28.4.

Hejsan alla,

I worked in the office doing the same as usual: Updating database. I had a pile of uniform papers, whether given or returned, and I started with their updates. I also had some completely new employees to put on the database and some email addresses and bank account numbers.

After updating the papers, I of course had to file them somewhere: red files, past employee files or some other specific file for that paper. I was glad that there were only a few papers to be filed in the past employee files and even they were found quickly. I enjoyed working today, somehow the work just felt easy, I knew what I was doing and I had something to do for the whole day.

A huge bonus for today was that I got my private guard course certificate (and only failed one question on the test)!

-Mirja

25.-27.4.

Hi,

25.4.

On Monday I went to Baystreet. The day was really quiet and I had really few things to do. In the morning I went to patrolling with one guard. With this pair we first went through the hotel floors (I don’t know whether or not I mentioned Baystreet is a shopping centre for four floors and a hotel for a few more, but I'm doing it now) and then the shopping centre floors. In the hotel floors we checked the reception, the room corridors (if there’s mess, if people are okay, if there’s people who aren’t supposed to be there…) and the fire escape doors and corridors.

On the shopping centre floors we checked the same things as I’ve explained before and we also checked the fire escape corridors, where I haven’t been before. We also closed a few more fire doors than we opened.

For the rest of the day I did parking area watching, mostly on the outside car park, only a little time on the bridge. The day was super windy, so sitting next to the construction for hours eventually made my dark blue uniform white…

26.4.

On Tuesday we attended the private guard course. We started with the basic things: how should a guard dress in duty, how should they’re uniforms be (clean), why do people want to buy guarding, how should a guard behave on duty, why is good customer service an important thing...

We also went through access control, register keeping (vehicles, visitors, keys), why it’s important to take notes, what is confidentiality. We also got to know some examples about the practical work I hadn’t heard before, which was nice. We had two teachers keeping the course, which gave different perspectives. At the end of the day we were given note papers to study for the exam on the next day.

27.4.

We continued with the private guard course. We went through work place safety and how it affects security work and did a revision of things we’ve handled on the course. The revision part is also the private guard refreshment course, so on that part we had other participants, who already have the private guard course gone through. In Malta, if you want to keep your security license, you need to attend a refreshment course once a year. In the end of the day we had the exam, which was probably one if the easiest tests I’ve ever taken.

Overall, the course might be useful for someone who doesn’t know anything about security. But if one has studied even the Finnish 40 hour private guard course, this course will be boring. The look on Maltese law considering security work was really brief, and we concentrated too much on irrelevant trivia which was explained understandably in other documents (for example applying for private guard license). Some of the teachers also didn’t bother including non-Maltese-speakers to the conversations that much, even if we made up half of the students and asked to be spoken in English more.

Most of the teachers were nice enough though, and especially the one who kept us the last lesson really made the effort to make everyone understand what he was saying and gave us good, well told examples from the real working world. I also enjoyed getting to know the words that are used when speaking of security work (access control, key register etc) and the brief package of Maltese law text we were given (in English though). I also learnt a new word in Maltese : Kontroll tal-Access!

-Mirja

21.-22.4.

Hello there,

On both days I worked in Baystreet. I did mostly parking area watching and patrolling. As an add to parking area watching from before, the outside parking area was now open for customers too. Therefor I had to check parking tickets (that they took one when arriving and showed that they had paid before leaving).

On patrolling there wasn’t anything new. We reported in the morning which shops had opened at what time, that there wasn’t anything broken or people sleeping or causing trouble. I also did a bit of camera surveillance when I happened to sit in the office.

On Thursday I got to do some cool stuff: me and the real guard who I was paired with secured a hotel receptionist when she transferred money to the upper hotel floors. It took about two minutes but oh god, did I feel professional.

On the same day I also got to put an escalator on, for it had stopped moving. I also let a person from a shop have her brake and went to replace her for a few minutes. On her break I mostly just checked that no one touched the register or broke anything, because the place was a gaming room, so there wasn’t really anything to steal.

I enjoyed the working days pretty much and I’ll go back next week. What I could do more, is to be more active and ask more about the security work there.But I’ve done what I’ve been told and been flexible about the tasks.  

-Mirja

19.-20.4.

Hi,

19.4.

I spent the day in the office. I continued filing with the same past employee files, with different papers though. I don’t know what papers they exactly were, because that fact didn’t matter the slightest with my job. They might have been some final payment papers and written resignations. But as said, all that matters to me is the name on the paper, not really what it’s about.

The task wasn’t as frustrating as before. I actually finally found all of the papers matching with some file.

20.4.

I went back to Baystreet. I really like that workplace. All the other people who work there are nice. Today I mostly did camera and parking area surveillance in the office. There are somewhat eighty cameras in the mall and that’s a lot more than I’ve used to. I watched the cameras and would had reported if there had been anything out of ordinary, but there wasn’t. I also wathced the parking area (how many vehicles there are, is there any parking space) with the help of a parking area surveillance programme on the computer. At the end of the day I did a quick patrol around the mall.

The tasks weren’t that demanding, but I liked them nonetheless. At least others trusted me that much to leave me in the office unattended. 

-Mirja

18.4.

Hey,

Today we went to Baystreet. It was like a different world compared to Point. There were four guards on the day shift and they were actually interested to show us what to do. We were told what they wanted us to do, we were showed around properly and we were given things to do. I had a purpose!

Baystreet isn’t actually bigger than Point, but it is right next to Paceville, the night club hell, and there are a lot more customers (and oh so little parking space). First we were shown around and went patrolling with other guard. The first difference comes here: He told us what things to look when patrolling, which we weren’t told in Point.

For the rest of the day we mostly did parking space watching, either inside the center or in the outside. The inside parking area is small and the sign which announces whether the parking area is full or not, is very poorly lightened. So we stood on the entrance of the parking area and when a car tried to come in, we told the driver if the area was full or not. The outside parking area was closed for everyone except for builders’ cars. There is a massive renovation going on in the Baystreet, half of the building is covered in scaffolding. So in the outside parking area we just asked people who tried to drive there if they were builders. If not, we asked them to park elsewhere. We also did patrolling around the day.

The day flew past and Baystreet was a pleasant working environment. This was one of the rare days I felt like we were given something real to do, something that would need to be done even if we weren’t there. We worked in pairs, so that both of us worked with one of the guards who have been there for longer. The people who worked there were very nice and friendly. I really want to go there again.

-Mirja

16.-17.4.

Hi there,

I haven’t really blogged about previous weekends, mostly ue to the fact that I haven’t done anything (besides eating and wasting my life on YouTube). But this weekend I actually did something.

On Saturday we decided to visit Lavinia and Jovan on their soon-to-be house in Gozo. We left our apartment at 12 and took a bs to Ic-Cirkewwa. From there we took a ferry to Gozo and in Gozo another bus to Ggantija. Long story short, we had a little misunderstanding with Lavinia and ended up in the wrong village. In the end, wiht the help of few friendly locals, we got to the right place. It was nice to visit their house, and Gozo overall. We’ll probably go visit them again the next weekend. Gozo is a beautiful island, and a lot more quiet than Malta.

On Sunday we went to Sliema, to have a better look at the place. We had a pleasant walk on the coast road. 

-Mirja

15.4.

'Ello,

Today we worked together and finished filing the returned uniform papers into the past employee files. Or finished and finished, we didn’t find all the files to match the papers, so on some day we will go through them together with Lavinia.

After those we started filing some final payment papers to the same past employee files. So the whole day was going through alphabets and sticking papers together.  It was frustrating but somehow got less frustrating at the end. We will continue doing those next week.

On Monday we’ll go to a new location, Baystreet. Lavinia told that it would be a bit busier than The Point (hopefully that’s true). She also asked us to give more feedback of our work (whether we like it or not, what we’d like to do etc) and I’ll try to do that.

It feels funny that we’ve been here almost a month now and we’ve still got more than a month to go. I’m facing a bit of a midway crisis here, meaning that everything is kinda boring and I’d really like to be back at my workplace in Finland, where I know what to do and when and why. But I’m sure that this will pass (I face this every time I do anything for more than two hours) and at the end it’ll be hard to leave. But I’ve got myself together with riding this blog, so yay. 

-Mirja

14.4.

Hello,

Today I continued what Henna started yesterday, which was going through ”Returned uniforms” file and attaching those documents to the past employee files. Practically this meant going through past employee archives over and over again, trying to find the matching name and ID number on uniform paper and past employee papers. This took pretty much the whole day and we’ll continue tomorrow.

When I first came in in the morning, I was told that I hadn’t updated the mooring men and terminated employees files properly, considering their contract/termination dates (meaning that the dates weren’t updated in the database). I take responsibility for the mooring men dates (3/8 dates missing) but the terminated employees I however did update, check and save. 

-Mirja

11.-13.4.

Hi,

11.4.

I worked at the office whilst Henna went to work on The Point. In the office I updated the database based on some new employee papers and some termination papers. After updating I filed the papers in red files (new employees) and past employee binders. I also put some time sheets into alphabetical order.

12.4.

In the morning Henna and I went to the office to attend a course about leadership. It lasted for two hours. It was somewhat useful because on that course someone put things I’ve thought about into a form of words and something understandable. Some parts were a bit scifi, because I’ve never done personnel or company management myself.

After the course we went to work on The Point. So we patrolled for three hours, occasionally telling some customer where the toilets are when they asked. I do get the general idea of guarding in stores, sure. But what’s the point of having three guards in one location and two of them don’t even know what they’re supposed to do if something happens or where they are allowed to work.

13.4.

I went to work on The Point and Henna went to the office. So I walked patrolled in four different levels for five hours, kept an eye on customers to prevent them from stealing (they didn’t), filled a box for some liquor competition papers if it went empty, told where the toilets were if I was asked and got the information of where to get a refund for toy machines if they failed to fulfill their duty, because one customer asked that. 

-Mirja

8.4.

Hi,

On Friday we went to work on The Point, a shopping mall in Tas-Sliema. We arrived there around nine and left around two. We met the actual guard who works there, Joseph Micallef and he showed us around and told us what we usually does at nine o’clock there, which was putting the escalators on. The he showed us where the office is. The rest of the day we just patrolled. Yeah, sure our purpose was to show that there are security guards working there, but it gets kinda boring to walk around for five hours and you can count only as many cameras as there are.

The day was a bit pointless because we could had actually learnt how to operate there if we were told properly what they do there, where to find things and what to do in different situations. So I wish we would had been told more about the tasks we were supposed to do.

I learned one thing though, and that was that the world doesn’t actually end if you go int the wrong bus. Or don’t know the bus stop. I’ve been kinda terrified of riding a bus, mainly because of those reasons. But if I’ve managed to do it here, I can probably manage it back in Finland. And how is it that here bus drivers actually try to help you, but in Finland they don’t sometimes even bother to answer.

On Monday I’ll be back in the office. On Tuesday I’ll probably be back on The Point. It’s a nice shopping mall though. The shop assistants are friendly, the mall is clean and it isn’t that hard to find anything in the shopping area, because, as said, it’s circles on tip of circles. The staff area is very different, it’s a maze. And it was funny to see that the escalators had a carving ”KONE”. So their internationality wasn’t a fairy tail after all. 

-Mirja

7.4.

Hi,

I started today with self-employing myself by updating the database and unifrom’s list based on some new papers that had appeared in the ”to updated” pile despite our efforts of yesterday to make it smaller. So before Lavinia I came, I updated the papers in the system.

When Lavinia came to office, she gave me some files of employees, whose employment was terminated. I enrolled those terminations, printed the acknowledgements out and added them to the papers from the red files. Finally I took all the papers out of the red files, fastened them together and removed the name tags from the files. To my understanding Henna later on filed the paper piles into the past employee archives.

I also got to do the opposite, which was enrolling some new employees into the database, enrolling and printing their engagements and contracts, putting their papers into red files and finally attaching their name tags. So we’ve gone a full circle considering the office tasks, for this was what I did on the very first day of this work placement.

While doing the new employees files I also made a list of what documents and/or informations they were missing (so I don’t have to do it on next week). Today was very pleasant, because I new most of the time what I was doing and it was nice to start from scratch to enrolling the information and finally seeing everything in order and ready. Completion completes me, I guess.

Tomorrow we’ll get to actually go out on the field. I’m looking forward to it. :) 

-Mirja

5.-6.4.

Hello,

5.6.

We worked together Henna and I and Lavinia gave us such a small-scale task as going through all the employee files and see what documents they are missing. We did this based on the list of what should be in the file in general and every employees personal update request letter (if they had been sent it). So we made a list for Lavinia. Later Lavinia (or more likely: us) will send these employees who had been sent the update letter a warning of failing to update the personal file despite the letter of request. We don’t yet know about the procedures considering the personnel who hasn’t been sent the letter, but probably they’ll be sent it.

We divided the task so I went physically through the files based and told Henna the information to be written on the list to be sent Lavinia. We also worked downstairs so we got to handle employees, customers and phone calls at the same time. We were given with us downstairs also the certificate binder and we got to give certificates to people who came asking for them (in exchange for the identity card of course). We also took in employees personal time sheets to deliver upstairs.

After my lunch break I stayed upstairs as Henna proceeded downstairs with the files. Upstairs I was given a pile of receipts to organize based on the client. What made this interesting was that the receipts were all hand-written and didn’t necessarily have the exact same name on them. But I grasped the system quite fast and this was a great opportunity to get to know some names and localities of the sights. It was also rewarding to see the pile grow thinner, understanding more and more of the sight names and at last seeing the neat, very well organised pile of receipts. The day went again by pretty quickly, even though we actually stayed there for solid eight hours. We also had some guests from Finland in the afternoon. ;)

6.6

We started (or more like did for half of the day) the day by going through the rest of the files to be listed for Lavinia. The employees are listed in three categories by their employment: full timer, part time 15 % and part time 10 %. The full timers make up about 60 % of all employees and part timers together about 40 %, if we think on those terms. Henna managed the day before to do almost half of the full timers on herself by the end of the day. So we had only a small pile of full timers and the part timers to go. Today we switched so I wrote the list and Henna went through the files and told me what to write. Again, we got to answer the phone, make phone calls, give out certificates and accept guests. Today though the time moved very slowly…

When we finished all the files (which actually wasn’t as impossible task as it seemed at first) we updated the database and uniform’s list based on some papers that employees and employers had brought in. We also filed those papers in the employees files or in the returned uniforms file. Today wasn’t anything great, to be honest. But whose all days are, eh?

The top part of the day was when Maria gave us our uniforms. The uniforms are smart and, to my huge surprise, fit actually quite well. The uniform is quite similar to the one I wear at my workplace in Finland. So I felt quite comfortable and home wearing it. I’m very much looking forward to getting on the field.

-Mirja

4.4.

Hello,

Today I checked the rest of the files we started on Monday and updated them into the database. I also went through the files to see if they hadn’t got all the papers needed. Most of them were missing the bank details. A good second was the police conduct. I made a list of what was missing from each person’s file and based on that list and a ready letter template I made the letters to be printed and sent to these employees. Which would had gone a bit quicker and easier if I had remembered to save more than half of them on the first try…

In between I updated the database and the uniform’s list based on some papers the employees and office staff has sent, answered the phone, let guests in and copied some papers. The second biggest task I did was organizing in alphabetical order and filing the monthly time sheets and some certificates.

I got to work a lot on my own, which was nice. Lavinia let me work downstairs (the reception) and due that, I had to answer the phone a lot and let guests in. She taught me also how to transfer the call. Today I felt for the first time that I was actually doing some real work and not just filing a few papers here a few papers there and constantly asking ”What now? What next? What should I do now?”. The day went by quite fast and it was a pretty nice working day. The weather was also really nice and we went to the beach after work.

-Mirja

1.4.

On Friday Henna and I worked some of the time together and some separately, still both with Lavinia. We started by enrolling terminations for some people whose employment wasn’t effected on the engagement day (=they decided they did not want to start the job) and for one person who unfortunately had deceased in a car crash on Thursday. So I enrolled the terminations and removed these people’s papers from their files and Henna stapled them together. I also had to mark the termination date into the database and print the acknowledgements for the terminations out. Now the files wait for the final settlements to be enrolled and after that, they are moved under the stairs in the past employees or put-away archives. And actually I got the questionable honour to go through the past employees files in order to find one employee’s information for further purposes I’m not allowed to discuss about. I fortunately had to go through only 2/4 binders until I found the one needed.

I also tried to enroll some terminations and engagements, that the ETC system hadn’t let us do earlier. Well, the terminations still weren’t all abled, but I got the engagements and contracts for these employees in the system and printed out alright.

After that we got other papers to work on the rest of the day (and we’ll continue on Monday). The papers are new employees who will soon start to work and hadn’t got their information or even their red files yet. First we sorted out their papers into the red files in Lavinia’s defined order, which makes a lot of sense and was helpful, because now we didn’t have to guess which papers belonged to which page. After the sorting, we wrote their names on the name tag document (a template document of how the name tags are written and then the template is printed), printed the document and attached the name tags to the red files. Then the fun part begun.

By which I mean, we had to enroll all of their information into the database. The task itself isn’t that demanding, but at first we started doing this with two different computers. Which we were a bit later told, didn’t work on that database platform. So we had to choose whose work was to be deleted, and unfortunately it was my 4 files vs. Henna’s 1,5 files. But, fortunately Henna’s one file was already there, due to the fact the person, whose file it was, had worked for Signal8 before. So we only lost a half a file.

What other thing makes updating the database a bit hard, is that people usually have about eight pages in their files. The information asked in the database isn’t in the same order (and after the name, not in any logical order, at least known to us) as in the file. So we have  to go back and forth the file to find the information, and sometimes the needed information is handwritten and people’s handwriting is very hard to read. The addresses are also kind of hard to figure out sometimes, when people don’t bother writing them properly or the address is just odd. But to pat myself on the back a bit, I’ve become quite good at this in such a short period of time, finding and understanding the information in the files I mean.

The working day was overall quite pleasant and I’ve grasped quite well and quite fast the work I’m supposed to do. What I could work on is sharing the information that I have instead of being a bit grumpy when I’m asked something and have to stop working for a few seconds to give advise. 

29.-31.3.

Hello,

29.3.

In the morning I continued working on the mooring men’s files by issuing name tags and gluing them on files. I also updated the database and enrolled and printed contracts for those employees based on the information on the engagement papers. I worked on my own until lunchtime because Lavinia was out off office the whole day. She had left me a memo on thing I must do and I didn’t have problems doing these tasks for I had done them before. I also like working on my own, so the morning time wasn’t a struggle.

In the afternoon I worked with Henna and Oriana. It wasn’t a struggle for me and Henna, but for Oriana because she had to find us things to do. Eventually we checked working hours in weekly time sheets (=calculated if the hours were correctly put on the time sheet and they matched the computer’s Excel version) and putting weekly time sheets and file drawers into alphabetical order. We also copied some documents and made coffee for the private guard license course. The course was full, so me and Henna didn’t attend it and we’ll do it later. There also were only foreigner’s for some reason I didn’t ask.

30.3.

I did various tasks. I filed the mooring men’s files, now that they were enrolled into the payment system. I took in guests (or, you know, opened the gate, asked what they wanted and politely asked them to wait if necessary). I also copied ID cards and some other papers. Together Henna and I updated the uniform files and filed the uniform papers (or more accurately would’ve filed them, if more than 1/10 would had had the actual employment file). After that I enrolled some cleaner employees in the database and organised their papers into the red employee files. The whole day was pretty much a chaos for there was the second day of private guard license course, people coming and going, phone ringing, files missing and the papers I worked on were an utter, complete mess. But the day passed pretty quickly, which was nice. The sun was also shining and it was a very warm day. There was also some cake at the end of the day, because one of the office workers had a birthday. So the day wasn’t horrible, even though it was a bit busy.

31.3.

Today was a public holiday, Jum il-Helsien (=Freedom day), which is to my understanding a sort of independence day of Malta. So we had no work and it was again very warm and sunny. So we decided to go on the beach and the coast road. It was a pretty nice day off.

Easter

Hello,

we had Good Friday and the weekend off, so we decided to visit Valletta! The capital city if something was and is a tourist attraction. The old buildings were colossal! Build out of straight-lined huge rocks. And what brings a huge contrast to that, is the fact that the pavements and roads are tiny and squirmy. We visited Fortress St. Elmo (only on the outside though) and Vittoriosa (an old city somewhere near Valletta).

Today (Monday) at work we continued pretty much the same stuff as we did last week. I stayed with Lavinia and Henna stayed with Oriana. I printed engagement and termination sheets based on the e-mails ETC (some sort of personnel management programme/organisation/company) had sent Lavinia. I printed them, separated engagements and terminations, put them in alphabetical order and filed them. I also had to look for the matching engagement sheets for the new terminations.  Putting papers into alphabetical order apparently takes a lot of time, considering this tasks took about four hours…

After those terminations and engagements I started doing the ones concerning mooring men (which to my understanding are people who work in ships or some other international area, due to what they don’t necessarily need private guard license). We’ve had the files for a while, but now Lavinia had the last needed information about their employment (the starting days and whether they’re full or part time). Based on that given information and the information that was already in their files, I filled and printed their engagement forms. The first try wasn’t quite succesfull, for I was logged in with the wrong username. So I had to do that one again and now we have to wait for a week for the wrong sheet to go to ETC and come back to us. But, you know, try and fail and learn.  The next ones I got right.

The tasks are okay. They aren’t that hard, basically they’re just doing the same thing over and over again. I just need to keep focused on what I’m doing which is ,particularly when tired, the biggest challenge. But today I also got to eavesdrop the job interviews Lavinia held. They were a bit brief compared to the ones I’ve earlier been to, but it was a nice experience to hear some sort of a real interview in English.

In my own opinion, I’ve performed the tasks given to me pretty well. I’ve also been on time to work every day, which has earlier been a bit of a struggle. What I could try to improve, is to be a bit more outgoing and try to have a bit more of conversations with coworkers.  

22.-24.3.

Hi,

The first week here is ending and at this point we’ve been to work for four days. Me and Henna after all didn’t switch tasks but ended up doing the same ones, due to Ariana going off for holiday. So from Tuesday we’ve been working together with Laviana or Kim in the office.

On Tuesday me and Lavinia continued with submitting termination and engagement files on the computer, printing them and filing them in the employees files. She also taught me how to fill in contracts and where to find them. Henna continued with the work time calculations. When she finished, she came to work with me and Lavinia. I taught Henna the same things about contracts that Lavinia had showed me. Later Lavinia gave us the task to update the paper versions of past terminations and engagements. We started that on the afternoon and finished it off on Wednesday morning. What enriches this and all the other tasks including personnel management, is that alphabetical doesn’t mean actually alphabetical, it means somewhat alphabetical. Also, there are a lot of people by the same name, sometimes exactly by the same name and you can’t always figure out directly which is the surname and which is the forename.

On Wednesday, after the engagements and terminations, we worked with Kim because Lavinia was of the office. We performed all sorts of little tasks, mostly having something to do with personnel management. We fetched files, printed contracts and updated employee database based on the papers they had sent for the office.

Today (Thursday) we filed employee files to put away –files and past engagements and terminations files. We also continued what we did yesterday with the database, updating. In the morning we also got to go to upstairs to observe what the employee managers (if I remember their title right) David and Joseph do. David explained us how they schedule which guards they put in what places and when. He also showed us the computer programme which they use to do it. If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t catch half of what he explained. But on the other hand, I didn’t really have to because it was just a brief introduction to what they do. And David said we won’t operate those systems on this work placement.

Some things are done quite differently here. For example, the sights don’t have particular guards who would work there most of their shifts. They also use a six-week periods, when in Finland it’s mandatory to use three-week periods. The periodical hours are still the same, in Malta 240 hours per period, in Finland 120 hours per period.  The nature of the job still seems to be the same: Hurry hurry hurry!

The tasks we’ve been given are alright, not too heavy at least. We haven’t even got full hours from any day because they haven’t had enough things for us to do (because we don’t know how to do those things that need to be done yet). But I’m sure we’ll be taught how to do more things and we’ll get to see more of the range of things Signal 8 does, besides the paper stapling. Time goes quite quickly and I’m sure this will be over way too soon. This weekend it’s Easter and we have tomorrow off. We’re probaly going to go see Valletta. I'm trying to get some pictures here as well, but I've always been quite lazy with that sort of things. 

-Mirja

First two days

Hello,

We've been in Malta for two days now and our first actual working day was today. The apartment is nice, weather is great, people in the office are friendly and the traffic is crazy. For some reason people also think it's cold in here (+19 degrees Celsius by day) and wear winter coats. Half of the people also seem to be British.

On our first day at work we were at the Signal 8's office. We got to meet some of the office's staff and did mostly computer chores. I was with Lavinia and I entered information of the new staff members to the staff database. I also terminated contracts and enrolled them. The system is a bit different than the ones I've operated before, but it was managable. It was simple enough and the biggest challenge was getting the addresses right. Henna worked with Ariana and did some working time calculations with her. Tomorrow we'll switch so I'll calculate and Henna will enter staff information. We even remembered to give our contracts to Lavinia. I'm very much looking forward to going to work tomorrow. And I'm sure I've never enjoyed a Monday this much. 

The office also has two pets, cockatoo Gogo and a playful dog George. 

We haven't got lost too badly and have found our way to bus station, to work and to the stores. Quite amazingly, we've found our way back to our apartment as well. The buses haven't been too late yet, though, we've only been here for two days. The traffic is, as I said earlier, crazy. Here the traffic is left sided, people don't use turning signals or swerve or watch out for pedestrians. The fastest survives.

Overall I've enjoyed this stay for this far very much (which isn't actually saying much but leave it as it may). I'm still a bit in that cultural shock phase where everything is wonderful and oh-so-much-better than back in Finland. Some things do work a bit better in Finland,though. For example water systems (Even some of the locals don't drink tap water...) and cooking tools (Why gas stove, just why?) Anyhow, lets see where this gets from here, it's been a great start.

-Mirja