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