Employment Escort

Were I inclined to research deeply and expansively write on failed economic tactics, I’d be gearing up for a rave of it here in Tallinn. It would be in the form of a self-help book for local governments - “How not to create sustainable jobs and save yourself from future financial rape” might be the title. Tallinn’s cancerous mayor, Edgar Savisaar, would of course be propositioned to write the foreword. If he declined, I’d settle for something from, say, a muskrat or a boar. It’d be of about the same content and provocation.

Even before the fore-expected and disheartening results of the local elections came to light, I wanted to write on the idiotic and populist form that job-creation has taken under the city government. Namely, the highly-publicized and visible position of ‘reisisaatja’ (‘trip escort’). The responsibilities of this quite challenging position (in terms of staying awake) include standing/sitting in the fore-end of a public transport vehicle (bus/tram/trolley bus), staring dully out a window/sleeping/being passed out/talking with the driver/friends/narcotics addicts, and occasionally (in my estimation, once every ten years) selling tickets to passengers. Under the previous system before the taxpayer was graced with the ‘reisisaatja’, they had to buy their tickets from the driver if they hadn’t already picked one up from a kiosk or loaded up monthly passes on their ID-card. This form of cash-ticket transaction occurred very rarely. Oh, and the bus driver is still there now. So, remind me again - why are we paying for this?!

Unemployment is staggering for a country, and a city, of this size. However a word which was left out of city government discussions when locating budgetary funds for ‘emergency’ jobs was ‘sustainability’. When the crisis is deemed as over or the transport department’s budget needs to be cut back further, this will be the first to go. What, may I ask, will we have gained from this? What skills can these dull-eyed just-making-it-by employees add to their CVs (which, I might add, they have enough time for putting together while circling around the municipal area on bus number 5)? If their employment and minimum-wage salaries are restricted to the transportation sector to avoid hassle of switching out funds between budgets, then why are they doing such a useless ‘service’? It’s not like conditions are so pristine that I’d be happy to eat something off of the bus floor or to even rest my head against the Plexiglas window next to me. They’re not controlling tickets to make sure that the bus is actually accruing revenue. The system runs no smoother than before. So.. why? For minimum salary (which, I might add, is dangerously close to what I make working two jobs with flashier titles), I’ve seen enough forests, fields, bogs and beaches around the city that could be cleared of rubbish.

Even better - if the funds were to be untangled from static budgetary totals, the city could still support a minimum salary for the workers while offering them up to local companies in which their skill backgrounds match up. Thus, an auto-repair worker could be paid the exact same to help out at a local garage where, while demand may not have decreased, prices and salaries have - thus they continue to improve their own skills, make contacts and build a base at a place with no hassle to the employer (the state support still covers their health care and other social taxes). Current employees at the location wouldn’t be slammed with fewer hours or lower wages, as for all the employee is concerned - the previous bus-rider is a new, possibly temporary and basically volunteer worker on site. Production increases, costs straight-line.

Is it still too late to run for mayor?

A more in-depth post to come..

Edasi, вперёд..

That one.

Approach is everything, really. I've been mulling around for some time how to let this series of thoughts come forth in words or actions; the only.. well, not 'flat' exactly - we'll say 'delay' - was in exactly this aspect. My life-friend Erinn put it into faceable reality in her blog "Planned Movements" by saying this:

Fixation (when it comes to problems) = Stagnation
Fixation (when it comes to creative thoughts) = Thick and exciting new ideas

Right on. I had a burst of the latter method of energy focus for a short period of time today. It's been a while since it atmoized together in such a form, and it left me in a peculiar state following of near-despaity in polarity (also a good name for a band, song, or shot).

Erinn's always had a fantastic way of painstakingly writing things out; documenting, order-putting, jostling things into realization. I've often flirted with the approach, bought it movie tickets and then made it pay for its own box of popcorn and take the bus back home. Today I realized that it's been a while; I should really call 'planning' back up and make some basic commitment. Like any relationship with a hope for continuity, this will take some practice and back rubs. I wrote out a list of means which I plan on undertaking in developing myself. Cultivating myself and the sphere in both my immediacy and hinterlands. Here's the basic layout:

Enda Arendamine (Personal Development.. I'll write the rest out here in continual English)

Eesmärgid (alright, starting now)

Writing - Blog (at least once per week), Articles (topics? - could be closely related with blog - language/s?), Literature (Book? Shorts?)

Proficiency of languages - New (Sámi, Swedish?, Finnish?), Upkeep (Русский), Translation and reading (Eesti) - more translating work? Blog?

That's about as far as I got.. farther, actually, as I added a bit more just now as the development rides forth. It still closely resembles my style of mental (not physical - physical ordering is a natural requirement in living spaces) organization, if that phrase even checks out logically in my case. Logic I implement; organization in a loose, person or event-oriented and often longer-term sense. This beginning of a crack at furthering myself is, of course, long-term in its element. All the same, these two designations are themselves fluid and unreliable in any sense. Probably won't be long (a few minutes ago) and I'll have left this fruitless task of time-framing to itself.

Basically I only sketched out the 'list' to momentarily clarify for myself and leave a scrap as a reminder, keeping this as a recipient of momentum. Following my near-immediate delusion when considering in what method to come at personal development, I spent a bit of time reminiscing about when I worked in a large department store and the comfort of being told what to do, having simple tasks and a simple way to cross a line through them and classify the definition of 'completion'. I absolutely prefer the job I have now (translating) and the direction it is taking to those mindless past modes of receiving necessary pieces of paper; it's the adapting which is working its way into habit. Again, I worked well at this in a university setting and this may just be the post-graduation sight-setting, regardless that it is taking shape a few years later. It's a true thing, though: meangingfullness of actions is as necessary as breathing; inhalation just is spaced out somewhat more apart.

Redirection of energy is the question at hand.. not even always 'redirection' - more a refocusing, a refining, a tweaking, a resurge in the bubbling tide pool. I've felt as though my productivity has been in and out of that tide pool and know that sometime soon it will hit the current again. Re-enter the question of time.. less a question, more of a determination. Part of this lies in my own doings, hence the list and the brief frenzy of expectation that if I start taking action immediately it could be tomorrow that accomplishment takes a firmer footing. Possibly so. Worth the effort; most things are.

Edasi, вперёд..