Moving along

After much consideration, I've decided to formally move into the world of freelance work. I've been getting "ithcy feet" for a while, actually--it's what happens when your job can be done by a few trained monkeys, until something goes disastrously wrong (which happens more often than my boss would think, apparently). And also, the financial situtation in the sciences has only gotten worse, and as of March I will be officially unemployed again.

However, until that happens, I will be using the time to set up my own company, and Karel will be delighting in that holy-of-all-holies, the pass to the Makro (Dutch equivalent of a Costco) which I would receive automatically as a small business owner. And of course, drumming up business, post-business. There's a vet visit somewhere in there, too--blood panels and yearly checkups.

So basically, this is a shameless plug for photography gigs. If you or someone you know of is hosting a gathering where they want pics; or if you want photos of something or somewhere or someone, shoot me an email. My sample pics are all over the blog, so if you like the work that I've done and would like me to do it for you, let me know.

Derailed

I'm back to being a working stiff again, much to my relief--for a while I was afraid I was going to have to convince the Albert Heijn that I'm a barely-literate teenager (which I could probably pull off, given my terrible Dutch and deceptively young appearance) so that I could pay off my student loans. As it is, I found a job after much time and have been quite busy these past few days, between rediscovering Leonard Mlodinow's The Drunkard's Walk and working out a new rhythm to my days.

The greatest luxury for me these days is being able to step out the door and walk to work. It's a pleasant walk there and back again, and oddly enough, instead of tiring me out, I come home refreshed and ready for more--which is just as well, since Karel has been on the night shift this week and has been too zombified to make dinner when I get home. Luxury isn't bathing in a gold bathtub surrounded by butlers and French lovers, luxury is being able to wake up at a not-ungodly hour (6:30), coddle the cats as much as they need it, get a bit of Internet time, tidy up the kitchen, and still get to work on time. Luxury is working at a job that suits both your skill set and your personality.

Or I could have been working at Leiden and Maastricht for too long.

Yeah. That's probably it. But having the energy left at the end of the day to tackle a few pages of my novel still beats the pants off having a butler.

Just Blend

In many ways, you can view this blog and all of its entries as "things NOT to do when you're in the Netherlands". Recipes for scrumptious asparagus aside, the things I should have done but didn't and should not have but did are worthy of a Loreena McKennit dirge. It's not that I'm lax about following rules--to the contrary, I plan our weekly meals out well in advance and recently acquired a white board, which I marked up with permanent marker, in order to plot out a schedule of things to do when and where and with whom. However, I am also terribly lazy about researching things in advance--I blame my career choice, which is technically as a scientist. Research, to my mind, is something you do before you write papers, and not before meeting someone for drinks, even if it is your first borreltje.

The hive mind of the Dutch is something that I've alluded to several times--that inborn ability to know when it's coffee time (10-11), to set out your trash next to the one pole but not the other, and to get a twinge of nostalgia when you see games like "Ganzenbord", even if you've never played it before. Anthropologists call it "culture", but the level of indoctrination runs so deep that if the queen of the hive mind (not necessarily Beatrix) were to croak tomorrow, the chaos (inasmuch as the Dutch are able to withstand it) would be catastrophic. Trains would be delayed, and buses would be dirty--oh noes!

All joking aside, I am a terrible conformist. Oh, I'm more than happy to play along and be a good little Dutchie for a little while, until I get bored. That's when trouble--or rather, inspiration--begins:

Most people assume that I would be biking to my new job, which is a fair assumption, seeing as how it's 2 km away by Google Earth(that's a little over a mile for my American readers). The idea that I would have the audacity to walk that distance, on the other hand, was apparently novel enough that I found myself repeating that intention over and over yesterday, when I met my new colleagues for the first time. It's a twenty-minute walk--not a bad distance, and the neighborhood isn't dangerous, although it is true that I'd say that about any neighborhood that's not North Philly--working in and riding through a notoriously bad neighborhood dramatically skews your perception of what's dangerous. My mother would probably have a fit if she knew I was walking anywhere in the dark.

I suppose it was just as well that I didn't mention my real intention to the inquisitive multitudes, which involves in-line skates and taking advantage of the satin-esque, well-groomed and substantial bike paths between my new workplace and our apartment. It really would be very nice--the paths get enough traffic that they're mostly clear of debris, and the one path stops almost at the door of the very building I'd be working in. I did finally get myself a pair of in-line skates, fulfilling a four-year itch for Rollerblading action, and though it took me a little while to work out how tight everything needed to be and get my skating legs back, I'm at that point where I could realistically go to work on eight wheels instead of two.

But there's a difference between intent and action, and odds are I'd probably do all three--ride on the days when I need to pick up more Tweeb food (hooray for panniers), skate on the days when I have Dutch lessons in the evening, walk on the days when I don't. After all, a life of not-conforming can be boring as well--although given that NaNoWriMo is fast approaching, the extra bit of inspiration might not be a bad thing....

Working working working

It's taken me exactly six months, but I've done it: I found a job.

Forgive me for withholding the details, but I expect that, as I keep blogging, I'll leak enough little details that, if you really wanted, you could find me with enough time on Google. There aren't that many Americans in Nijmegen. But that doesn't mean I need to make it easy on you ;-)

But I'm really excited about this, not because it's that exciting a job, but because it doesn't involve me taking a train to the other end of the country every day. I'd joked with Karel that I'll probably get an offer from Groningen one of these days--well, thank God I didn't: it's in Nijmegen, and so close to where we live that I can walk there, stop by our vet when the Tweeb is out of renal food on my way home, AND take language courses! It only took four years to work that out...

And honestly, after six months, I was starting to run low on topics to write about. Without a constant diet of low-grade frustration and bureaucratic shenanigans, and only Michele Bachmann to make fun of (and it's so easy it'd be downright unchivalrous) in the news these days, it's been hard coming up with Dutch-stuff. So hopefully there will be a new round of interesting observations about life in the Netherlands in the near future. None of them involving sick cats.

Remembering the Acorns

Overall the job climate sucks everywhere these days, but that's more true in some fields than it is in others. I've been simultaneously applying for writing positions (not a one of which has bothered to so much as send an autoreply, grrr) and lab positions, mostly to no avail--so far. I've had a few interviews in the past and few more coming up. I'm sure there are hundreds of sites out there in the world about how to land a job in the Netherlands, so don't take the following as gospel. The fact that I've been reasonably successful getting interviews, but far less successful getting offers (I think it was that funk that I'd been in--we'll see next week!) should be an indicator that I don't have all the answers worked out just yet.

But what I have worked out is simultaneously good and very bad news. The very bad news is, most hiring people get a small blizzard of applications for every listing, even when the economy was good. Now that it sucks all over, that's more true than most, so that means your CV and "letter of motivation" (what they call a cover letter, here) has to be VERY VERY good. The good news is that what constitutes a VERY VERY good CV/letter has little to do with your actual qualifications, though that assumes that you actually are competent and not a jerk.

There are a few things that you have to do before you even start looking for a job in the Netherlands. One of them is familiarizing yourself with search terms in both Dutch and English. Job listings could be placed under either word, especially those from multinational companies (which are most likely to hire expats with shaky Dutch). The second is to move to Amsterdam--okay, so it's not something you have to do, but it goes without saying that the coast has a lot more opportunities than the German border.

I've spent most of my career in academia, so most of the job listings that I am interested in are not on the Dutch Monsterboard. I mainly use Academic Transfer to find listings (AT has the added bonus of being one of the Dutch websites that translates well). I've also signed up with several recruiting agencies, but have yet to make use of them--because they often don't list the companies posting the job, it's impossible to write a detailed letter specific to the position. The BCF jobs website is another that I've found somewhat useful, but again, it pays to pay attention to whether the listing is done through a recruitment agency or directly through the company. For me, recruitment agnecues have been nothing but a waste of my time--with the exception of the one person I had a good talk with at the career fair, I have never gotten a good response from any recruiter. So go ahead, try them, but don't say I didn't warn you.

I've found that rather than filling letter with buzzwords like "fast learner" and "hard working", it's more useful to mention the time you got drafted into planning the company skydiving trip--and extra bonus points if you can work in a terror of heights. Of course, such an example would be useless if you were applying to do data-entry work (been there, done that) and didn't have to learn new things constantly, and so you'd have to come up with a new example. You may have figured out the point by now: you cannot get away with writing a blanket letter filled with vague promises of being awesome. You have to show how awesome you are by writing a letter filled with the awesomeness that the company is looking for--and yes, that means writing a new letter for every application...and then, if you are lucky enough to get an interview request, to remember what you wrote.

As for the CV/resume part...well, I've read more than I need to by way of craptastic resumes. The best advice I've ever gotten about CV-writing is from Kerry Taylor--although she blogs mostly about personal finance and money matters, her resume and CV advice is right on and I really can't say it better myself. I have a standard CV that I send to lab and lab-related positions, but for writing positions and other sorts of work, anything goes, really. The question is, "What does the hiring person want to read?"

It's a full-time job, looking for work. I wonder if squirrels don't feel the same way about interview requests, snuffling about in the forest floor, and randomly coming upon an acorn that they'd buried oh-so-long ago...