Miranda and I are at the office today. She's working on her thesis and I'm trying to avoid the long list of projects that should be wrapped up before Monday. Lucky for me, we'll probably be back here tomorrow.
The day has been okay so far. Slept in, finished off the chocolate cake I cooked last Sunday, then packed a lunch and came straight to the office. I've managed to read through all of the articles that interest me on CNN.com and huffingtonpost.com. I was debating between writing/responding to a few emails, paying a credit card bill, moving on to MSNBC.com, or blogging, and even though I have nothing interesting to write about, blogging won.
A lot has changed at work in the last few months. When I started working in Sweden there were five other people in the retirement practice: my boss, two senior actuaries and two more junior actuaries. Just over a year ago we hired another junior actuary. In the late spring one of the original junior actuaries announced she was pregnant and that she'd be leaving on 10 months maternity leave starting this month. Then in August, both senior actuaries announced they'd be leaving for a competitor. Swedish contracts typically have a three-month notice period, so they're just starting to clean out their offices now.
I have very much enjoyed working with the three coworkers who are leaving, and also credit them with helping me to form such a wonderful impression of this country. It's especially odd to see them go; they were fixtures of my daily routine, and I never really imagined that I'd be around long enough to become a fixture myself. Things aren't supposed to change around me, this is all temporary, remember? For the last six months I've been doing my work with a special emphasis on making it easy for my replacement to pick it up next year. Now I'm a very instrumental part of the business, working only in the "now" and hoping we can stay afloat through our busy season this winter. Knowing that my time here is limited really puts an interesting spin on the whole situation. It doesn't make sense to transfer work to someone that already has a set termination date just a few months out, but right now there just aren't any other options.
There has been a lot of pressure from everyone to stay. It actually started before we knew that my coworkers were leaving, and the pressure obviously increased once we understood just how much things were changing around here. It doesn't help that my boss and his bosses know that Miranda and I like it here.
Everyone we meet - Swedes, Europeans, Americans in Sweden - whether they know our thoughts about life in Sweden or life in the US or not, are posing the question, "now that you've had a real taste of life in Europe, why are you moving back to the US?" Every time I hear the question I think about it, and then I give the same honest answer: "We're too far from our families." As I think about it now, I think it's a really funny question on many levels. What really strikes me is that everyone over here "knows" that life is better in Europe; it's a basic premise supporting their question. Is life in the US really that bad? It can't be...despite consistently raking lower in quality-of-life surveys, many Americans and American politicians are fighting to prevent the US from becoming more like Europe! What gives? Obviously everyone I come in contact with over here must be missing something. Even I know that life in the US isn't bad, even though at times I think the "why are you leaving Europe" question has some merit. But how do you explain that?
Back to my job, there have also been offers to try out another office in Europe. Nothing formal, but it seems like they'd like to keep me over here. It's possible to keep working with the Swedish office from within Europe, but even though cross-border work is fine, cross-ocean work is greatly discouraged. Miranda and I have given some thought to what life would be like in Amsterdam and even though I wasn't in love with Oslo when we visited, I think it could be a fun city to live in and a nice office to work in. They'd also both be natural fits based on the work I do and the fact that we could get along fine with English until we learn some basic language skills. Anywhere is an option though. It's tempting, but we've set our move-home date and we're sticking to it.
That's all for now. I think I'll start working on emails or paying my credit card bill. Anything to avoid the real work. Vi hörs!
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