My Trip to Tornio, Finland
Well, for those of you who don’t know (and I guess for those who do), I am going to be involved in Job Rotation within my company (Outokumpu).
I was approached by my boss on Tuesday 15th June (ish) and she asked me what my thoughts of Job Rotation were, I said I was interested, but I had to speak to my girlfriend first… We discussed locations, and we both agreed that Tornio would be a good location for me to travel to, as it would include the project work I have been working on, and it is one of the largest sites in our company, so it would be good experience for me to see how they operate. I put off telling my girlfriend until the weekend, and then realised that I didn’t want to potentially put a downer on our weekend, so I put it off until Monday evening to tell her. We both came to the same conclusion that it would be really good for my learning experience and job to do this, so we discussed how long I should go for, we both settled on 6 weeks. Anyway, I’m going for 7 weeks now (because I have to go to Avesta for a week for project work).
I told Helen that I was interested, so she put the wheels into motion and discussed it with her fellow IT managers, we decided that I would go from the 1st August (after my holiday) and would be back in time for my birthday in September.
I sorted out my flight and I when I was asked when I was returning back to the UK, I had to explain why I was going to Finland for so long, the lady on the phone sounded very impressed and wished me luck. I decided to fly to Helsinki on Sunday night and stay in a hotel, and then fly from Helsinki to Tornio on Monday morning, allowing me to get to work around 9.30/9.45am. This allowed me to spend the most time I could with my new team, and also meant I didn’t have to fend for my self in a foreign country on a Sunday night.
So… I am very excited. I have 1 week of holiday left before I go; we’re going to Wales with Amie’s family, we’ll come back on Wednesday; cutting the holiday a little bit short so I can get the washing and packing done, and then I have 4 days to see my parents and friends before I go away. This will be the longest I have been away from Sheffield and been away from my girlfriend and friends, but I can’t wait to experience the Finnish culture.
I will be still be checking my Facebook, email, and keeping my phone on. For those of you who I don’t get to say ‘see you later’ to, I’ll see you later!
I will try to keep my blog up to date while I am out there, with some photos of Finland and of where I am staying etc.
If any of you want to drive over to see me from the UK, here is the route ;-)