DutchGirl's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
chenda
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by chenda »

...he is like a cornered rat.

Anyway, both options sound great Dutchgirl. Especially the first one. An easy work from home job is a great lifestyle.

rube
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by rube »

Congratulations with your last week at this job. I am sure we'll read about the development of future jobs, be it one if these or another one.

DutchGirl
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Yesterday was my farewell party. Two things I remember:

One, quite old-fashioned, guy, asked my boyfriend: "And what is your opinion on her quitting without having a new job lined up?"

I can't remember exactly what my boyfriend answered, but it was something along the lines of that he had seen that it was a good decision for me and that he was sure that I would land on my feet. (Awesome answer!)

On the one hand I was quite offended by the question if it was asked from a paternalistic standpoint: "Gee, dear fellow, your little lady made a silly decision right there, didn't she? Why didn't you, as the head of the household, make her keep her job at least until she found a new one?". On the other hand it still could have been asked just as a way to make conversation or to get to know my boyfriend better, and I did like to hear my boyfriend's answer. And now that I'm out of hands, on one feet I also don't care so much because this old-fashioned guy is now no longer my colleague anyway.

Another guy told me: "How brave of you to quit before you have a new job." I answered that I had some money saved up so I could do this rather safely. Then he said: "Well yes, but some people need 2 months of expenses saved before they dare to quit their job like this, others need 2 years".
Err... so that means I'm not at all that brave, actually... :lol:

It was a nice party and with lots of positive emotions and some nice presents, too. And now I am free...
Well, for now.

ertyu
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by ertyu »

Yeah, old guy should mind his business. I think what he said was offensive to both you and your boyfriend; there was definitely a paternalistic note towards you, like he knows better than you, but he is also being paternalistic about your boyfriend, acting like your boyfriend isn't keeping "the womenfolk" in line well enough and presuming that the boyfriend hasn't made an informed, adult decision.

Good riddance to old guy. It was not his business to comment.

Young guy just put his foot in his mouth, it seems to me :)

Congratulations on closing that chapter!

How much time off are you giving yourself?

7Wannabe5
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

The fact that you referred to the nosy guy as being "old fashioned" makes me wonder for how many generations it has been the status quo that women work outside the home in your cultural setting? From an even more old-fashioned/sexist context, the question would be insulting to your boyfriend (who would have to be your husband in this context), because would imply that he couldn't provide for you.

jacob
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by jacob »


DutchGirl
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon Oct 31, 2022 9:01 am
The fact that you referred to the nosy guy as being "old fashioned" makes me wonder for how many generations it has been the status quo that women work outside the home in your cultural setting? From an even more old-fashioned/sexist context, the question would be insulting to your boyfriend (who would have to be your husband in this context), because would imply that he couldn't provide for you.
Up until the 1960s women in the Netherlands would automatically be fired honourably when they married. Up until the late 1970s women would be allowed to keep working when married, but would automatically be fired honourably when they were about six months pregnant with their first child.

There are still lots of debates here between staying-at-home moms and working moms about what's the best way to raise kids (and to stay happy yourself while being a parent).

zbigi
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by zbigi »

DutchGirl wrote:
Tue Nov 01, 2022 2:31 am
Up until the 1960s women in the Netherlands would automatically be fired honourably when they married. Up until the late 1970s women would be allowed to keep working when married, but would automatically be fired honourably when they were about six months pregnant with their first child.

There are still lots of debates here between staying-at-home moms and working moms about what's the best way to raise kids (and to stay happy yourself while being a parent).
That's very interesting considering how it looked like in Eastern Europe. Here, the "women's lib" was way ahead of the West, with dual-income households being the norm across the country's cities since WWII. Also, women worked in traditionally masculine fields since late 1940s - my grandma worked in a coal sorting plant in a coal mine for example, women were also commonly operating tractors and other heavy farming machinery. This might be one of the reasons why EE is really not going through a wake of wokism right now (the other one being that we have no colonial past and/or no racism except for antisemitism, which for the past 50 years hasn't really been an issue, since there are hardly any Jews left in Poland) - there's no one to "liberate" here at all.

DutchGirl
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Zbigi, it is pretty awesome that eastern Europe has a longer tradition of recognizing women as equals in the workforce.

But I have understood that eastern Europe has a holiday to celebrate the army and that this has grown into a holiday to celebrate "all men as protectors of the house and of the country", and a friend from eastern Europe thinks that all women have weak muscles and bodies so he always wants to carry my stuff for me; so I think there is still some sexism going on in your area as well as it is in mine.

Also, antisemitism not being a factor just because there are no jews is not really reassuring. What would happen if people with other habits and traditions than yours (say jews, muslims, asians, ERE people, LGBTQ people, childfree people) would come and live in your country and try to live according to their customs? Would you guys be open to that? Are you in general tolerant to your own people who want to go a different way than the traditional one?

Of course, I do greatly admire the eastern European countries who have been welcoming Ukrainian refugees into their midst. I try to do my share as well here in the Netherlands, but it's obvious that most displaced people have so far ended up in countries in east Europe, like Poland and Czechia.

I hope that in the future humanity gets much better at recognising that people can be different but still good, but I'm not sure whether humanity will get to that stage.

zbigi
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by zbigi »

The army celebration day, at least in Poland, is not a major holiday. As for "all men as protectors of the house and of the country", I think women should enjoy the fact that men are still suckers that are willing to risk getting killed, while women are allowed to stay back at home and wait for the war results :) Not to mention the everyday scenarios, when a couple gets attacked by some thug on the street, it's the man who is expected to face him, while the woman can hide behind the man's back. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal for women to me.

Polish antisemitism historically was one of lowest in the world. That's why, in the XVII-XX century (up to WWII) the majority of European Jews lived in Poland (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) and in the lands it has lost during the XVIII partition. It was one of the few safe places for Jews in entire Europe, who were expelled from Western Europe country after country, in waves of antisemitism. Since the XX century, antisemitism started rising in Poland, as it did in entire Europe. It exists to this day, but I don't think still it's particularly lower or higher than in other European countries. It's just the same lingering crazy theories.

As for - what would happen if a lot of people from different cultural background moved into Poland. I suspect that, if there were strong cultural differences, there would inevitably be a lot of backlash, as it was in for example the US through the subsequent waves of immigration in XIX and XX century. The population density is now too large for peaceful coexistence. Back when Poland accepted the Jewish refugees, they were just allowed to settle in their own towns and live basically "next to" Polish society for centuries. There was relatively little integration and co-mingling. That was possible because there was still enough space for everyone - the country was not yet overpopulated. Today, it's very different, hence the tensions would be unavoidable I think.

As for long term predictions, it's hard to say if those people would end up successfully assimilated after all (as it happnened in the US), or would end up marginalized and living in ghettos, like it happened in some Western European countries. Historically, Poland had both periods of openness - e.g. accepting the abovementioned Jewish refugees, accepting refugees from Western Europe religion wars, allowing Muslim to settle here (there are still functioning mosques in Poland to this day from those times) etc., as well as periods of prevailing nationalism and isolationism. Hard to say which one would win this time.

DutchGirl
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Changing the subject here, but: aaaaaahhhh... Lovely, to have a one month holiday before starting the new job. I wasn't completely sure, but it looks like the new job will take up roughly 15 hours per week - probably 3 x 5 hours in the beginning (to allow for others teaching me what to do exactly and still also have time for their own job), and later 1 x 8, 1 x 3 hours and every now and then an extra day when someone else is absent for some reason.

The income from this job should cover 75% of my expenses, and I expect to make some more income doing odd administrative jobs. So it looks like I should be able to let my assets grow some more over the next years, or perhaps I'll still be able to invest some money every once in a while.

Choosing this job means a more ERE trajectory where I am working less and less hours every couple of years. A few years from now I could look into quitting completely or maybe even changing from 15 to just 10 hours (if the employer would allow that).

And of course the extra free time can be used however I want. Right now I feel like I want to use this time to rest and recuperate. But maybe I'll already feel different about that only a few weeks from now. For example: today I tidied the living room and the bed room (much better!). Maybe tomorrow I'll feel like doing the same with the garage, and who knows how much energy I'll have two days from now?

chenda
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by chenda »

zbigi wrote:
Tue Nov 01, 2022 1:39 pm
Sounds like a pretty sweet deal for women to me.
It's kinda offset though by the much higher vulnerability which women face to domestic violence and sexual assault.

Its interesting what you say though about Poland. Ireland was also something of a safe haven for Jews for centuries, though a cynic might attribute this to the Christians been too busy fighting each other...

But anyway, congrats @Dutchgirl, sounds perfect!

zbigi
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by zbigi »

chenda wrote:
Tue Nov 01, 2022 3:19 pm
It's kinda offset though by the much higher vulnerability which women face to domestic violence and sexual assault.
They're not connected though, i.e. it's very possible to have a world where women are still sexually assaulted etc. AND have to fight in wars (Israel is like that). So, the fact that it's not the case in majority of countries, is basically a freebie for women - they're getting preferential treatment that stems mostly from traditional values and notions that is supposedly outdated now.
Its interesting what you say though about Poland. Ireland was also something of a safe haven for Jews for centuries, though a cynic might attribute this to the Christians been too busy fighting each other...
I suspect, in Poland it might have been the sparseness of population back then. Whereas Italy, Spain, France etc. were already at capacity, Poland wasn't yet, so Polish kings were actually pretty welcoming to immigrants, even ones coming from different religious backgrounds.

DutchGirl
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Today I napped between 3 and 4 PM, after spending some hours outside walking on a chilly November morning and spending an hour or so doing spreadsheet calculations in the early afternoon. Then I made a reasonably healthy dinner and now I'm chilling again on the couch.

The spreadsheet calculations confirm that if I like the new job and continue working it, my withdrawal rate will be <1%. That's good, that will probably allow the stash to grow some more over the next couple of years. New job starts in December, so until that time (and I guess for at least a few months after) it will be hard to say whether I like it enough to continue doing it for the next year(s). We'll see.

I have a few more weeks of holiday ahead of me. But the funny thing is that after that I will still have loads of free time. If one has say 12 hours per day to do something useful with, so 84 hours per week, the new job should take up no more than a quarter of that time including any travel time.

I'm considering taking singing lessons or joining a choir. I will hopefully also spend some of that time cooking healthier meals in a relaxed manner. I am thinking about joining a gym, too. For the last 1.5 years I already have walked a lot every day, so I plan to just continue doing that. And I could definitely do some volunteer work too, but for now I'm not yet applying for that.

not sure
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by not sure »

Iike this: "made a reasonably healthy dinner"!
That's my goal for when I have a bit more time, too :D
by the way, your journal inspires me to consider non full-time work every time you post something, so please keep posting!

DutchGirl
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

We've just arrived home from a midweek in a little house in the countryside. My boyfriend needed some time off work, and I also loved being away for a bit. Noteworthy to me was that this part of the countryside was not very fun to walk in. There were hardly any foot paths, so when walking you would always walk on the main roads that the cars also travel on - meaning that you need to stay aware of any cars approaching from front or back and step to the side if they do. Also, due to the area only being developed in the 1800s (peat colony) all the roads were straight and boring. On the upside, there were few other people about and it was mostly green. But I am glad to be home again where I can vary my walks more. So note to self: if we ever go live in the countryside (which is a wish of me), we should find a place that is nice to walk and bike.

These peat colonies were developed by a charitable organisation that was trying to reduce poverty in the Netherlands around 1818 up to 1860 or so. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_o ... itarianism . I read a book about it while I was there, very interesting to read. The basic idea was that poor city folks, depending on charity to survive, would only need to be transplanted to another area of the country where they would live on a small farm, and that would solve their problems and make them capable of providing for themselves and be happy. (The creator of the charity had made some calculations on which part of the poor people could be helped this way: the blind and the physically disabled and the elderly were taken out of his calculations on how many poor he could "save" using this method - the elderly were by the way labeled by him in the original text as "old & used up" (Dutch: "oude afgeleefden") - ouch).
Meanwhile all these small farms would help develop this specific area that had not been developed yet because it was peat. Win for the poor/win for the country (and it's 1818, let's ignore any whining about losing natural peat areas with unique flora and fauna, okay?). Reality turned out to be a bit different. I do see a lot of parallels with charities these days and with how I gift money. I can see how this experiment sounded exciting and plausible and worthy of funding. Yes, let's send these poor folks living in a one-room apartment in our city and begging us for money and goods to the countryside to a farm house with fresh air and a garden and a couple of fields and given them a cow and a pig and all should be well! Of course, I think/hope we've learned something from this experiment and from many others since. But still: food for thought.

I spent the midweek reading and surfing the internet and walking a bit, and, also, finishing off my last tasks for my old job. I finally had the energy and willpower to do that and now I'm truly done, having put a bow on these last two projects and having handed them over to my ex-colleagues who will have to take care of these tasks going forward. I wish them luck.

Coming back home, I still have roughly two more weeks of now-complete freedom to go. I haven't heard from my new job yet on what day they want me to start. In the future I will work on Tuesday and Wednesday, but for the introductory period I will probably work different days and hours so that I can learn how to do my new job from the people already working it. I'll switch to the Tuesday/Wednesday schedule when I can work independently. Imagine that, I have now managed to change from 5 days working/2 days weekend to 5 days weekend/2 days working. I am looking forward to that! Of course, I'm a bit anxious/curious how it will truly turn out, but we'll see. And if it doesn't work out... I will have money and time to find something else.

I have not yet started looking for singing lessons or other hobby activities, so I'm putting this sentence here to remind me of that. But first some more unwinding and reading and a bit of walking, too.

DutchGirl
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

I have the most beautiful Christmas tree that I ever had in my adult life. I found it, bought it and brought it home together with my boyfriend, but our Ukrainian guests took the time to decorate it. In the five years before this year I would only think about buying a Christmas tree by December 15 and then not bother to actually go out, buy it, schlep it home, etc. That this has happened this year is probably a combination of me having more energy (due to not having worked since the beginning of November) and the Ukrainian guests who were very enthusiastic about decorating it. It's a Christmas miracle, you guys.

I've discovered that for them this tree is a New Year tree. For them, being Russian orthodox (in name at least), New Year comes before Christmas, because Christmas is on the 7th of January for them due to the Russian orthodox church sticking to the Julian calendar instead of switching to the Gregorian one that most of the world adheres to these days. So they celebrate New Year first, and for our guests it has become the bigger holiday. I'm hoping this tree will last until January 7th at least, but we'll see. If not, we had a lot of fun already.

And of course, of course, we all heard about the atrocities of the war and the suffering by a lot of people. And Ukraine isn't the only part of the world where people got the short straw. But we have these happy fun moments and we've got two people who are safe and who are trying to rebuild their lives.

These last couple of weeks I regularly wake up from a dream involving my previous job. A few days before the official end of my contract, I dreamed that I had walked into a work location and had decided: oh well, it's busy, I guess I can help them out for an hour or two, I should still be able to log in for a couple of days more. That was funny when I woke up. Now I should dream that I do no longer work there (jay!). Maybe tomorrow I can tell you whether my dream world has fully caught up with my reality.

For the new job, I have officially begun on Dec 1, I should have started yesterday on Dec 5, but the person who needs to be there to train me had a cold, so that didn't happen. She should be better tomorrow, and we have agreed to meet up at 1 PM. I feel totally spoiled with this schedule (next week should be Monday afternoon, Wednesday afternoon and Friday morning - Monday & Wednesday in the office, Friday working from home). I have read some protocols from the new job, and I think it's going to be a nice intellectual challenge, at the very least for a few months but probably much longer.

I do keep revisiting my spreadsheets. Maybe still a little bit too often. Every time they confirm that I should be fine. And every time they also tell me that I should not chase money (anymore). If in 2023 I earn 10-30% less than I predict from my pretax salary etc, it's still not an issue. If in 2023 I can work extra hours or take on an extra parttime job to earn say 20% more, I should think really long and hard on whether it's worth it, because I do not NEED to do that anymore. In the past I have jumped on these opportunities to earn more, but maybe this coming year I should really experiment with having free time and filling it with things I want to do.

Some moments I do feel truly wealthy. Rich in time, rich (enough) in money, rich in happiness, too. I definitely did not draw the short straw. Other moments I am shy or worried or depressed or sad or a combination of it all. Hormones, sometimes. Sometimes the state of the world. Right now I'm looking at that Christmas tree and giving you guys a happy virtual wave. See ya next time.

AxelHeyst
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by AxelHeyst »

What a treat to read this update. Nothing to add, just wanted to say thanks for sharing and wave back.

UrbanHomesteader
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by UrbanHomesteader »

What a beautiful holiday update!

Happy New Year to all!

antable
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Re: DutchGirl's journal

Post by antable »

What a lovely update. Yeah, two more people are safe for now and having moments of Joy: this is good.

DutchGirl wrote:
Tue Dec 06, 2022 4:08 pm
I do keep revisiting my spreadsheets. Maybe still a little bit too often. Every time they confirm that I should be fine. And every time they also tell me that I should not chase money (anymore). If in 2023 I earn 10-30% less than I predict from my pretax salary etc, it's still not an issue. If in 2023 I can work extra hours or take on an extra parttime job to earn say 20% more, I should think really long and hard on whether it's worth it, because I do not NEED to do that anymore. In the past I have jumped on these opportunities to earn more, but maybe this coming year I should really experiment with having free time and filling it with things I want to do.
I do this too whenever I am trying to learn new behaviors. Just go back over and over to confirm the plan, or skill, or knowledge needed. When I was pregnant, I kept rereading birth stories of perfectly normal births. Now, I look at my newish budget several times a day, confirming that I'm staying within it. I've come to trust this process as learning directed by my subconscious rather than unnecessary obsessing.

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