Getting somewhere... maybe...

So - first day of work!

I survived, and discovered that, like people the world over, if you want to do work, the Norwegians will certainly let you - as opposed to the "no one works on the first day" I was told before going to work.

Thus, within an hour and a half of arriving at work for the first day, I was in a meeting with a major supplier, talking about what temperature our cooling water was going to be on the couplings for our generator's alternators. Fascinating, particularly considering that I really didn't have much of a clue about what was going on.

Norway has clearly become an international workplace. To give some idea, there were two contract employees turfed out of their joint office in order to give me an office. I felt bad, but then I learned that they were scheduled to move to another space already. Anyway, the point is that it was a Romanian and a Venezuelan who I displaced. Shortly after that, a Sri Lankan (who is an exception, really, because he has been in Norway for more than a decade) popped his head into my office to introduce myself. Finally (at least for today!), the supplier with whom we met this morning was represented by a fellow from the Czech Republic. The Czech wasn't an immigrant - his business card still has an address in the Czech Republic - Rather, he's sort of on secondment here, because Norwegian industry is going like crazy, and they just don't have enough technical folks here to do all the work.

Thus, there are really two languages swirling around me at work - Norwegian and Broken English. The Norwegians are still the strong majority (I'd guess 75%), but if you have more than two people in a room, the odds that one of them doesn't speak Norwegian are pretty high. Even though it means that I could certainly survive without Norwegian, I definitely want to learn. There are many details and subtleties that people really only ever express in their first language - particularly in an environment like the one at work, where complex, nuanced English is seldom spoken, giving people who might have the ability very little practice.

My work visa came through today, which is good. I don't actually get it in my hands for another day or two, because it still has to travel from the immigration folks in Oslo to the police in Ålesund, to the police in Ulsteinvik, but at least now I can be paid for the work I'm doing! The "tax card" which will give me a number we can use to set up a bank account and a bunch of other things was only filed today. They wrote "Urgent" on the top of the form, but I wonder how much effect that will really have.

On the good side, the company has provided me with a laptop to use, has free coffee everywhere, and has a cheap cafeteria. My office has a big window, with a view of the dockside cranes (I'm only on the second floor, so I can't quite see the water, but still, the natural light is really nice, and I'm sure it will only be more valuable in the winter!) I will be co-ordinating work on a pair of sister ships, seismic research vessels. I'm sure the details would bore most people, but if you happen to be a shipbuilding geek, contact me privately, and I can share further info. Suffice to say that they're pretty impressive boats!

Cheers,

Ashley