Oda Rygh

Dear Sarah Boyack,

I am writing you with grave concerns regarding the digital economy bill.

My concerns are on many levels. First of all the issues regarding the recent amendment: a UK vertion of the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), a stain on the UK as a liberal democracy where one cannot be punished untill proven guilty by court of law.

Secondly the strain being put on the ISP industry to protect the wilting copyright holder industry. Sacrificing an industry of the future to protect the industry of the past is akin to banning industrialisation to protect weavers.

Thirdly I am shocked by the level of ignorance regarding technical issues displayed in both houses, by all parties, regarding how the internet works. It is allowed to not be informed on all things, but most MPs, especially frontbenchers, should be able to find a person who can brief them in laymans terms, before there are major debates.

I am a norwegian national, but your constituent. I have educated myself in the UK, found a british man, and bought a house with norwegian money in the middle of a housing crash. I have subsidised UK students through my paying of tuitionfees for four years. I am a taxpayer who have never claimed benefits.

-And this travesty of a bill is making me want to take my taxmoney, my education, my man, and leave. Not just for this one bill, but for which signal this bill sends regarding the priorities of their elected officials: Who is more worth, what liberties can be curbed, and how much research we can be bothered doing before voting.

Please vote no.

Yours sincerely,

Oda Rygh

I just had a tweet of mine, regarding Nick Griffin appearing in Question Time, quoted by the CNN on “International Desk”.

Typically, I missed it, and there are so far no posted vids or transcripts. But it happened, and I have a few million viewers who saw it happen and was told by a CNN anchor.

So that goes onto the CV I guess…

This is the response I, and all other signatories to a petition, got from Number 10.

Thank you for signing this petition. The Prime Minister has written a
response. Please read below.

Prime Minister: 2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for
Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who
came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred
in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British
experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to
honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches
of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which
have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take
up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am
both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists,
historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and
celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of
dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on
breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that,
without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could
well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can
point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt
of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that
he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross
indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he
was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical
castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own
life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing
and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt
with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his
treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance
to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and
the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted
under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more
lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this
government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT
community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most
famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long
overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to
humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united,
democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once
the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in
living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by
anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices
– that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European
landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls
which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is
thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism,
people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war
are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely
thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved
so much better.

Gordon Brown

For those of you innocent of the fashions in alternative lifestyles, polyamory is the practice of being in love with, and having committing relationships with, more than one person. It differs from open relationships in that there is more than just sex involved.

I don’t get it. Well, that is not strictly speaking true. I do get it. Who doesn’t at some point think about having your cake, eating it, and then get cuddled by it afterwards? Twice? Having one cake that likes foreign movies and one cake that likes long walks also seems tempting as an idea. Not to mention the savings one can make by living in a household of more than two adults who all have an income.

I still don’t get it. Perhaps because I am the jealous sort, and the fact that I get to have more than one pie to eat means that all those pies get to eat other pies too. And they will. Even putting aside my own rather childish lack of understanding of “sharing” (I had many sisters, it gave me a good sense of “mine” and “yours”), I have issues understanding..  well..  Logistics.

Polyamory seems totally impractical. From a calendar-management point of view. And from an organisational structure point of view. How do you actually organise the relationship-map? And how do you keep up. It seems like a year 2000 dot.com business nightmare with steady promotions, branching, people being made redundant..

And that might be it. Polyamorous relationships are good training for a position of HR manager or veryverybusy PA.

And it makes hilarious short films. (NSFW)

So I went on a bus. And accidentally went ahead of an elderly gentleman.

I said accidentally, because that was what it was. The bus-stop was full of people, I had forgotten my glasses, and I was late for something. This man then started to yell at me. This is fair enough, I did after-all cut in before him.  I said something apologetic, told him I hadn’t seen him, and let him move in ahead of me. But he continued to yell.

Apparently i am personally responsible for all that is wrong with the youth of today with their bad manners, teen pregnancy, drinking, skiving, and lack of respect for the elderly.

Wait a sec… Respect for the elderly? This man was in no way old enough to have fended off the nazis singlehandedly, had a far as I was aware not himself produced any of my textbooks, was from his vocabulary not much to look up to in the form of intellectual capacity, had just said that I was going to get drunk and then pregnant ENTIRELY based on my age and an accidental queue-jump, and he demanded respect. Not as a human being, but as a member of a group(Of which there are some members  have the greatest respect, but that is by the by), and that his belonging to this group gave him the right to publicly insult members of another group. Due to a hierarchy of status and inherent worth between them.

No matter which groups are considered more or less worth others, and no matter how old the person having these opinions are, I have very little respect for that sort of thinking.

Of course, I could have confronted him with these opinions and drawn lined between his group-hierarchy way of thinking to far less pleasant systems of discrimination, and thus challenged his world-view, perhaps brought a new perspective to him, or have his opinions explained clearer, put in a context…

Some would say that this would be cruel to an old man who is set in his ways and who will never change his ways of thinking. Or in other words that his opinions are of little importance since he is going to die soon anyway, so we might as well humour him. That would be respectful to the elderly.

So I showed him that respect.

I have all respect for recruitment consultants. I have in fact more than once thought I should become an IT recruiter, a career a good match for my technical flair, my relationship management abilities, and general ego. However that industry seems to be in a bit of a dry spot when it comes to starting level jobs, so I have turned my eye to other jobs matching my skills.

The perfect job was advertised. I applied to it. I got called in for interviews, so far so good.

Being no fool and having a mortgage to pay, I also applied for a job at an old employer of mine doing multilingual tech support. I enjoyed this job previously, and the company is rather ok to its employers. Laid back, free coffee, no ridiculous quotas for numbers of calls, and last job I had there I enjoyed and only left to get more experience elsewhere.

So I had 2 job-applications at the same time going on, both for companies I like, both jobs that I would like doing and be amazing at, and both of them through recruitment agents. The difference between the two was like night and day. The one representing me for one job I wrote a linkedin recommendation for before I even got my second interview:

“As a recruitment consultant, Martin is professional and friendly. In dealing with him I was always kept in the loop of developments in my application, and any worries I had were eased by Martin’s good sense of humour. Unlike many recruitment consultants, Martin did not leave the impression that I was a commodity, and care was taken to ensure that I would enjoy my new role, as well as being suited to it. The impression was that I had him working for me and my best interest, as opposed to being pushed through to secure a quick sale. I would highly recommend applying to jobs advertised through Martin.”

Other reccomendations of Martin from people he had got jobs were on much the same theme.

Ok, so one of the recruitment consultants rocked. That is all very nice. But one didn’t. Not wanting to be mean I will not mention names, but rather refer to her as Miss Pushypants. Miss Pushypants works for a large recruitment consultancy where I think she does mostly call-centre recruitment. I am not sure if it the low status of callcentre work, the low pay of it, or the incentive-structure at the consultancy which is to blame, but Miss Pushypants was rude. Very rude.

It started at the first interview I had with her. I ran after work from one side of Edinburgh to the other in 25 minutes. I brought sensible shoes. Then we had a chat, and all was well. Except when I was given advice on how to pass a competency-interview. I had passed one before at the exact same company. But a little help is always nice, and being a bit too patronising when explaining the STAR-system could maybe be explained by her average candidate not having done one before. But then it came: “It is smart wear, I know you are allowed to wear what you want in the scottish government but you can’t wear that.” Yes, I was explained what to wear to an interview as a 23yearold with a degree and had my runningshoes criticised after I had made time for meeting her before end of play on a very short notice.

And I was offered an interview. Unsurprisingly. I am the only Scandinavian in the village, and when I last did that job I did it very well. In preparation of applications being successful, I had arranged two days off. This was not good enough for Miss Pushypants. Miss Pushypants wanted me to have an interview ASAP. But that is not what she said: What she said was “That is not acceptable for the company”. So I tried to arrange a meeting very early or very late. My core hours at the Scottish Government were 10 to 4, and working around that should not have been a problem. When I protested that I did have a real job and daily duties, Miss Pushypants made some stuff up about the person who would interview me not being too happy, and that they all work shifts (true, but not relevant), and that any postponing would be very unfortunate. Yes. That is right. The Recruitment Consultant made the following impression of their client to a potential employee:

“They are an inflexible corporate deathmachine, and you are just another cog to them, they care little about your life, job, or you in general, and they want this to be as fast as possible to get it over with.” -which, as mentioned earlier, they are not. Having seen their recruitment from the other side, I also know they take great care in choosing who they hire, and that they don’t have such a draconic worktime-policy at all.

I went to the interview. It was chilled, relaxed, an old colleague of mine was unsuspectedly there, gave me a hug, and an endorsement. I showed  the interviewer my old six-month review to back my claims up. I took a technical test, sat in on a conversation or two, and went home. It was all good. I was offered the job. I had told my interviewer that I had another application in the pipes and that I would have to give it a few days before I accepted. He thanked me for my honesty, and said it was naturally completely ok. He was not “very unhappy” about me stalling.

Over the next few days Miss Pushypants was checking up on me regularly. This is her job and completely ok. I used having another offer in order to try to speed the other job application up, and it worked. I expected a final reply this Friday or Monday, but no luck. So I stalled Miss Pushypants. Kept her updated. And so on. As far as I am concerned, I was applying for a permanent job, a job I was going to have for at least a year, and with several options, I owed it to both myself and all the possible employers to not jump on the first offer.

Miss Pushypants got more and more impatient, and by now it was fairly clear that it was her. All her. Which is good, because if I hadn’t known better, I would have believed in the corporate deathmachine. And not have wanted to work there anymore.

On day six, I was told the following: “You can’t go on like this Oda.” The tone was as patronisisng as ever, and made even me (a sworn scandinavian when it comes to not using any titles) want to tell her that it is Miss Rygh to her, thankyewverymuch.

Today I was told my other job would still be a week or two. Giving me a few options:

1. Accept the job from Miss Pushypants and drop out of the other job

2. Accept the job from Miss Pushypants, not sign anything, and stay in the competition

3. Accept the job from Miss Pushypants, keep the other option, and then quit after a few weeks.

4. Drop out of the Miss Pushypants job.

Option 1 would make me miss out on the dreamjob. Option 2 and 3 would be dishonest, and I don’t want to arrive, take the training, and then leave without having done much work. It also looks horrible on a CV. What was left was to take the chance and drop out of the Miss Pushypants job.

So I phoned her and said as much. And I was given a hiding. A real verbal shower of rude, patronising, and displeased tones. “You can’t ever do this again, if we work with you again you will have to accept within a day or two, this is completely unacceptable, I have a service to run”.

This made me happy that I had turned the job down. I will happily not get paid for a couple of weeks to rob Miss Pushypants of her commission (Clearly her motivation for doing the job fast, cheap, and poorly). How anyone with manners like that can maintain accounts is beyond me. How she can maintain customer service accounts even more so.

More to the point WHAT was unacceptable? Taking my time deciding about a permanent job? Having more than one offer? NOT just accepting the job and then quit three weeks later? Of course the last option would leave you with commission…

My suspicion is this: The difference in levels of service was in direct proportion to the pay and status of the jobs. The Callcentre Job was treated as if I should be happy to have an offer all, that I was a faceless, skill-less moron who needed guided through every step, and paternalistically corrected when I was misbehaving, like an errant child.

So, Miss Pushypants from Search Consultancy in Edinburgh, you are right. This is not acceptable, and it won’t happen again. Because I will use someone else. And tell the company you were representing to use someone else as well. And tell any Scandinavians I come across to avoid your company and any company you work for like the plague.

I know you have a service to run. I know being pushy is your job. I appreciate the search for the quick and easy sale. But you are losing your client and your employer a good reputation by treating adults with such bad manners you made me happy about losing a job offer, even if I didn’t have a better option, just to spite you. It felt kinda good. And it is Miss Rygh to you.

I am an immigrant.  have come from abroad to steal your men, take your jobs, live off the dole, work too long hours, and refuse to let my husband that I have imported from rural Norway go out. I am a threat to everything british, will never adapt to UK law or customs, and my food probably smell funny.

Here is my guide to successful social integration:

1. Avoid immigrant-cliques.

This is possibly the most important step. And where you are most likely to fail. It is COZY in your own little group of people who think these foreign people around you are as weird as you do. And who have movies from home that you can borrow, and who know where to get ingredients for your favourite food you mum used to make. Not to mention that getting to speak in your own language once in a while is very nice on a tired and confused brain. It is all nice. But DON’T. Here is why: You are in essence emphasising “specialness” and how you are “Not from around here”. Having a group of friends with the same fears and experiences and language as yourself is not only exclusive, but cause tribalism. You end up affirming that You People versus Us People thing just by your social group. And with that narrow a friends circle, noone can get in. You are stopping yourself making new friends! Keep the immigrant cliques for once a month movie clubs, cookery lessons, or religious activity.

2. Fall in love

Fall in love with your new homecountry. Some aspect of it. Any aspect of it. Up to and including a person in it. Develop a deep and nerdy passion about the culture, or history, or food, or political system, or supermarket food labelling (God Britain Rocks at food labelling!). Catch yourself slagging off some aspect of your home country when with people from back home. There is a reason you chose to live there. Do not hate your new homeland. Love it. And tell your new countrymen why you love it here. (”Your boys and/or booze are easy and cheap, your education good, and it is easy to shop for gluten intolerant vegetarians if you have them visiting. I love it here!”) Why should you do this: Not visibly loving your new homecountry makes you one of those immigrants. You know which ones. The ones who want to live in their country back home really, but with all the advantages of having moved. Also, gaining the trust of the locals is all about rubbing their patriotic ego. Being able to do it with some level of sincerity helps.

3. Immerse and create a new tribe

Do What They Do. First find a group you belong to. The best bet you have here is to go by education level, parental income and political orientation. If you are an upper middle class leftie from an academic household, go for groups/subcultures/clubs that have people mainly from the same background. The old socialist truth that nations do not matter but class does is true. You are likely to have more in common with some groups in your new country than others, and trying to immerse with people you have nothing in common with is doomed to fail. (There is no accident to the fact that I am marrying a man with leftist parents from academic backgrounds.) Go to a bookclub to discuss Kafka, go to a supermarket parkinglot to drive a car round and round in circles, go to a LARP, a footballgame, a political party, and build a stronger tribalism attached to common interests than the one attached to common nationality. Why: Your enemy is tribalism. But it is also your friend. Building successful relationships and a sense of belonging helps when you are feeling all alone in the world. You are not. You have your clan, your group, your people. And they are from round here and when you are stuck with a problem regarding tax and need to know how it works, they can tell you which form you need to fill in.

4. Adopt new habits, but keep your own too.

You may very well never eat fried food for breakfast. That is ok. But find some way of marking your belonging. I find that eating haggis and drinking Islay drams help. “Oda, she is from norway, but she has been here for so long she eats deep fried haggis suppers!” and conversely “Oda has been over there for too long, she eats haggis but refuses to have pickled herring!”. Also remember that integration is not about assimilation. The trick is to assimilate enough in areas that don’t matter to you. This in order to make the immigration-sceptic monoculturalists nod approvingly and shut up. Then you can keep your own weirdness on areas that DO matter. Why: Monoculturalists are annoying. Saying you eat haggis makes them go away. It really is that easy, and yes, monoculturalists are that shallow. Cause they are dumb. That is why. They probably don’t even know they are monoculturalists, but think they hate asylumseekers and “nigs” and people “taking their jobs”. Which doesn’t even make sense, since they often don’t work.

5. Be white and female and from a nationality with positive pop-culture connotations attached

Sorry, not much help really. But it is easier. Women can cross borders far easier than men. It may be a remnant of patriarchy where a woman eloping magically changes allegiance. Or it may be that we are seen as less threatening. Or we may be easier to approach. Or something. I dunno, but being a girl helps.

Being white helps even more. Coming from an admired cultural background is also a plus. Though being a blonde Scandinavian can lead to interesting propositions in pubs from men, the fact is that the initial impression is of a Viking. A Viking with horns on the helmet. A COOL viking with axes and stuff. And swedish porn. With horned helmets in. (Nevermind that Norway is a fairly prudish country..)

6. Accent.

Learn the language. Well. Then adopt a non-specific accent. For English I recommend somewhere between RP and New England American. Noone can place that. Then add slang and dialect words from your local area. The idea is to not hide the fact that you are foreign but to mark that you are belonging to a place in your new homecountry. Why: Hiding foreign-ness is a lost project. Just forget about it. But get the language right. It is a tool for communication, so make it clear, unmuddled, correct, and good. Invest TIME in language. Think in it. But realise that you are communicating not just by what you say, but how you say it. Adopting local slang is saying that you belong.

In essence: Become one of them. Get rid of isolationist behaviour. Join the dark side.

Have fun with your immigration!

So I was asked to write a statement on what I would do to get people jobs.

Here is the result:

How I as an employment advisor would help my clients in finding suitable, sustainable employment:

Being unemployed for a long period is a horrible situation to be in. Not only does it cause entrenched poverty and economic inactivity, but also complex psycho-social issues. The isolation lessens the chance of being introduced to opportunities, drastically hurts confidence in one’s own abilities, and may lead to depression and apathy. Getting someone not only a job, but a good job, is more than getting them means with which to support themselves; it is a restoration of sense of value, social networks, and belief in one’s own abilities.

Relationship-building: An important factor in being able to help someone is to treat them like a human being, and build confidence and trust in your ability to help. To do so I must take time and make it clear that I am on their side, not “the enemy”. Being a non-governmental body may help in establishing trust.

Identifying the position of the client: Why is the client long term unemployed? Were they caring for children, never got a first job, did they have a long term illness? 
-And what is stopping them now? Are they a single carer, do they lack the confidence to face being turned down for jobs, or do they have unrealistic expectations? Is their skill set outdated? The client will have unique obstacles to re-entering the market, and a “one size fits all approach” will be of little use.

Bettering the chances: After identifying what situation the client is in, I am able to advise on what measures are available to help them overcome their obstacles. The first thing to do is uncover the motivations of the client. Would they benefit from more training? How much better off would they be in employment? Building on already existing motivations will be a softer and less authoritarian approach than a strictly workfare way of thinking.

Informing of help available: The current and ever-changing patchwork of welfare programmes and legislation is difficult to navigate, even for professionals. Being able to inform about precisely which help is available, such as the right to ask for flexible working times, various childcare options, or support for disabled employees such as guaranteed interview might eliminate obstacles the client saw as impossible to overcome.

Building a CV and interview materials: The client should be convinced that their set of skills has value. Through interviews one can identify skills acquired through various non-employment means, such as care work, volunteering, hobbies and other life-experience. This can be used to pad out holes in the CV. Another thing to build up in this way is a set of examples to be used in case of competency-based questions in interviews, which the jobseeker may not have known could be used.

A good job, not just a job: Revolving-door employment is also a part of the unemployment issue. On-off jobs may even cost the jobseeker money, and enforce the perception that there is no permanent way out of unemployment. These jobs may however be good chances to gain experience. I would try to instil a positive attitude, and point out the options that may arise from a more padded out CV, whilst attempting to build a self-confidence that may lead to aiming for a job that has a route of progression.

The difficult market: Changes in the market mean that  the sectors in which there are jobs readily available vary frequently. Building on the skills the client already has and what long-term goals they wish to reach, I would advise them on which sectors might best suit them. At the present time these difficulties are especially  pressing, however I would reinforce the client’s faith in that getting a job is possible with their skill set, and that there still is activity in the economy. The faith and self-confidence will translate to tenacity and resistance to repeatedly having applications returned, which is more likely in the current climate.

Access to information: There is link between economic resources and education, and IT skills. Being computer literate greatly increase access to available jobs, training, market information etc. Access to these sources, and the ability to use them, is key to being able to compete as a jobseeker.

Throughout the process of getting employment the focus should not be on “any job as fast as possible”, but on a long-term way out of unemployment. The success is not measured in how many people I can get a job, but in how many people have a better job ten years later. This can only be done by focusing on the growth of the clients’ abilities and confidence, and working with them, towards their goals.