Yep, but your last update is after just 1 month you were there:
https://maksimdrachov.github.io/2022/03/05/estonia-month-1
what happened later?
Is it all going fine and along your original expectations/wishes?
https://maksimdrachov.github.io/2022/03/05/estonia-month-1
what happened later?
Is it all going fine and along your original expectations/wishes?
Some things that happened after the first month that might be worth mentioning:
- By working in the local co-working space (which I did for a month to get some additional contacts outside of my workplace), I've managed to get to meet quite a lot of interesting people. Once, the minister of Digital Innovation came to visit. He talked about his work/future projects, we could ask questions, he seemed pretty knowledgeable about his stuff. In general it seems to be pretty easy to get into contact with anyone if you have some question (be it government-related or startup-related).
- A couple of weeks ago, the Estonian startup community organized a "freedom convoy" to Kyiv (pickup trucks for the army). I participated and since it was organized by Ragnar Sass (co-founder of a local unicorn called Pipedrive), I got the chance to hang out with a "real" entrepreneur. I found it a interesting experience, since I've always wondered if there is something special about successful entrepreneurs. My main observation has been that he did seem to be a very high energy kind of person, I guess that helps with building a successful startup.
- I discovered there's a really sizeable French-speaking community in Tallinn. From most people I've heard the same reasons over and over: stifling bureaucracy and high taxes.
- I'm noticing also lots of Italian people moving here.
Just to give a balanced perspective, I'll try to also mention some downsides:
- Coming from Belgium, I sometimes miss the architecture. Tallinn is mostly modern-looking, except for the old town (which I don't find myself in that often). Some of the new areas are actually quite nice-looking, but I still feel older architecture has more liveliness to it.
- Due to the war/inflation, the prices have been rising noticeably lately. I'm not sure how to feel about this, but I guess this is something that is not just the case for Estonia, but also wider Europe. (Estonia did have the largest inflation numbers at one point though). We'll see how it evolves, at least I have more faith in the Estonian government than my previous Belgian one.
In general, I think the main reason I'm happy to live here: Estonia feels like a country on a positive trajectory. Living in Belgium can be, at times, a bit of a downer: it feels like everyone is just trying to "maintain"; and on some level everyone agrees: the best days are behind us.
It might not be true.
Excellent nominative determinism here!
Your compensation is on a second-by-second basis: at the end of the day you’ll see that your wallet has been topped up by the exact amount you’ve earned that day
No no no. I want a salary. I want to know how much money I'll be making over a week, a month, even , <gasp>, a year. How else am I supposed to plan expenses? Support a family?
Really, what a stupid idea.
To me the idea of having your life function like a JiT warehouse is stressful...
It's not by-second, but that's a way too small unit of measurement anyway, so that was a non starter to begin with.
Not to mention, for many jobs, time at work is not a measure of ‘how much work’ you’ve done and such a measure creates an incentive to be inefficient.
On the other side, business owners want to pay employees for "what they have actually done" miss the forest for the trees; leading to stories like the developers committing unfinished code, QA finding lots of bugs (for all the basic functionality that was never written), developers fixing those bugs, and hooray the metrics look great for activity but meaningful progress is through the floor and quality is nowhere to be seen. And keys pressed, minutes spent in meetings, reports written, are on the up - easily padded filler and busywork - and difficult to measure things like customer satisfaction, employee morale, creativity, design, planning, are on the down.
That's your opinion.
You want safety and don't like risk.
There are many folks that think like you.
But thankfully, not everyone functions this way.