Category Archives: Indy’s BLOG

Indy’s BLOG – That’s the way it should be!

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Within 72 hours from “first contact” to job offer.

Wednesday – First contact with the recruiter.

Thursday – First contact with HR.

Friday – Assessment Center. HR Interview. Manager Interview  ……

… 2 Hours later: “JOB OFFER!”

AND Vil didn’t need to sugarcoat anything. He told the whole story and they actually liked his attitude and eagerness. He will start the 5th next month. Working four days a week / 10 hrs. Two days during the week and every weekend.

Now we need to survive until the next paycheck!, but we had worse.

SaturdayWuff

Indy

Indy’s BLOG – Assessment Center!

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Today Vil was invited for an assessment center. Four hours of discussion, role play and self presenting with an manager interview in the end.

It started with twelve people in a room waiting for the day to begin. The recruiter from yesterday enters the room and starts with the introduction.

“Hi guys and welcome to today’s assessment center. My name is Eric (let’s name him Eric) and I will guide you through the day. At first I want to know you a little bit better. Can you please introduce yourself to the others in a few words. Let’s start with you.” He points at the girl on the other side of the room.

“Yeah, my name is Melissa and I am 25 years old. i worked …..” She continues to introduce herself. Everyone in the room is way younger than Vil. They are all between 20 and 30. Just left school and on their first job abroad. They come from all over the world.

“Thank you and last but not least, Vil.” He smiles at Vil.

“Well, my name is Vil and I am 52 years old,…..” Vil introduces himself and tells a little about living in Spain and France and how important his dog (ME!) is for him.

Eric introduces himself and explains the plan for the day. The next two hours are filled up with role play and discussions. They need to show that they are able to work in a team, how they approach a problem and their way of communication.

It’s not the first assessment center Vil attends and he know what they are looking for, but that is no problem for him, because he is highly trained and his skills fit the profile they are looking for.

In the end there was a face to face interview with the manager and they want to figure out if Vil is able to fit in a team where the average age is not even half of Vil. “Well, I understand your concerns and I am aware of the issues my age might cause, but I don’t see any issues with it.” He makes a break. “I need a job. I am willing to work myself up to ladder, shut up or better, support my team lead with my experience.”

…

Indy’s BLOG – Steigenberger

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Today I asked the Steigenberger Hotel Amsterdam again (after more than four weeks of silence) when they will send me the response to my request and they informed me that they have no records of the money they still owe me. I send them all information I have, but they still ask for more.

WTF?

 

Indy’s BLOG – Fired! Why I didn’t pass my probation time at Oracle!

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I was living in Spain when I was hired to join the Oracle Digital Team in Amsterdam and in the beginning, all sounded very well. A super job, a nice town and a good future inside a well-known company. Hired as a Digital Sales Consultant, it sounded like the job of my dreams, but unfortunately it turned out that I had a week’s long ordeal in front of me, everything went to shit and finally I was informed that Oracle will terminate my working contract, effective immediately.

Seriously? YES!

I use this way to publish my story because no one within Oracle talks to me anymore, even HR doesn’t respond and ordered all my contacts within Oracle not to answer my emails or calls. I even got the answer “… Google the HR phone number yourself…..”, when I asked for an HR contact to sort out the issues.

I don’t really know what to say, I am shocked, devastated and I needed to figure out what to do now. I decided that from today on I will publish every one or two days a little story about what went wrong until someone within Oracle will start to talk to me.

When I was hired by Oracle, I was happy and somehow proud, because I made it to the top of IT. I was now a part of one of the biggest companies in the world and my future would be a good one. I was living in Barcelona and relocated to Amsterdam. It was a dream, Oracle arranged all, the flight, a temporary accommodation and I started working straight away. There was a huge relocation budget available and I thought all will be covered, but the issues arrived very fast and finally I am without work and back to square one again.

Bottom line: “Hey Oracle you can’t hire and relocate me and then leave me alone, without any support, without any response to multiple requests for help. Maybe legally all is correct and you followed your procedures and the law, but may I remind you that there is not only the law, there’s also something YOU call ‘corporate and social responsibility’. Where was it when I asked for help?”

Now I am homeless, no health insurance, no job in a foreign country and with more than 10.000 Euro in debt with Oracle for my screwed up relocation.

If you want to know how all that happened, come back for the next part, when the “first issue” becomes clear.

Vil

Part II: “No money, no flat, no registration, no bank account, no health insurance… No help!”

P.S.: I seriously hope that someone from HR or legal will contact me. For your reference please check ID953406.

House Viewing!…. Vil’s Odyssey!

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For 500 Euros you get around 10 square meters space. Ok, there was a balcony, but also loud music from the neighbors. Also an ages old, stained, stinky  mattress (buah!), no desk or wardrobe, but dirt everywhere. A dirty kitchen with no space in the fridge and the cherry on the top, a drunk landlady, too wasted to get up or answer the phone. Seriously. 1830 and there where three empty bottles on the table and a fourth open one. Happy days…..

Ok, price wise 500 Euro is a steal for Amsterdam, but we decided not to go for the cheapest, most crappy option, because we had that already in Barcelona and it suxx.

This is what we found in the internet and might get for a reasonable price in Jan Pieter Heijestraat.

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d2436.3786748827342!2d4.861520015278884!3d52.363553355564726!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x47c5e20bce539467%3A0x8887c00201096103!2sJan+Pieter+Heijestraat+101%2C+1053+GN+Amsterdam%2C+Niederlande!5e0!3m2!1sde!2sde!4v1515338041852&w=600&h=450]

The owner, Geert, is a really cool dude, he is genuine and travelling the world. In the moment he is somewhere in Peru, we had a short chat via Skype and he is a really open and friendly person.

Surely, Vil checked him on Facebook and LinkedIN, he is most likely legit and no Western Union scam.

Hey Geert, you checked Vil and we checked you. There is plenty of scam in this word and there is nothing wrong to be cautious. 🙂 You will be happy to have us as tenants. Thank you for considering <-UpdateSpoiler! 🙂 trusting us.

Tomorrow we will know if Geert likes us as tenants ……!