Inderes Coffee Room (Part 11)

In my case, OP decided that my second device is too old, even though it’s fully functional. Now I’ll probably have to get some device just for this purpose, which is otherwise completely unnecessary. As I understand it, a passport or ID card is required at the bank branch as well.

5 Likes

Several SaaS-mess picks are already turning green. It looks like this panic has run its course; Trump came and changed the narrative. The market doesn’t really know how to focus on multiple concerns at once.

8 Likes

Did you get a clear message about it, or did it just stop working? It could well be the same issue for me, as my phone is over 4 years old :sweat_smile:

1 Like

Same here, and on the other hand, I’ve been a stock picker and a Helsinki (Hesuli) investor for long enough that I don’t want to rely on share price appreciation for my annual income. I want dividends. And the taxes don’t really even matter; if the plan is to withdraw a year’s worth of spending money anyway, you’d have to pay taxes on those sales as well.

8 Likes

Yes, there were some notifications about it. Then at the turn of the year, support ended.

In a way, it’s nice to see that not even all thieves are greedy.
And at the same time, I’m just thinking how stupid it is.
If you’re going to steal from a store, right above that Juhla Mokka swill would have been New York—meaning much better (and more expensive) coffee.
Though the man also targeted Dressmann for his clothing purchases, so budget quality was good enough there as well.

2 Likes

I’m not surprised there’s no buffer when margins are so low, at least in the building services sector. Very few building permits were applied for last year. Apparently, there is at least some investment in industry, but it doesn’t look like things will pick up yet this year.

3 Likes

It’s not easy right now. Personally, I’d be in a real bind if I got fired. Only 4–5 similar job openings came up last year, so I’d be facing long-term unemployment or having to settle for less. If I were a newly graduated engineer or, even better, an engineer with some experience, I would seriously consider moving abroad. Finland’s economic situation and growth prospects are depressing.

4 Likes

Yeah, it definitely won’t. Margins have been squeezed dry across the entire supply chain. And now there’s more trouble coming from the Strait of Hormuz. And from the whole damn mess in general. Natural gas taps are now closed in many places and, for example, aluminum smelters are being shut down. If the situation doesn’t normalize quickly, there will be major price hikes on the material side. And that will especially punish the supplier level, as it’s impossible to pass anything on to prices right now anyway. And given that the state of construction and Finland’s economic situation are what they are, it’s quite hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel.

7 Likes

Regarding the construction industry, I have to mention something that was new information to me: companies aren’t even paying collective agreement (TES) wages. When layoffs started hitting before Christmas and people were calling around for new jobs, they were told right on the phone that overtime isn’t paid, and neither are any supplements. I got interested in the topic and asked around more broadly, and a whole new landscape of this industry opened up to me. It’s common that overtime isn’t paid, nor are evening, night, or any other supplements. Employers have come up with this thing, or shall we say, “in Finland we have this thing ‘hour for hour’”.

This too might be related to disappearing margins.

6 Likes

Those “hour-for-hour” arrangements, time banks, and the like are not against the collective agreement in any way. Nor are they used only in the construction industry. And they’re certainly not anything new.

6 Likes

A perfectly normal practice in the consulting industry. Welcome to the baseline. Once you get used to something good, it’s hard to give it up.

8 Likes

I was just about to write the same thing. Furthermore, in out-of-town assignments, for example, it is quite normal to work long days at the beginning of the week and head home around midday on Thursday to start the weekend. The long days count hour-for-hour toward the hours for Thursday and Friday. Of course, these are always based on local agreements.

6 Likes

By the way, this hour-for-hour nonsense ends very quickly when you just flatly refuse it. Generally, I would advise anyone whose work truly benefits from or requires extensive flexibility in working hours to simply become an entrepreneur and sell their labor to the highest bidder. A permanent employee is such a significant advantage for a company that they should be prepared to pay a bit for it.

4 Likes

Of course they are. One shouldn’t automatically assume that if an hour-for-hour time bank is in use, the employee is being paid poorly. The nature of the role may well be such that, for example, the total monthly working hours are not exceeded; they are just distributed unevenly. And indeed, the base hourly wage can be so good to begin with that it doesn’t matter if, on a ten-hour workday, those last two hours are paid at the same rate.

In the construction industry, it’s often the case that there isn’t as much work in the winter, but I personally wouldn’t be very happy if I had to work 10-hour days during the summer. It’s pretty tough work, after all.

1 Like

Increased flexibility in working life, although apparently necessary in the name of competitiveness (this is a bit funny—everyone was screaming for flexibility just five years ago. That shouting stopped very quickly for me personally when I became an entrepreneur. The same companies still buy my labor, it’s just more expensive now and I can refuse whenever I feel like it), doesn’t actually seem to end up in productivity. Instead, middle management siphons it off entirely through poor supervisory work. Back when overtime actually cost money, managers had to use their heads. Now that employees (proudly, even) flex on an hour-for-hour basis, it removes responsibility from where it should be held—the management level.

12 Likes

Even your ID card can’t be too “old” for that login. If I remember correctly, the card needs to have been issued after, was it, April 2023. So cards older than that won’t work, even if they are still valid!

1 Like

Stubb has been a guest on the world’s toughest politics podcast, listening recommendation:

16 Likes

The 26k → 1M in four years really stands out. I wonder which hydrogen-SPAC-mangle bubble the gentleman managed to hit during that time?

3 Likes