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permalink: "19"
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title: (Almost) working at Siemens
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date: 2006-04-22 03:04:57 +02:00
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type: article
toc: true
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In a recent "blog post":http://www.h3rald.com/blog/view/12/ I was evaluating two job proposals which I was offered, one involving a multi-national company and the other a regional/national but apparently successful IT business.
Actually only yesterday I got an official offer from the multi-national company, to be precise, and after evaluating my future possibilities (it took approx 0.03s) I decided to accept this one. To be precise I didn't _officially_ tell them I'd like to start working with them, and I took a few days to "think about it", only because of the damn weekend in between.
!<http://base--/img/pictures/siemens.gif! In reality, on Monday morning I'll call my new boss immediately and tell her to start preparing all the paperwork necessary to take me on board!

So it turns out I'll be working at "Siemens":http://www.siemens.com/index.jsp as Technical Writer!

So much for my friends _still_ taking another two years at Uni to get a crappy Italian MA in Computer Engineering
So much for some of my professors looking at me like I was an idiot for not being able to _fully understand and respect_ their hopeless and pointless theoretical mathematical models.
So much for those who treated me like a fool for _quitting_ after getting my BA, after studying pointless rubbish (with a few exceptions) for three years
So much for those complete _wa**ers_ who tried to offer me a "job" from the highness of their crappy little firms paying me less than a dish washer.

!>http://base--/img/pictures/framework.jpg! Bu**ocks to all of you!

Enough boasting for now: sorry about that, I just needed it after _years_ of people taking the piss out of me for my life choices.

Anyhow, here's why I decided to accept Siemens' job offer:

* They'll take me on _permantly_ after a three months trial period. Note: in my country _permanent_ contracts are a forgotten dream nowadays, as people normally tend to be forced to change job more than once a year, in some cases. 
* They're offering a decent pay. They started off like: _"We're sorry, but you just graduated... and you have no prior job experience... so we *have* to take you on with a salary which may not be great: 20,000 Euro/year, before tax"_. They were sorry. Hell, that makes 1140 Euro/month after tax, straight to my pocket! In the US or other countries it may not be considered a lot of money, but here it's different! Especially considering that the new, soon-to-be standard apprentice contracts pay less than 800 Euro/month for three years, or so I was offered... 
* _"We have an authomatic way to raise the salaries of all our employees depending on Siemens financial growth: on average this can vary between 7.5% and 15% more every year, than there are personal bonuses and incentives, but of course I can't guarantee for them, it's entirely up to you"_
* _"We're sorry, but we don't have the necessary infrastructure to offer meals to our employees: we can only offer you meal tickets"_. They're so sorry! Hell, my dad was never offered free meals at work, and neither meal tickets! He's terribly jealous of that now.
* _"Normally technical writers only work here, on the second floor of this building, but for time to time you might have to go to Germany or the US for one or two days"_ - I'm sure I won't complain
* _"We want motivated people who want to come here and work hard. In your case, if you like writing in English so much it's definitely a plus"_- Damn right!
* _"Holidays? Normally about 30 days/year, you build up 2.5 days every month"_

!<http://base--/img/pictures/simatic.jpg! Sounds like my dream job. It may be hell boring for some people who only like coding, but for me writing technical documentation _in English_ will very gratifying: they _pay me_ for writing, after I spent all these months writing for free!
That's what I'll be doing: writing advanced technical docs for a big corporate project. The name of the project is not classified, and you can download bruchures and even part of the documentation itself from "here":http://base--/bookmarks/view/simatic/ or "here":http://base--/bookmarks/view/simatic-it/. 

I guess I'll write more about my job when I actually start working...