FLASHBACK #10: Ski fun at Kauppi & Himos

As the weeks passed by in the New Year, it began to get lighter and temperatures started to lift, although it remained below zero. There were times, especially when my neighbour and I walked around the nearby arboretum during weekends, that the sunshine blinded you as the rays bounced off the snow and back up at you.

One of my colleagues at work, who happens to be Scottish, suggested we try out cross-country skiing one evening after work at a sports park just north of Tampere. He said I could borrow the skis of a colleague who had recently left the company so I thought 'why not'!

We pulled into the car park at Kauppi Sports Pomplex and started the process of changing into ski clothes and waxing our skis. The first half hour was spent learning the ryhthm; my colleague was by no means an expert, but at least he could maintain his stance and move forward which is more than I could do! Once I started moving, the falling over started and, as hard as he tried to hide his amusement, my colleague regularly burst out in fits of laughter! Even I found it funny!

After an hour, we were on our way, navigating around the park on skis. From time to time, I would take a tumble, but I would pick myself up, dust off the snow, reconnect my skis and continue. The challenge came when there were sections of uphill and I had to learn to 'skate' with skis! To this day, I haven't really mastered cross-country skiing, much prefering downhill skiing.

Sometime in March, my colleague and I decided to go to Himos, near a town called Jyväskylä, 99 kms from Tampere. I hired the necessary kit, headed for the changing rooms and awaited instruction by my colleague. We started on the children's slope, first learning how to 'climb' sideways before learning how to slow down by 'scissoring' the skis. After some initial practise, my colleague said I was ready so we jumped onto the ski-lift and were transported up the main slope.

I glanced down at the scene below - people has been transformed into little moving ants of various colours and my colleague took off! There I was, alone, at the top of the slope. After a minute or so, my colleague had reached the bottom. I finally plucked up the courage to launch myself and, several times, I panicked and implemented my colleague's words of wisdom 'if in doubt, sit down'. I did that and one of my skis came loose, travelling down to base without me!

On another attempt, I found myself transfixed in a 'straight-down' position, powerless to turn left or right. As a result, I gathered amazing speed, screaming at anyone (including the kids) who came near my path. As I reached the bottom, there was no option, but to swerve to the right. As a result, I kicked up loads of snow onto nearby skiers and, when I thought I had finally regained my composure, I felt onto my side!!! What a thrill, that was, although I'm sure the parents in the crowd might have thought I was a risk to the children speeding down the slope the way I had just done.

By the end of the afternoon, I had sort of managed to decend to the bottom without falling over. However, my only problem was turning left - bearing right was not problem, but turning left was a completely different story. How, bizarre, I thought. To this day, like my cross-country skiing, I haven't mastered downhill skiing. The next few days were painful as unimaginable aches, pains and various bruises surfaced began to surface. I didn't realise that skiing placed such demands on the body. It was fun and I would love to go to the Alps one day and do a ski-school holiday.

FLASHBACK #9: The New Resource called 'Thing'

As we headed towards Spring in 2002, my department at work sought an additional resource. They result: a young, chinese girl who had just finished working for another one of the firm's subsidiaries in Tampere. When we first met, she was gracious and very humble. Her English was excellent and the four of us in the team enjoyed a good working relationship.

Over the weeks, 'Thing' became problematic, demanding solutions to every problem that came up instead of searching for solutions herself. A devout Christian, she bonded very well with the other young girl in our team who was a regular Churchgoer. This 'alliance' blinded the younger girl and it wasn't until two male summer workers joined our team that Thing was seen for what she really was.

She was Chinese and had been sent to Finland to finish her studies. She never returned to China and, when asked why not, she didn't have an answer; she had no boyfriend or partner to keep her in Finland. She had found god, it seemed, but not much else. When I had negotiated with the company to include the provision of Finnish language lessons in my contract, Thing jumped on the bandwagon, demanding the same treatment. When I got support for my Marketing studies, she demanded the same treatment. Whenever I had booked time off work, she deliberately wanted the same days off just to be difficult - this was a young girl who refused to add the words 'flexibility' and 'compromise' to her vocabulary.

It was non-stop for the whole year and a half we worked together and when I left the project in August 2003, it continued, although she had a new target - my Scottish colleague. He would regularly see me at the offices in Helsinki and tell me of the latest incidents, of which there were many. The truth was: Thing was a troublemaker, desperately lonely and constantly trying to create drama to make up for her sad existence thousands of miles from her homeland.

I remember requesting a meeting with the Project Manager to discuss our working relationship; the boss, 'Thing' and I gathered around a round table and we were both told that, as adults, we would need to sort out our own relationship problems. During the meeting, Thing turned on the waterworks and, later that day, in one of the corridors, she smiled at me evily - she was one manipulative bitch and, for the remainder of my time in the Project, I discussed only work issues with her.