Young man , Young man

Si les jeunnes...... if the young had the savez and the old had the body....


Okay here si some advice to the budding hetero about to start college, university or maybe a huge company with a lot of females staff.

To whom has the odd issue with approaching and approachability and is seeking a nice variety to spice up life before settling down later...much later


Uni or college in particular is the ripest period because for one there are a lot of women at most and two they at least have somethings in common- at least average IQ, middle class (or ambition that way) , non drop out . If you can't lose it- and get "it" regular at Uni then you probably never will.

The first thing you have to decide is whether you are most Gamma Male or mostly Alpha male. Maybe it swings with your moods, but both are just as easy to pull with...and use the same techniques in only subtly different approaches.

Also you have to decide what you want? I wanted wee indie chicks or anything that was going really. I didn't like proto yuppies or overtly goth or trendies or rich girls. Do you want a life long partner or just like me, erm... plenty booty!!

Be ready to walk away...if they are in your year then you have four to five years plus the extended social post uni circle that may come...so a shy, immature 19 year old could grow into a ripe one only when she is in her late twenties or even early thirties..It may be that at that time they just weren't ready to be as "adventurous" as you i.e meat and two veg, condoms and no blow jobs....think about the mother-hen, network and snowballing ideas.

On the other hand be ruthless- it the tame wee chemistry student you can easily avoid wants to give you drunken-head then bloody encourage her! Standards are there for long term things, not short term bum-fun. However standards need to be built up towards so that you are comfortable with hunting "big game" later in life.

Here are some of the golden rules

1) the last ten minutes of the night and the que for the chippy / bus / taxi are the most fruitful

this is something I never really learnt...the club night was over, there was no score, it is time to go to bed....well yes, with someone else!

The rest of the night should be spent posturing ( see below) whereas the very last few minutes of the dance or the way home via fast food or taxi rank are the most prodigous WHY?

because this is when the prey is at it's very most vulnerable. All night they have been on the defensive- eyeing people up and keeping in their comfort zone by being hyper judgemental or turnign down a few advances. BUT now the boot is on the other foot....they have not had any attention which is going anywhere..they have 'failed to pull'....also now they split away from the pack ( see below)

also the alcohol level is still rising while the inhibitions are falling and the idea of a warm body to cling to is more appealing.

Outside the disco they will be in smaller mini packs or even alone. Then it is easier to make one to one contact and also queing has a natural tendency to break barriers.

2) split them off from the pack

this is the one technique which all guys must learn- get them away from both their wee pack and MORE importantly, your pack!!!! Your new univeristy mates suddenly become sharks tasting blood and will elbow you, the one who 'pulled', out the way. Unless you are a star, never be a fisherman for your mates...let them do that for you ( in suprrisng ways)

a good variation on this theme is foriegners and this exmplifies the rule- why? Well women don't like to be seen as 'slack', sluttish, teasing or flirtatious in front of their social peer group. However foreign exchange stuidents knwo they will only take a couple of pals with them and don't give a shit about what the 'peers' think! They are adventourous enought to study abroad- and boy! are they adventourous. They are prepared to try out the usual prizes a guyt looks for much more readily or even dabble in threesomes. No reputation to live down you see! they go home with a clean sheet and some of theri curiosusity and nymphomania cured. You can afford to have a far more aggressive pursuit of them, in the knowledge they are more adventouroous and also seekign initnamte company in the foriegn land

3) never look like you are on the pull...posture posture!

Posturing takes different forms, the best relating to networking as discussed later....it means making yourselves look like you are not on the pull...you are going to swim in with the fin on the surface later on at the end of the night of course! You want to look like you are all having a good time together

you are most likely to pull when you least have intention! why? well you may not have noticed but someone has been looking at you, there having fun, relaxed , avoiding eye contact outside people you can actually interact with.

Another posture is the humour one- dicking around with some girls as you come into proximity. Best done as a kind of double act or just yourself on the edges. If you are a natural clown then you can lead a whole group-group introduction...this blogg is not written for clowns though! Clowns tend to be rather sad at the end of the day anyway.

Macho posturing is good for those trips to Sharon-Tracy Land .ie. trashy city discos outside the uni environ's. Tracy is looking for a Himbo, while Sharon is looking for a Hunk. nothing sophisticated but a bit of swaggering, keeping a little distance and a bit of winding up of girls who look ridiculous. Dress accordingly...which brings me to.....

4) Dress well, spend some time on yourself and find a look...

I don't mean go out in a suit and tie...dress to your social circle and dress to your natural Gamma or Alpha--- which is either "one of the gang" with the latest trend which fits in, or " the lone ranger" with something a little alternative, daring or cutting edge fashion.

Or just some clothes and a look which you REALLY suit.

In fact though, being a bit zany at Uni always gets attention... you could go out in a Gorrilla suit and be more likely to pull a fitty than in the latest Next gear

Girls need a good excuse to talk to you and clothes or appearance is used accordingly- either the 'twee' we fit in ( yawn, fashion) or the "my, my you are a bit different" approaches.

don't wear glasses unless they are special and add something to you. 'Contacts' are far better for selling yourself while posturing and musch better for say a wet walk home from Queens in belfast. They just lend themselves to eye contact.


5) Networking, and mother hens ( see snowballing below also)

Ever wonder how some guys seem to always get gorgeousy girls? Just a succession of lady young lovely! Think it is just luck, chat and good looks? wrong! it is calculated networking....

At a commuter belt Uni like glasgow, a good number of students will come with a little social network from school and usually the tennis club is their happiest hunting ground for getting into a network ( as well as seeing the skin before they buy!!)

These contacts withion the wider network are all carefully nurtured with potential scores or partners "groomed" over a matter of months or even years! If you have guys as pals or class / sports acquiantances who are in one of these circles, use the hell out of them and don't let them side line you. They can get pretty nippy when you are all over one of their groomed brides..so be subtle...get into networking with the GIRLS....these guys will never set you up with out some ulterior motive and are more likely to just try and cut you off if you are seen as a lone-shark using them. Remember get away from the packs, and get into the lady network somehow or just hang out waiting for to pick out. It can be worth offering a couple of class contacts if you like, as a potential network of your own as a sacrificial lamb to keep the guys who have their fingers int he pies interested in you and mayeb playing the game.

If you become a confidant then you may get in on the whole game. Like the masons, potential contracts are discussed with hushed voiced behind closed doors....



Alternatively the Uni may be a live away dormitory place where these new circles are very much forming. If you want pretty girls then go to the circles they are available through- is it theatre (mostly dogs or huge egos if they are pretty) ? Is it tennis? Martial arts? Fecning ?Horse Riding? Literature? somehting you have a genuine or plausible interest in where there are LOTS of females 18-24!!
Often these wee kenivuing netowkrinkers are somewhat erm, plane johns. Wee skinny, ginger guys and cheeky chappies who c oucl never be alpha males. You as somewhat better looking maybe, like I was, are a big threat. At Uni no2 time I fell into this...the wee sneakyt guys were hearding the girls up into basket ball matches and a squash ladder. They knew they were both transparent and inadequate !!! So I had to force myself in a little. Anyway the wee home boys rearley came out for serious beers and pulling opp's away from the pack mentality. The long ball, is one to be avoided in my books.

These wee networks and contacts you make as a young gamma male can come back to pleasantly haunt you later...I've had some great pulls from previous hang-outs...once or twice I even didn't realise who they were until the penny dropped. Usually they were very attractive! Ones who seemed unreceptive at uni. With their own mid twenties thing and away from the pack THEY were the alpha types hunting me down!


The next thing is the mother hen - she is a golden figure in the eyes of one of my mates who always seem to end up with them fancying him and him 'back paddle, back paddle' without a score to add to the doors. You need to be careful on that account.

Personally I find them a little bit "date fixing" and the force-ness of it means I walk away from the pressure....but I have had good "references" from mother hens and could have exploited them further. Finally on the weary side, avoid men-hens...mother hens who nurture blokes more than girls or those who always gather girls less attractive than they are...these two are very obvious....

but a proper mother hen will have the following- a high DI personality with an established social position amongst the girls, and an ever expanding little network of girls of most types, perhaps a bias to good looking ones. Most of all they will have some long-suffering boy friend who puts up with all their crap and flirting with you and others!

The man friend is important, not completely necessary, but it avoids the discomfort of telling the (often) chubby that you don't facny her...or worse you jump her bones in a drunken fit of lust...then all those lovely fruits ripening on the vines are lost to you. Shagging a nymphomaniac mother hen with OMO can be a good thing though- you can get a favourable reference !

Flirt like hell with her, play the 'poor lost boy' , play shy, play complicated, play not lookign right now, play hard to get! damn it get on the subject of relationships and why you don't have one and remmeber to posture. Spread it out and talk about 3rd parties with their nice or turmultuous relationships. She's a pal and an agony aunt and loves hearing about you and talking about other people. Watch her claws--- stay on side!!!

Next . don't have shuttle diplomacy...establish interest and then use the other "rules", splitting the suggested target off from the pack for the Kill. Rather Use mother hen to manipulate general "bumpings into", party invites or common interest ( see below) events....

Mopst of all Give feedback to mother hen - Talk only positively ... she will be wanting feedback from both sides in her High "D" yet super friendly way..don't cut her out...Uni relationships probably last two months on average with the usual two week blow out..so keep in with mother hen and reinforce it all if you like the girl... also if it is not so mutual, good old mamma cluck will put it to you lightly that it ain't going anywhere as she will have heard back from the other side...

and if it is just a fling or there is an "imcompatibility in desires" then let it blow over before coming back to the golden goose for more eggs.



6) Walk on by....Learn to Woman Whisper

a) like horse whispering
b) what you do off ball- jealousy that counts

woman whispering is a subtle art I stumbled on by pure accident of my somewhat awkward approach to life. Contrary to all my ideas and what patter merchants will tell you, it is what you DONT' say or do and your BODY language which gets the best pulls.

the best pulls are the hard ones or the out of the blue ones.

Believe ALL the time you are going to whisper this woman and if you can't she never can be broken in!

Women like persistance without annoyance...they admire self confidence and will warm to a fairly aggressive bit of horse whispering


It's not natural to me but it is like going under the surface...imagine the disco is a swimming pool and you pop your head under a waist high sruface to get away from the noise and swim amongst the legs...you find instead little trolls sending secret communications to each other! It's the subconsious at work.

In essence it means coming towards the woman, catching her attention, and then backing away..coming back in and if she bolts, going back tofar away. Then come in parallel. Start to match body language, achieve eye contact then face a little away, move your body in towards her only slowly. It means being slightly aggressive at key points, and then assertive of yourself at others until enbough phermone and alcohol has flown between the two of you to go for the kill.

ItAs an example I had a mnate who would get in girls faces after a few drinks and then push them away! he would crack the whip a little and then just walk away...he "knew" that he would pull later on. It was 90% image, posturing and woman whispering and only 10% charm and patter!

Humour is the final part- once you have them walking along with you in terms of parrallel body language then you can come in with humour to seal the deal. Young women it seems have issues discriminating between a good laugh and falling in love- both eliciting similar rush and relaxation of sexual inhibitions.

b) the best head and pussy to suck I ever had was a wee quiet shy one with lesbian tendencies. How on earth did I ever get that? My usual type are extrovert and not as fit in the body department as the BOBWFOCW i did ...whats better it was a one nighter for her too! Well it was the jealousy card. She had show a little interest in me over the beer table, but her shyness held her back and I thought she was no longer interested. Infact I think I had come back on to her after a couple more beers and she had pushed me away, rather aggressivly. SO I flicked right over to target number 2 for the night, her pal Valerie- an eqaully large breasted stranraer lass, but with a better boat race if not tush. Now valerie either was not interested or had a wee chat with the lush bodied one and hey presto I started getting signs...her body moved towards me...a shared taxi home became the perfect "away from pack " lair to snog and then to my surprise, while under a table on the carpet she popped it in the mouth and proceeded to do the golf ball-hose thing for at least half an hour! in the end I probably filled her mouth and then she soon wanted me to leave!

So jealousy works wonders if you have been getting no where. It is a call to action! like all woman whispering it is sub conscious. I t is a powerful motivator which can be enough to tip a non -interested girl into a writing mass of wet pussy on top of you later that night. It means doing somehting completely the opposite of chatting a bird up- chatting her mates up or even a pal. As with snowballing, you may have a pal who happens to be drop-dead-shaggable woman or man, and they can be an "in" on the jealousy trick.

7) the disco is the worst place


iotthe usual kev meets shazza is a psiss poor hunting ground for the intelligent. It is only to be used during bouts of snowballing or as part of the networking effort to secure a few more contacts for future reference.


Clubs with a theme can be better- rock bars or say some goth site. Best of all are small concerts or music venues . Stand towards the back where the crowd just starts to dissapate, In the dark, move about looking for a kill or just stand about in different places seeing who comes to be near you!

OPaparties are good too, where the last ten minute rule seems to reign.

trendy or studenty pubs can be good if you can whisper or are on a rampant snowball! ( see below)

dark, noisy discos at the weekend with no chill out area are the worst. Thurdsya s can be a bit lush though- EARLY in term, in the summer or Xmas or JUST AFTER exams. People i.e students, are basically late night drinking with their pals and the whole pull-pressure thing isn't there. Sharp dressed kev and shaz or Chas and Camilla clubs are no place for a student on a budget Saturday night. Leave brasingaments until much later in life when you have some wad!!!!!!!!!!!

8) snowballing

this is an extension to networking but in a far more random and opportunistic fashion- hence it's own wee section....

snowballing works in several ways. What is it? well it means every positive "bump with the enemy" is followed up while at Uni. You ask them for a coffee, you find out where they hang out and "stalk right into them", you arrange a date!

She porbably isn't your cup of tea or maybe you know she has a man or you believe she is out of your league....the point is

a) you build confidence with the usually frail 'initialities' and bring them down to rather objective friend-making conversations
b) you never know who you will meet THROUGH that person

Snowballing is more of a feeling , a theme than a practice of building contacts and 'grooming' like netowrkiing and using mother hens. It means being on a social- roll... once you get going you gather momentum until WHOOM you get where you want to be.

For instance you may arrange a date with a goth chick and go to a mad club night, where you meet another obviously non-goth looking out of place...she turns out to know a mother hen who is in the fencing club and you marry the gorgeous posh girl who's dad is selling the nappy factory....

When I was young I did snowball, and it was to my suiting , but I let morals and "standards" get in the way all too often. Your first contact may be a dug, but as long as she is there grab it, run with it and see where it takes you. It may be for instance that while you are out with your "network" that being seen with another girl ....girls are more comfortable if YOU are overtly at ease and in contact with other females of the species or sub species!

SNowablling is also taking advantage of your rather self-satisfactory streak as a young man....it means beign ruthless and rolling from one scene on to another in a completely opportunistic, go with the flow way. At uni there is enough social stimulus about that you can just drift away from your first point of contact without too much fuss.

I've even heard stories baoiyt guys who pulled at a party, sealed a deal with one and then while taking a lift home, popped into a disco for a slice of the action. Or onthe seedy side, were walkign past an alley saw a Tom and decided to get a blow for a tenner, before going on to score with a the tennis club captain, all twee and bearden-mairnsie accent and pigtails and real tan from tuscan holidays! . On a roll these two different guys just kept on rolling!

It's all about eating up experiences as a chain which inevitably takes you infront of good old fashioned, tasty pussy. In Scotalnd they were pretty thin on the ground and althought ere were some Mearnsie / bearsden 'clusters' in general you were as likely to meet them thorugh the post man as anywhere!


10) going for the kill- pillow whispering-

really women whispering is all about getting over the initialities. If you combine networking, snowballing and whispering then you will earn enough 'initialities' to have entertained yourself with some new freindships, potential partners and a dose of casual sex.

What do you do when you have them eating out of your hand?

Well you want to go for the kill don't you? If you wanted to erm, pussy-foot about then you wouldn't have read this far. You want to sink the beef bayonet, drive the train int he tuna tunnel, become the beast of two backs....

I was not very good a t all the above list of tips one to so far,- my young looks,tall- slim build, cycling tan ,. odd lcothes and taste in music got me into enough situations....it was very "our" time ...a great time to be a student and forget about all the normal normans and their latest NExt clothes.

What I was apparenlty pretty good at and maintained it over the years was going in for the kill. Rarely did I get fully KB'ed - and those I coudl just let go.

It's all about pheromones and body language and not pissing about too much. The wee bits we have in our groins have an attention span of about a half hour to an hour of fumbling before the moment is completely lost.

Timing----timing! You have to make them feel safe, but a little dangerous. Wanted but maybe you could just walk away!

Avoid frustration...watch the body language.. is there kneeeing going on? can you feel the pheromones from her lips and pussy? Relax, smell her, open your whetted lips, blow subtly. Touch her on the leg, move closer, talk into her ear , kiss down her kneck. Is she warm? When she kisses is it lush and warm? Or just a drunken death wish?

Remember the pussy is the prize, but you have to admire and climb the whole mountain to get there. Start firmnly in the foot\hills.

Eye-contact- breathing
Feeling pheromones, letting yours come over
Ear talk, kissing neck
Kissing
Feeloing neck,
arm around shoulder, man grasp!
Sliding down the back
Over the bum
Back to the neck and concentrate on HER face
Moving knee into crotch (maybe, but hold Back!)


Now here comes the reverse psychology. The safe but dangerous.
If still in dark of disco you need to progress the deal . (If it is hands all over you and like, er, yes green lights, then it's a cheesy " skip into something more comfortable like, erm yo))u")

But relax a minute too! If she isn't blind drunk or eyes shut going through the motions ( which can go all the way anyway) then all this pheramonal activity and passion is going to take you somewhere anyway! Maybe not tonight. But the one thing you want to avoid is the two hour fumble sess' followed by the all-passions-spent . From Alpha male you are now a "nice guy" a bit needy and in need to going the fuck home! I've been there several times. Usually with slightly awkward, very good looking birds. You need to keep them ont he edge more and not let them fall over into clittoral numbness. Kirsten and that bird from Kinross...drop dead nine or even tens! and I just hungaroud in the gold fish manoevre too long- gulping on a dead atmosphere of worn out lips and wet nickers which now make her feell soiled!

so now comes all the reverse psychology- you need to now get away from her.. the danger for her is the loss of opportunity...you are a bit flightly maybe...you are a catch which is not in the net ...hooked but running hte line.

The simplest is that it's time to crash out or mayeb you have a party you'd be at...the pretense is you are goign to up and go...but of course she will ask to come or just follow. " time to crash out, or chill with some soft drinks or a coffee" " wander home" " organise a taxi for you" " i need to get up early, can I walk you home though"

Then remember you are either going to snog luistly in the cab and rush in side to get sexual or you are going to take it easy. Reverse the roles " ytour flat mates might hear us" if she asks for condoms say " Oh, I don't think we're going that far while then rubbing her wet'un. All the time you are a little dangerous...you could walk away or loose interest.



If you have a lush appartment , make sure you have guest towels and maybe a clean bathrobe. If you live in a pit, get some more drink in her and go to her place or leave the lights off. Most things can be blamed on alcohol as the excuse. You both are actuall sober enough, but another wee cocktail or wine at the party nachtspeil or apparrtment can be enough to ensure thatr the first night or one nioght eff you see kay, can be excuscused away by her to her flatmates or pals.

Then get back into the lust warm up. Remember it is a fifteen minute to half hour affair to get the motor hot again. More is usyualy a wastye of both your time. But some girls missed out on this when they were dowdy, plump or shy teenagers and feel theneeed for a two hour snog and fumble session. If it goes over but she is still hot, then more reverse pshcycology " i had better go though" " better not stay over , what woudl the neighobours say" etc.

SO you now probably have the motor on, and if you get to play with the tuna turban, then you are likely in there, and once again, shorter than you think. Play with the niblly button, go down on her, but get in there. Be rubbered up .

but, what if there is reluctance. Now here is the real trick. If you have got this far and the siogns are all there then in fact she is pretty hot and up for some but worried about contraception, being too 'loose' , being able to enjoy it without spweing up all that booze or maybe she is a virgin and just not sure. SO now you move it to your wee , safe joystick. Now it may take quite a few attempts but you should get her hands on it first through cloth and then out in the real world. Washing it upon arrival at an opportune toilet visit can not only put you in the good books but a BJ may ensue. Otr make her wash it, turn it into a little game. She is in control and her chasitity belt is locked up. What can you loose? All those bloody teenage fumbles adn "did you get your fingers" I mean, persent them ewith the bayonet under safe conditions! let them drive! Are they interested in pleasing you?

Now getting up and going is a bit dependent on what you both feel like. If it is all abit nicey-lovey dovey, then DO stay. If you know she is a nice girl then this is it- build upon it. If however there are any 'bored' signals, get the hell out of there. After coming men fall aslpeep and women sit ehtere somking and feeling guilty and intruded upon. Little boy nice can be quite surprised at sex kitten's brush off post coitus.


epitaph

Now I lay thee, oh shagging days of promiscuity, back me.

today I am in middle age. I am a bit over wieght- enough to be over the line , and also have bad dress sense. I've had the eye from maybe two or three birds in the last two or three years. I have a puss I have to cajole into start mode, fun though it is, it's not a hunt and she never takes the initiative. . I live in a country of drop dead gorgeous women and they all ignore me...it seems...then again I am not on the prowl and not doiong any of the above. I'm just a dangerous old guy!

I kind of knew a lot of the above but like much of experience, it was at absorded at the exact point AFTEr i most needed it. In the blink of an eye, uni was over and first job and Uni again for the comeback year. My only real regret is not to maybe have been a bit more fussy with the ones who lasted and at some point cut a few of the esthers and jane rosses loose. However after this I had a lovely spell of Alpha maleness which I would have exploited more on retrospect! But these regrets are not so bad when I see some of the low score cards and growlers my mates go out with.

So young man


" i wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger....I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was stronger"

There is some level of pish when it comes to women and their satisfactions...and of course middle aged men.

The latter resort to visits to the GP for the wee blue diamonds or procure them by illicit means. All because the lady loves the lights out...as my mate a GP put it, shove them in bed with Kylie and they'd have no bother getting it up. Just they don't fancy the wee cute chubby who turned into the middle age mammy with the rolly sides.

For younger women there is this big issue you get struck with- and maybe always about the same time point- emotionally- not in calendar months under the bridge. Few if any of my rather prodigous scores moaned one Iota about not getting enough on the wee dangler on the first night. It's only after an undecided period that they start to moan about needing more clitoral stimulation.


So you go along with it and then comes the complaints about salty hands ( even though you just came out the shower, they magically mutate into open packets of smiths crisps after 10 mins on the old squiggly napper), not the right spot, not the right direction, the wrong frequency and the wrong amplification! The tongue is too tickely, the thumb too diffuse, the forefinger stingy and the pinky too wee.

It seems this miraculous button is best manoievred by expert hands.......the owners being the best.

And this is the trouble. A bit like a guy after a dry spell, it gets over used and then reaching orgasm with a new, strange body becomes difficult. Now guys actually, given they fancy the girl are through this post oninary stage fright or "comers block" within a matter of a handful of wee knee tremblers...even in the course of one night or less likely but happens, after one seemingly ever lasting visit to the fleshy garage with the bad auto shifter.

But girls- no - it becomes a relationship long plague. It becomes one of those comments amongst many like, "put a condom on now then", "you can do it to me but don't expect THAT back", " let's do it really slowly" which make a mans eye's roll in the dark of the boudoir and his best mate shrink down to ordinary instead of supercharged dimension. " Stimulate my clitoris more".....

Why does a good few weeks or months of shaggin' come to an abrupt end with the little micro chippolata getting between a man and satisfaction all round? It's the point when the excitement has gone out it for her. Foreplay used to be a time of unexpected rubbing of crotches and writhing of thighs, of fumbling with bra straps and straining with flies. It used to happen at spontaenious unagreed times, but now the relationship is normalising with the social life and more relaxed dates making it a late evening enevitablity for her.

With the rush gone and it resigned to late nights and the odd sunday morning, she rightly feels dissatisfied. But it's only herself she is cheating. Once a guy has a regular and the novelty of another notch on the bed post is gone, then he is happy to go along with the social arrangements...faar be it from him to interupt a make-up session before a dinner party or rock concert with a quicky. The woman is in stablising, nesting and showing her catch off mode now...secure in the idea it's not just sex and not a flash in the pan.

Here is the crux of it for me. Do 'wanked out' , sorry oninary fatigued, women desserve clittoral orgasm from their partner if it's going to be so much trouble?

For years we were under the impression ( me and other shaggers) that the clittoral stim' was a mere appetiser on the route to G stim and deep vaginal orgasm. This is what girls wanted . Furthermore, we forget that in our late teens and early twenties a girl would remove your well aimed finger after a couple of minutes and pop your old man up into the tuna tunnel rather than waiting for anything further to happen in the lobby. It was up to the 12 floor pl---ease!

But it seems that a girl in her thirties or late twenties even, has had so much self stimulation that the little pink pigmy mole hill gets blown into the big black mountain of unfullfilled sex with her partner. The hand shandy is very satisfying and becomes exquisite because the delicate little dumpling is under self determination and can be held off the poiint of front-bottom buzz and taken into it at will.

The real function of the clittoris ? Probably to enhance mid bang pleasure and of course initial turn on upon oral-nasal investigation by male mammal. Something which is super-sensitive and blossoms quickly in the few delightful minutes which encapsulate a good old fuck. It is a private, secluded little island which if over visited by the sex-tourist-owner becomes spoiled. They need to start going there with all sorts of fancy equipment and spending ever more time to get the same effect. But it seems to never be the same again after a certain point in a monogamy, or perhaps never sated by a string of bedfellows

For most men in the range of what is normal, the cock on the other hand ( punny!) is equally at home in auto erotic as it is in symbiotic erotic. True it takes a little time to move into stranger mode for many, but given a partner with the right dimensions whom presents enough eye candy or fumble fancy to the bloke then it is an easy transtion from Palmella to Angela.

Men at this stage of post rush compromise a bit or resort to alcohol -tactics. They give up on the boring, mid week horizontal joggs and cut to the kill only when whetted. It is more like a first date. Maybe they even get carried away by the sight of all the flesh on show out on the town. Worse by this time they have started to think of some wnk-fantasy or yet worse allow excitement to rise only at the thought of it being one for her (sexier) friends

Do women then have the right to expect to abuse their own bodies and then demand that men compensate for this loss of climatic functionality? Should the wee button be reserved for self-stimulation and the inner grasping orgasm be the concern for partner sex?

Well, you meet a man who can utilise 10 mins fumbling, 2 minutes undressing, 3 to 5 mins fingers in the ditch of desire and 10-20 mins of the missionary - with the other half being sated then my pals you have met a happy man.

how the fck am I going to get a job then?

ok you know the 'invader' immigrant issues: you know that you have a sketchy career path but a lot of experience to offer.

first- you are going to do your spamming out to the biotech industry and you are going to follow this up with more spam, different contacts and paper mailing until you start to get replies. Then you are going to network.

In the mean time you will find jobs just for the sake of it and phone up to ask for details. Then for real jobs you will do the same for each and every one which is interesting and you will invent three or four good general questions and have a list of questions. You will leave your name and say they will have a specific application in the next few days.

After a bit of practice you will then target, in the run of june, some of the key biotech contacts and call them up

just got an interview with statoil!!!!!!!!

A really important part of growing up is learning to make decisions and making good ones.

A bit like the whole yinn-and-yang thang,
it's equally important to know what you don't want

........and also when you have made a bad choice to get the hell out asap!

I've made some good choices based on personal motivations and I have made some bad
onesbased on financial or other issues outside my own yearning just in order to satisfy some anxiety about money, status, location, personal life.

But with regards to the above yin-yang, on the dark side of the coin, I have done abismally at knowing when to say no and what choices are bad.

Furthermore, I don't bail out; i dig in!!
So good choices- first ever job, med rep, BSc, MSc, Strath Uni Trainnee,KMP, Blue,
Kris, Gill, getting into racing, dinghy kurs 1995 and 2000.

Bad choices- marblehead , union, ruadh, staying in scotland, not phoning up for jobs,
...but wait listen up...read "staying too long and not looking for something better"
and "leaving yourself exposed, not negotiating a better deal or walking away"! so
start again.. .marblehead after 6 months, ester after a year, jane ross after two
months, rajah into 1999, narry nar after she moved in with the bitches, NOT staying
long enough at McCanns! Now it's not looking for something else while in at Dynal and
not ditching the X332 earlier. ( i'm not standing for a snyde little prick worming
his way into the job I want)

The above list are nearly all things I could have done something directly or at least indirectly about- I could have looked for other options and just walked away earlier. So that is actually progress.

What is the commonality in helping me in future? ---Gut feeling----100%.
Heart not in it, nervous, just an overall emotional summation that I am not HPPTY! Think about it!
X332 , dynal in october/november, esther after the ' i love you' crap, Union up
front, staying in Alderley ( kanskje!!), archie the dick/scott ( ok, I got to work in
edibra), Narrie nar ( which is inexplicable but none-the less I had a preminission)


I also make some gross misjudgements on how "big" my part should be as larry olivier
put it on his performance in Marathon Man. Sometimes I take on more ownership and ego
than I should and other times I take on not enough- sweeping in to grab the ball
and run with it is what marketing is all about with the 'flat structure' crap that
goes on.

With people- unlike James I don't know when to slime or be hard. I use these
innappropriately. My key konflikt is that when I am around important directors I
behave innappropriately or I become nervous or "disconnected". So the Hans von
Helvete, and Kari Krogs' of this world just don't like me. I make them a little
unsure, rather than playing the square like I should.

At the heart of this is conflict aversion, and a glaring inability not to sit back,
state what I want and negotiate or be prepared to just walk away. Often I have been
in the situation where I know the boss/boat owner etc wants me to be submissive but I
have to stick my head on the line and demand a little respect instead of bending and hoping things will get better.

What I tend to do is just allow myself to be dominated by the Erlend Skagseths and
other twits I can manipulate and push back on, while I DO push back and cause
nervousness with those who are real arrogant phuckers like Hans Henck and Lars Kors.


With Ås' I have not stamped my ground in a relaxed, pre-emptive way and I have gone
with the flow for no good reason. Now I end up a little over the line with resigning
but hey, It was a first good step.


So what other steps/ corrective actions?

1) Know when to charm and suk-up a little.
Bosses are there for a reason- they are big egoed enough to want to manage other
people - sometimes in a very positive way, but power goes to the heids of the Scott
McCallums, Hans Hencks and Kari Krogs of this world.
in detail then
a) Be charming
b) less i more
c) avoid them! go through others on issues who I can influence
d) stay well below the radar (in the initial trial period
e) get above the radar on positive successes and take due glory!!!
f) once you have them, see if you can influence/get respect and then play them.
g) get into challenge management once you have achieved F)

2) knowing how to get aroudn the Hans Hencks and Lars Korsnes
very similar to 'one' above, but worth a mention in what is really a no-win situtation for
me. They are arrogant, dominant and do not relate to me as a person. They want
control and will delegate it out on top of me if I am on their radar.

a) if they will be a big part of the job, i.e. direct managers/ in your line of fire, don't take it , ie. the job-the boat-the landlord-the new "buddy"
b) use charm
c) bend in the wind if the situation has a good medium or long term

3) set goals with PEOPLE as well as with my own work tasks
I have never done this.....this could be the whole key to turning my career around.
a) stay under the radar
b) come to with solutions
c) charm the pants off
d) build a camraderie with
e) influence/ manage
f) learn about their motivation- who they are.
g) better define their expectations of me
h) flag wave and trumpet blow
.i) go through other bosses
j) H+J = go round bosses to higher people.
k) who to be very questionning with/ precise and assertive
L) on K, who to blaff off and who to obey.M) how to work round the houses fabienne style to overcome arseholes.

4) Have clearly defined how a job/situation relates to my personal motivation and
assert if it is just a stepping stone.
a) don't focus on financial rewards, focus on career goalsb) BUT do focus on costs in jobs which bring relocation or other mess ups and be
prepared to walk away.c)

5) Always, on a monthly basis at least, be looking for new jobs and go to interviews
every couple of months or so when in a position. When the bad gut feeling comes,
ALWAYS focus on new jobs EARLY. A job advisor guy said an odd thing once which only
now I understand- when you get a job after a period of unemployment, keep on looking!
the goal from 4 is to really be in a place you are happy with, even if that is just a
stepping stone or filler. If the latter cases then ensure you like the people and are
content with just going with the flow there WHILE looking for other work!!!!!!


6) don't fool around with your own snakey route/ sophistry . Don't go in 'hoping' to get somewhere you want to be by just going with the flow until it reaches crisis. Get in, charm a
bit, lay your cards on the table and be prepared to walk away, early. Get in the door
and then keep your options open, and don't do what has happened with the X332 and the
last job.

7) keep options open: one option is just to say no thanks and walk away.
Better to walk than jog when you have a long way to travel

8) nip it in the bud. Go with your gut feeling or if someting is suspicoous :::: nip
it very early in the bud- people will respect you and the sharks on the reef will
know they have to megler! Make a note of your' paranoia' , turn it into a concern,
write down some questions - leave it- then come back when you have the bosses in a
good mood with flowing 2-way conversations. PREVENTION PREVENTION is better than the
shit I am going through now.

9) learn to be assertive for the sake of being assertive: always question orders,
instructions, prices, pay, overtime: always clarify and re-clarify with open
questions: avoid prsuming the worst- be objective and gather facts

10) DON*T PRESUME THE WORST is going to happen- use 8 and 9 to prevent it!

11) avoid ambushes: play the bloody game for god sake! All the Fabiennes of this world do just that. Round the houses, clarify, avoid, object and then onløy compromise but get some concessions anyway. Practice it! Just say no!

12) avoid being fobbed off eg genoa trimming.

TRICKS
1) you are meeting the queen- act on your best behaviour, you know you can.
b) alternativley, she is the nice receptionist, not the MD!
2) be on the phone- use this to avoid people you know are after something. Be in a
meeting, on the phone, dashing out, daughter ill you name it! avoid ambushes and work
around the houses on them
3) "I'll have to think about that', thanks, can I now have a word with the boss on
another matter?- then talk about the ambush!!
4) use the phone before and after important or influential e-mails or announcements. Always go in person to follow up an e-mail request, or find a work-around-the-houses before replying.
5) catch bosses in good moods to get some committment
6) use spin selling - define the problem- posin the IMPLICATIONS -

No news is bad news....always the way of it in Norway.

When it concerns many different aspects, a silence longer than a pause for 17th mai, brevity or even terse e-mail response is a sign that you are going to get it on the chin.

Norwegians pride themselves on their honesty and straight talking but of course when it comes to uncomfortable incidents or needing to reject someone then they fall to human nature and go into a kind of rebound of deep avoidance behaviour.

Take jobs- if you are not on the A list then expect a long wait for a negative reply- most often that they have actually appointed someone in the casms, neigh eons which have passed since you dropped in a CV and maybe took a chat with the prospective boss. Usually you get these just before or just after a public holiday when people are spring-cleaing their in box and to do trays.

Every cloud-...if they are interested then they ask straight questions and want to see you face to face..be that jobs or racing yachts. ..also you can send in job applications and just forget about them and move on because you will either get a nice surprise or just wait.

This has hit the fan with me this week- and my own fault really for not making some courtesay calls..I presumed I would just keep a place on a hot boat after I showed up on another at a tune up I was specifically asked to go to. The othersiwe nice bloke went all terse on mebut hey it's his loss and they ain't offshore boats anyway

But the cloud has a bigger silver lining as all this BS in cruiser-racers had made me decide to go race OOD dinghies at the helm and actually develop my own skills, judgement and most of all confidence.

I don't know if it was the sleeping pill, obs! singular, or the first day back in my own private hell which sparked today off.


Waking up and for about three hours it was a negative state. Happiness was something which tried to shine it's light. But my mind refused to let it in. Like a rejection from a heart transplant, happiness was squeezed out by the narcosis of negativity.

But being a little bit more forward thinking and busy took me slowly forward. The depression seeped out of me with the passing cloud shadow of anger filling the landscape for a while before the sun began to warm the patchwork country which is my rolling existence on this mortal coil.

Just like my daughter I can be angry and slow to wake up in the first place. Eva cries for the happy warmth of bed and dreams and needs her time there to grow and deal with the day. Pappa cries for the warmth of bed and dreams.....but need some time for the half-night mares to work their way out. When I refer to earlier dreams in current waking nightmares I know that there are some complex sub cosnious rivers flowing into the great missisippi delta of my stupidity. SOme toyuing irony that part of me, or whoever, chooses to refer back to dreams to make the current one into a hellish passing reality.

I'll put it down to the zopiklone but I know that this is something I can't fix alone.

dampser

Sitting here with a few minutes to go before I go to the wee ones coffee party.

It is crap being back at work. Weird and crap. This reminds me only of the one time before when I did not get "made" after a trial contract. But now i have the sleeping pill sickly dizziness and my specs are sitting oddly so the whoel world has a slightly narcosed nightmare feel about it.

I don't really know why I was sacked other than the bosses didn't like me much. Pretty much as before- a project going bad and me in the centre with no blame, but getting it in the neck. Things that would have gone unoticed get put under a badly focused microscope and blown up into bugs ad potnetial infections which the department wouldb't want.

This all sucks a lot. It means that I have to try and be positive about being a slacker and a failure - for no good reason other than I moved country and the boss didn't like me. Now I see myself as those coffee house servitørs who are bitter and avoid treating you like a human. They talk loud through you and are on to the next customer. They too failed, but a liking for mochiatto and a slightly gay look got them a slacker job workign lates on pier 7's cappacino corner.

But being a slacker isn't so bad. It means I join the "dont' give a fuck" masses of uinderpaid, undertrained workers. Maybe I'll build some key competances in this slacking career and get promoted.

I feel sick- too much coffee. Now off to a coffee party, may as well go the whole way. Sick more that the little tongues have wagged "how brave he is to be back after we stabbed him in the back, what stregnth to come and watch the others make application to his job, fighting over the cadavre while my own sorry carcass wanders off into obscurity. " TO think of all the useless hours I plugged into the job. The next time it's strictly nine to five and save up some flexitime.

so last stares out at the bare sycamores and the blocks out in this suburb. Boring, bored, cut off and depressed.

so i wonder off down the road to get my kid and wonder who the hell I am anymore other than 'pappa'. Your daddys's a slacker, a failure.

Appears I am hypomanic - eager to talk, creative, rushing of thoughts, grandiosity/ego, inability to connect with others.

Prone to day dreaming and not being able to self actualise, but rather focusing on either what is negative or that which is ideal...this in a cycle of ups and downs.

Inability to concentrate on other's conversations, instructions etc. Taking out personal tasks or refusing to do them. Deprioritising tasks. Inability to see the task and the quality required to polish it off, Lack of attention to detail, bullwhitting himself on that which is complete/satisfactory. No memory for details, and a lack of focus on the quality which should drive the detailed ways of doing tasks to completion- previously very poor to complete things, learnt he had to

also tinged with hypermania- completely loosing the plot over small issues, or bottling it up and taking it out on those at home!

Pessimism, but intense insight and 'reading' of other people and potential negative situations to a major skill! 9/10 correct on my so called paranoia. Sometimes huge optimistic foresight /interpretation.

Both an intuition and people-reading / chess like thought pattern which can be self fulfilling, but is more often not trusted as a skill. Seen as paranoia, the gut feeling followed up with evidence and the potential for a hidden plan

Like a pig on antibiotics, fitter, happier more productive

Tae the Lassies

Really the history of modern women in the work place came about with the war for the big three economies – UK, Hitler’s germany and the USA. Post war other countries faced either labour shortages or an economy rapidly industrialising from an agricultural base, as was the case in Scandinavia.

In the latter case, women in Scandinavia and France and other such like countries were used to a division of labour wherein even hard labour could be tackled by a woman in the largely agricultural and rural societies and artisan city lives. True families may have been large, and this was the reserve of the woman in her 20s, but they shared tasks and mutual respect.

In the former case, war-work let women see the camaraderie and feeling of accomplishment men had enjoyed in manufacturing jobs. Money was no longer a matter of house keeping pennies, with the man in control, it was a matter of personal triumph and autonomy. Even if those early wages were often unequal to men, they were a far more inflated and disposable income than the weekly housekeeping. The novelty never wore off, did it girls?

After the war women were by in large in the big three economies, back in their place with the soldiers taking the helm of bread-winning once again. Collective working class housing and close communities re-inforced the stereotype of pre-war women at home. The middle class idyll of man with pipe and slippers after the commute home to the ‘burbs was reinforced by the media, run by, er middle class blokes travelling home and expecting their dinner on the go and some time with the racing pages over a pipe!

However, the Barbera Castles and organised women in Scandinavia and later the USA took on the righteous fight which would bubble on until the watershed legislation in the mid seventies. This is all good in my books and I must say I enjoy working with both sexes, the majority of my roles actually being in women dominated departments!!

Women from everyday life could aspire. No longer would it be an up hill fight or pure chance, or family money which could propel a woman into the career market. But Equality took time to catch on. Still there are some roles seen as ‘traditionally female’ which have long standing low pay- mainly in health sectors and primary or nursery education. Still there is male predominance in engineering. The glass ceiling is only cracking and not breaking. I come back to this after a digression.

Women in developed countries have had a 3 decade love affair with careers and the working life style. Men on the other hand have had a long standing culture of scepticism to work and bolchy-ness on how much they are getting paid and where else they might get more. That is a male thing. Discontented but winning, most often, the majority of the bread for the family and so a little stuck in what they are doing. The mid life crisis comes along for most when they realise they are still in an every day struggle to fight either heavy office politics or quenching boredom.

Women have a different perspective. It can be quite subtle to spot the differences. I think it probably relates to women having a strong will for recognition and a feeling of common feminity while being actually quite individualistic in their working ethic.

On the ‘shop floor’ men tend to be far more into camaraderie, they tend to bond together like a rugby team given long enough together and out of the immediate gaze of management. There are common conversational queues, such as of course the football. Once a conversation on politics breaks out all sorts of opinions are offered. So men behave like a pack of dogs with the alpha male knowing on them once in a while, barking once and again and only showing downright dominance and humiliation to the worst offenders. ‘

Men tend to view their careers as also working with a bunch of mates, having some longe term friendly banter, or maybe as a steady slog towards the top with no given right to get there. Women on the other hand see the whole workplace as a highly competitive environment, where individuals must be seen to be getting along with everyone but actually relentlessly looking for promotion and ways to be more equal than the men.

Often through breaks in career for travel and children, lower university performance in vocational courses ( still true ladies!), less valued qualifications or lower level of tertiary education , a perceived lack of aggression and will to succeed or just plain incompetence in wage admin and policy women still end up earning less than men in the SAME roles.

But more often now feelings of injustice are focused on comparison between “traditional” female roles, most often in health and social care, and other male dominated roles. This man drives a machine. This women is a nurse. They get different pay. This is unfair. It is the same level. Of course it isn’t- the man knew that the gadget operators job came with a rare bit of training and paid better in the long term. The women took a stereotypical role, and accepted in the out set that this was shite pay. If women don’t vote with their feet, like men do in the economic up cycle and leave low paid jobs or not take them in the first place, then they will be locked into a cycle of false hopes and lining union officials and lawyers pockets.

Men are far more likely to say, “fuck this for a game of soldiers, the pay is shite I am off to be a plumber” than women. Women see the vertical in career, with the only thing holding them back from breaking the glass ceiling being all that prejudice and sexism.

This is where I make my key point about this fucking glass ceiling. The majority of those above are still men. However, those men represent a tiny fraction of the male working population. Senior management is not only peppered with women there is a huge raft of eighties career girl graduates being promoted into VP roles and finding higher roles outside their firms today. The very top is a tiny amount- just as there are few genii and they tend to be male.

Let’s face it, do you really want to go there? Most men don’t. Is it really a natural, seemless progression up the ladder with the only thing holding women back being sexism and the urge to take three years on slow to cuddle babies? More men would be quite happy to give up the time to stay at home of the kids than you would believe. Ok, many won’t entertain the idea. But the majority who would probably can’t because they are locked into keeping their job and the mortgage rat-race.

Women being in the work place was a Morgan Freedman dream come true. A massive de-restriction in the labour supply, a boost to all those competitive conniving situations which make capitalism really work, and most of all a massive boost to the capital lending markets with rocketing house prices. Oh yes, you are to blame Ladies.

I bet on that you can tack house prices with the number of women entering management by a proportional or even exponential relationship on a graph. There is equality of wages, yippee, but not equality on real estate. Supply from the new found spinsters, the bachelorettes and the DINKYs fuel those rocketing house prices. And you pushing the family for a bigger place for the next baby. Hubby wants a Doberman and the new play station 3. He’d live in a student flat the whole of his life if it wasn’t for wife and kids, and new bachelor does just that!!

Some people get lucky- couples can afford a lovely dream house or move to the country by transferring their jobs in the public sector to a cheaper council and selling up their wheelie bin of a flat in docklands. Most just struggle and first time buyer yuppie not only has to lie to get a mortgage, but finds out that one bedroom space capsules are actually not that desirable to anyone else than yuppies and their wages aren’t going up right now. They are also virtually unrentable- at a profit at least. Stuck in your hutch, starsky!

But women in my experience within my (ex) professions are genuinely better at the job!! I mean that. They are better at not appearing to take issues personally while trumpet blowing is greated with smiles from their male colleagues and ‘one up for us girls’ from the tit and fanny brigade. On the bad hand there it is “the situation” whereas a man may take responsibility and get a tad defensive or guilty. On the other it is jumping up and down for attention and recognition, where a man might appreciate a pat on the back and a beer down the dog and duck from his boss.

Women are better at getting all soft and apologetic with customers and other departments whlist at other times showing a level of anger and aggression which would not be tolerated from a deep voiced burly man! In a woman it is mysteriously called assertiveness whereas the male body language (unavoidable) and louder voice, and less bitchy more fisty cuffs and forget it approach is taken.

They are better at getting the hell what they want and showing everyone what the hell the have done, making sure they get “what’s in it for me” and all that effing trumpet blowing and ‘we won’, ‘our latest corporate PR in plumbers weekly’ cc e-mails. Good at communicating- read talks a lot and tries to make everyone feel good in doing that before actually achieving anything.

9 parts hot air to one part action is actually what is required these days in the delayered multinational where “managing without authority” has become the norm, even when people have titles like ‘ project manager’! It’s all about motivating other people into doing a win-win job ! Yeeehah! It’s all about getting the touchy feely people on board and thinking they are going to get something out of it ( read, a footnote of recognition on a girly e-mail) while cajoling, patronising, and bullying the others to join in. It’s all about getting the girlies behind you while getting the men’s bosses to tell them to obey you.

To sum up on that rant, women are better at doing all the superficial stuff and nurturing the touchy-feely atmosphere. Many even know that this is necessary pre-requisite, others are just good at being glib. Charm is used for bosses above them at all times. Charm, get them on side then ask for what you want.

Also they are as I said above, better at managing by proxy and accordingly better at getting things un-decided. Men still have some stupid notion of fair play and taking things on face value. Meetings have an authority in their own right, and decisions made should be stuck to. Women know that things can be turned with a bit of leg work round the office, and that meetings rarely actually get things done. To them meetings merely catalyse ideas and let them know what their opponents think or want to do. Meetings are like being in court with real action being done in the anterooms!!

So now you are 35 Miss, or Ms. Gen X. You work a twelve hour day with some later t-cons you wouldn’t want to miss happening once a week. You have your cappuccino machine and your cat in your flat and those nice letters from your ex boyfriends you never had time for. You watch the once cute single guys go home at 5 to play with their kids. You get paid the same, but hell, you’re a woman and you have to work twice as hard to stay where you are and three times as hard to get promoted. Come on girls, stop lying to yourselves.

In terms of wages, men know that the only way to really get on is to play hard ball. Women will sit longer on a pay band and accept more responsibility of the same pay because of the dream of promotion.

You are conspiring with the Morgan Freedmans and the “less is more” capatilists. You are effectively keeping other girls out of the work place and negating the company’s actual need for a promotional hierarchy by doing all the work. You have no one to manage. You do it all. Men knew all along that it’s about selling your life to some bastards. Women thought they were buying a life.

du

So women, bloody well train to be an engineer! Sit through nights of maths and nothing to get touchy-feely with. Put up with taciturn colleagues who don’t like being told what to do (by anyone) Mingle with the unwashed males, the hectic hormonal females, the neurotic failures on both sides and the bitter spinster-bachelor-divorcee crowd in the dull, dreary work places of former ‘male’ professions.
-Put up with a bit of the old boy network and, wait for it , a more capable and political-able female being parachuted in to the role you had cosseted for your own promotion!!!!!! Put up with the boredom of day to day work and the de-layering stifling promotional opportunities.
Grow old and bitter and hateful of the 9 to 5 and start a little hobby in a small wooden house at the foot of the garden to get away from this and the kids thrash metal. In short, become a man. Otherwise just carry on in nursing, teaching, personnel or marketing.

The Old Dogs and the Wee Dolly Birds

This is actually the second time that I have been discriminated against. Well that I know of at least. Other interviewers may have just looked through me. My CV may have been left unread. Invader name, ageing. Not a young bit of skirt to have around.

The first time was fairly unsubtle but at least they would have had enough excuse not to employ me. My norsk language was not really up to it, and despite being an international office with publications and all documentations being in English, lack of day to day communication ease would have been enough. Instead of me, with 9 years experience and a business masters all appropriate for the job, a pretty young girl with 18months experience as a drug representative was appointed. A ‘fighting girl’ as they put it. I got considered for a temp position after this.

Now, once again in my shakey career path, my gut instinct told me that I shouldn’t go to the snidey recruitment consultant for the third party, and unnecessary interview. They gave me, unlike my colleage moving to this new department from the old company set up at the Uni’ , a damn hard time. He told me it was a cup of coffee and a chat. The job was mine.

But the job wasn’t mine. It went to a ‘wee dolly burd’ as the old timers of my dads generation would have put it. I had no leg to stand on and was unemployed with only evening courses to keep me busy. In Norwegian, of course.

This time round there is a more subtle and insidious approach to it all. There has been a lot of squirming around trying to make enough smoke and mirrors to get me out the door and the new person in without alarm. Management have done what they wanted and abused the systems and procedures to make try to make me feel that I was agreeing with them to leave!

Okay they preferred someone else, and I wasn’t the nicest guy or most clarent bloke to work with.

But all the liberalness in Norway leaves the sharks on the reef with easy pickings and little if no pay-back. Because of the tight laws and regulations concerning employment and termination, ordinary punters just go along in the assumption that employers firstly abide by the law and secondly show fair play. They of course do not, especially when it comes to immigrants.

The cigar classes of herre-middag (gentlemens’ dinner season in the autumn) like to have a bit of fluff about the office or to pretty-up their team. They like the soft-touchy feminity and the lack of aggressive challenge and overt amibition males show. Women see the biological clock and want to start using the fruits of their humble collaboration and super-hard work they have precieved they needed to do to get on as far as a person with a penis. The cigars wafting bosses use this, as they do in other countries all over the place where equality is a legal phenomenon. Women want up the damn ladder and are prepared to sacrifice more than the average man who gets there. But more on that in another lecture.

Business in Norway is not very sexy. Business men are portly, arrogant swarthy types with open collars on expensive shirts that should have a tie in place. Successful women are hyper pushy and cut throat in my experience. It’s all a little dynasty-dallas soap opera on the back of the fact that no one really needs to work for a living here. Not sweat, long hours and putting the job first in life like many in the UK, germany and the USA. It is a means to an end and all floated in the idyll of the oil berg. Norwegians are in effect sitting in a bath of money waving piles of $1000 dollar bills about themselves. Everyone lives in a luxury, all be it that this was the case before oil in terms of quality of life. People still go skiing and live the summer in little huts like they did in the austere 1950s, they just drive there in an X5 or range rover. So in the midst of the cauldron of cash and boredom, the odd bit of eye candy gets preferential treatment. No one will notice. The sharks can go in, take a bite and swim on as an imperceptible shadow over the coral reef that is our oil berg.

Pretty girls don’t know what the hell to do with themselves because so many of them are pretty! Applying for a job they aren’t really qualified for, and being arrogant, spoilt and with over realistic expectations is no problem for a cigar class boss! Great a little fluffy to mould into the shape I need.

It must be great waving your cigar about the place talking about what foreign firm you ripped off, which contracts your old mates awarded your firm, where the next gravy train of public money is coming from and appointing the next bit of eye candy ahead of someone actually experienced to do the job.

More on Norwegian Work Place and Work Culture

Norwegians have a work place culture which places them at odds with their non

scandinavian neighbours and of course the USA links with the oil industry.


The key centre to this is that they are into consensus and recognition. This means

that everyone must be involved, decisions are never hurried, other people must be

consulted outside the meeting and an agreement must be at least large majority,

consensus or by mutual agreement. This colours many of their business decisions and

it means that quite ordinary evaluations and decisions can take time.


When a good decision is made or a project settled, then recognition is important for

all contributors. As many in person should be mentioned in the rolling credits. The

one thing the presentor avoids is use of the first person singular- they cannot take

any credit directly. Usually they will have flowers presented or the like and someone

will call for a round of applause.

Taking initiative, as an individual is positively frowned upon. If you are a

foriegner it is grounds for major behind the scenes pow-wows and final dressing downs

on quite minor issues. Ownership must be carefully driven by skillful managers

otherwise there are outright diffusions of responsibility and dissolution of

enthusiasm and engagement.


However there are sharks swimming in the placid commensual society of the working

coral reef. The culture of consensus and consulation is abused to slow up decisions

or to muddy waters. The senior male manager in Norwegian companies can be a real

bastard and the current rack of career climbing females can be ruthless manipultating

bitches...hey what's new? Well the thing is these are the wolves in sheeps clothing.

Norway is great for bastards and those normal mortals with a protestant work eithic.

The wolves are actually all around. On the face of it people are fair and open and

honest, but if you want to get on in management you have to play the game. You have

to steer decisions carefully like a boat in a confused tidal stream. You let the

eddy's of opinion and passing concern move the boat seeminlgy off course, before they

inevitably subside and you can get back to where you are going. It is a bit like

working in a never ending city council environment, but there is a good level of

cooperation and involvement from staff. They just expect to be in on the decision and

recognised at the end.


So to use the oft' cited struting of business personality and behaviour people show,

most norwegians want to be circles but are really squares with secret ambitions to

one day be a triangle. Few are 'squiggles'. It is the triangles who really get the

job done, and they are usually quite high in management.

Also the average norwegian office worker or public employee is lazy. A bit like

working in a city council or a university admin department, flexitime, pregancy leave

and psychologically caused sick leave are widely abused. Family and freetime come

first. Job and any idea of actually working hard to be recognised and fulfill

ambition are secondary. Graduates are worse after a couple of years of having any

individual initiative dragged out of them. They rest on their laurels and the women

look forward to their first baby and upto 18 months off work, while the men look

forward to up to five weeks off in a row over july-august, or the next ski trip

'bought' with dodget flexitime.

Harder working norwegians still don't often work very long hours. Few work even 10

hour days. THis is healty. What they do actually practice is good priotisation and

ignoring the background noise which brits and low ranking yank employees busy

themselves about. E-mails go largely unanswered if they are not from someone

important or follow a direct verbal instruction relating to their contetn and intentd

actions. I've seen many managers work clever. They prioritise. They don't buy

bullshit and after all, I must agree if anything is that important someone would have

phoned their mobile about it.

What they are bad at is delegating shitty tasks always downward and making everyone

else prepared for deadlines so that they don't need to panic unless things

change...they would rather have the job repeated with the new circumstances taken

into account than wait to have a pressured deadline.

Norwegians probably work the shortest annual hours of any developed country in the

world. THis has actually many plus sides- management and key workers can be focused

and fresh in their daily responsibilities, and their health is a lot better than the

opposing middle-aged yank for say. It means operation level workers can come into the

work place as organic growth in demand naturally entails new employees. Norwegians

won't tolerate being told to work 10 hours to take up the slack. They will just not

do it, no matter how bad the employment market is, and at time of writing they just

will go get another job as soon as the pressure is on. Pregnancy leave means that

many people can get valuable experience in new roles, periods of unemployment or in

streatcing their responsibilities up to management level. People can be very

motivated to get work and projects effectively finished or defined as psotponed in

order that they have an uniteruppted 3 weeks in july.

Norway AS (inc, PLC) basically is shut for the summer. Even the oil industry ashore

is on skeleton staff. Because of the spirit of consensus and fear of making decisions

, this means that one boss is often agreed absent in July with the other having

August and no decisions effectively being taken until september 1. This obviously

has an effect on the economy. Not that their service and tourist industry benefit

much. Norwegians are either content with a trip to the asutere cabin for the summer

or a wilder tour to the far east or australia.

Thats another thing. Service industry is seen as a poor cousin, and staff are mostly

of low motivation and down right rude. In the US Chain 'TGI fridays' the staff are

noticeably attentive and polite and helpful. This is not the norm. Norwegains despise

taliking to tourists and generally don't like communicating much with anyone who they

don't know. The plus side of this is that for example, many of the seven eleven

franshisees are business graduates in their 20s cutting their teeth on a business

which often can't fail to line their pockets. Even skiing for foreign tourists is

very much an afterthought and they try to manage it to fill capacity at off peak

times outside norwegian mid term and easter for example.


So all in all a lazy old bunch of awkward sods, but plenty of opportuity for enterprising folk with the general competition for this starting new businesses or "running with the ball" quite low.

Little Norway

Norwegians

Famed for their open mindedness, honesty, lack of prejudice and ability to negotiate fairly.

Bollocks.

I have just had one hell of a couple of years dealing with the subtle xenophobia of the Norwegian work place. What people say in public and all the good ‘opinions’ are actually really at odds with their practice of attitude against foreigners.

Outside the oil industry and education, you will find few non-norwegian names in private companies other than bus drivers. In truth they are loathed to take on foreign staff to positions of responsibility.

My summation is that they have a couple of key drivers here. Nordmenn are not overtly racist and hold strong opinions on those who persecute the underdog and generally hold a torch for the economically oppressed, dark skinned landsfolk. But when it comes to little Norway, back home they don’t like strangers living in their ‘oil berg’ and a black face is an instant trigger for prejudice. Secondly they have a fear in the work place of breaking with consensus, and there is an impression that generally people will disapprove of the appointment of a foreigner.

My god, their Norwegian may not be perfect! There may be misunderstandings!! Tasks may take many seconds longer to achieve. They don’t understand the culture (?)

Most of all they don’t want to be seen to be the one who made the final decision to employ a “furrrinerr.” A bit like Britain in the 1950s they need labour, have screaming wage inflation and demanding BE business brats yet see only bus driving and pizza shovelling as jobs worthy of a foreigner.

Speaking Norwegian doesn’t help much, in fact the reverse. They feel you have won one over them, that you have gone over the doorstep- they pride themselves on their English, yet on average it is actually pretty poor. I’ve seen quite senior managers give presentations tantamount to an episode of Allo’ Allo’ dedicated to that local gendarme. Misunderstandings are frequent. I had one boss who use the completely wrong word for ‘Scenario’ in a high tech business. He made it sound like a bus tour operator by saying the like of “ In two years time we must discuss the scenery, and it has improved then we can invest”.

And going over the psychological doorstep is what it is about. Norwegians, on average, are actually intensely private and closed people. On the surface they are polite and even initially friendly. But if you try to invite yourself in over the threshold to their invitingly cosey parlour then you go over the mark. Speaking Norwegian is a little too in their face. You are no longer a guest in their land- you are an ‘invanndere’ and the word sounds terribly near to invader- take it to mean the same. You are intruding on their nice little set of hypocrisies- on the outside they are liberal, non racist and welcoming. But when you intrude on their patch they let you know. As for asking someone down the pub for a beer….well that is usually well over the mark and greeted with polite declining.

Norwegians are terrible xenophobes. They are racist to the core and don’t even know it! How can this be the case? Well their opinions, their educated attitudes and politically correct atmosphere is very anti racist. But their ‘walking down the street’ and rubbing shoulders in the office feeling is deep xenophobia. Until the last fifteen years they were pretty sheltered and racially pure, The “boat” people were welcomed at first and held up on the usual prolitcal pedistal. In reality they often faced discrimination and exclusion. With the opening of labour markets and acceptance of refugees and asylum seekers, Norway got exposed to a steady flow on obvioyslky foreign peoples. This challenged their political correctness, and some became overtly racist. Most were just nimby’s and ‘not with my daughter or son’ types. Black people get treated like shite in Oslo. People push through them. There is huge unemployment despite often good Norwegian and a shortage of cheap labour.

They have a thing which is very like Scots Presbyterianism – Jantes’ Law. This is all about not getting too high and mighty in the eyes of god. Friendly furriners give them something which only reinforces their need for modesty and understatement. They have something to define what they are NOT. Defining what Norwegians ARE is harder. Even for themselves.

Oslo is particularily unfriendly. I worked there six months with only one invitation to a ‘pay cheque’ beer night, and that was by accident of departmental e-mail. Depsite other foreigners, (who had played it right- getting to know people in English first before going into speaking Norwegian-) I was the both the new boy, the stranger and the threat. I was an unknown quantity, an intruder. A wolf in the woods. I was an outspoken Scot, with a need to be sociable. People picked up on my expectant pauses and little leading conversations and this was all too over the doorstep for them. They love someone in need, but not someone who is needy. They rallied round each other and got me fired.

Privacy is a central theme. Family and the extended version, are the thing they are most taken up with either in front of or just behind ‘friluftsliv’- outdoor sports. Then comes old friends. Nostalgia is a national sickness but they don’ just wallow in it, they seek out new common experience with old friends….to the exclusion of new.

The other thing is they are not only clannish but pretty snide when it comes to

foreigners. In social circuits they will often talk openly behind your back. At work

coworkers or other departmental bosses are quite likely to go over your head on your

language abilities or any misunderstandings or cultural issues i.e. demonstrating

personality and flair, or taking initiative.

I noticed this at University in Glasgow. You met norsk blokes out at night often enough, but the nice looking birds were always chaperoned by a few hangers on from Norway. Like sheep dogs they kept the flock safe from the wolves, and the poor shepherded girls revert to type and pair off with their engineer or agriculture compatriots.

Norway has a lot to defend. It is a good life in Norway, with or without oil. It is all the outdoors life, on boats, mountains and woods. With boots, gun, a canoe and a cabin both sexes are very happy. Skit trips or serious mountaineering are as common and banal as going to the cinema is in the UK……… and the women are beautiful and the men slim and handsome (often rather petite pretty boys than bawdy Viking raiders!). People live not only longer lives, but much richer retirements are anticipated in health, activity and financial terms.

Students are cosseted until many emerge like rip-van-winkel butterflies from their crysali not before they are in their late 20s. This is after rounds of high school till 19, military service, college, university and finally master grades. The average age of people starting PhDs must be six years higher than the UK.

So they do go through a period of expanding their social lives and opening the doorsteps. But collective life is short lived as they return to make their own little womb and haven to build a nest for children. Their social set becomes quite locked, even to other Norwegians. Courting within these social groups can be quite a dragged out affair with a lot of macho posturing, passive aggression or moody glances across party rooms. Lots of false starts and denial and drunken encounters which are politely forgotten. Things can I have heard in small towns, get pretty much like arranged marriages or north African bride sales, with friends being the go betweens.

However, this is one side of the story. The other side of the story relates to alchohol and having a contact or better a good friend from university days.

Having an anchor-man is part of the culture, especially in business. It is a kind of necessary ice breaker in the protocol of business introductions. “ I was speaking to Ole Olsen and he mentioned your name and that you have been operating in…” is a tyåpical opener. However vague you are. Name dropping in a farily blunt way to network your way in worked for me- I mentioned a professor I had never actually met, with some clever ambiguity and opened a door to my first taste of high Norwegian salaries. It was all a lined up- my friend spoke to the professor and spoke to me. It was a bit of a lie. It worked.

Having a good Norwegian friend with a good social circle is the best thing in the world. Once you break into a young social circle, a pre two kids time crowd , you have paved the path to a rich period of parties, ski trips, cabin tours and general nights on the town and availability of introductions to other singles or couples at a similar stage. People get rather enthusiastic about you and showing a bit of Norway off to you. They pare you off from the crowd and give private invitations to maybe share a passion for Monk Fish hunts or teaching you to “telemark turn”. Infact we had friends-of-friends who actively competed over our attention!

Even a friend-of-a-friend is enough as long as the two links ( or even more) are strong. If you are talked about, especially with some of my student and yuppie day antics and sexploits, you become a mini legend and people put you up on a pedestal (not that I am comfy with it but it helps with breaking the ice)

BUT, try and make a new friend from cold and 9/10 you are locked out. Branded over friendly, even strange. You are needy.

I don’t know what works other than waiting for an invitation or holding a party. For the latter you have to get am exisitng gang leader to rally the troups, don’t do it yourself. People will soon start to pop into your office or call you to ask what time, if they should bring food for you and if they can perhaps stay over if they become a little tired.

For the former- waiting to be invited- a good deal of modesty and reverse psychology is needed. If you speak Norwegian , when asked what you did or are going to do of a weekend, it is wise to reply “ Nei, men…” and go into how quiet it was, how you are unsure of the area and where to go but will have a nice cosey quiet time on your own no doubt with a DVD and a pizza. Once at an evening out or a ski trip it pays to be phsycially and psychologically at the boundary of all but the most sociable and boisterous groups. Charm the hell our of anyone who smiles to you, don’t be afraid to chat away about skinning fish to the Britt Ekland look-a-like. Infact, come to think of it girls are far more approachable in general! Especially with an introduction. Beware. Watch out for some of those arranged marriages I talked about. Get the social lay of the land before you make anything that could be taken as a pass.

Speak English the first time you meet people. This is important. No matter what or how long you have lived here it pays to speak English. Norwegians are a bit snobby about crap three-weeks-at- evening-school-pronunciations. More advanced norsk ability is seen as down-right showing off and threatening. They like to let you come in slowly and will use speaking Norwegian to exclude you a bit. Speaking English makes you a valued guest in their country and not an invading threat. It’s also a damn good way of getting rid of tele-sales! Speaking good Norwegian or at least simple, proper understandable sentences will win you huge brownie points but on the first introduction or couple of days in a job “keep it in the bag”

After you have an “in”, remember it is tentative. In effect you are horse wispering. Move in with your body language a bit focused and maybe even say something a little brash and challenging, then face away and relax your body and gaze. It’s not like say Scotland or London where a colleague who would always buy you a beer as you walked in the bar, share the results of the footie and the latest office giggle, would never consider asking you on holiday with them. It is the opposite. People are not very keen on you could say superficial relationships, or the useual friendship and camaraderie people strike up in most English speaking and latin countries. But once you crack them after a few nights out, some recipricol dinner parties and the mandatory ski trips, you may find yourself being asked to come for a whole holiday. Now you are a friend and as a guest to Norway you are honoured.

Weird double think, but actually quite sincere way of thinking. Just extremely frustrating for Brits, frogs, diegos and spic’s. Yanks don’t fair very well. Kiwis thrive.

Office culture tends to be a bit like working on an industrial estate outside town. No one ever mentions going for a beer, there is a clique who have, for example, virtually mesonically organised cross country ski trips you only hear about after the event. “Drinks later in town” are whispered about so that the old dog bosses with wandering hands and big cars don’t get near the totty, and the new, strange foreigners get a definite black-balling.

If you aren’t in oil, things are even harder. I’ve heard stories of it taking 2 years for an otherwise normal, sociable brit to make any headway with friends.

There is however a very notable contradictory exception. Many very pretty Norwegian girls like the attention and charm of the englishers and the latinos. They are fed up with all the macho shite I mention above- which is really a result of shyness, lads culture and pure lazyness. Also many Norwegian men prefer the feminity and softness of non Scandinavians. Partners often fair badly on social terms as the couple enters parenthood and the inevitable and never ending round of family occaisions. Fluent oral ability in not only standard norwegain but the particular dialect of your in laws area is an essential if you are not to go quietly mad.

This relates to the biggest contradiction of them all. Young nordmenn, like mayflies, appear in a totally different guise once a week. This is the famous Saturday night, when all the temperance and modesty goes out the window. They go out

So being “we” and having a nice set of international socio-political values is how they are. We are here. You are there. We agree and help the world solve the obvious problems. Just don’t cross the doorstep without an invitation.