Etiquette has historically dictated to a great extent the way people should behave in different situations. With the advent of casual Fridays and mobile phones, it seems that we have more or less rid ourselves of this type of guiding material. Which is a shame...
Most recently I overheard a person explain to another person whose phone was ringing that by pressing the button labeled as "Silence" the user of the phone could choose to not respond to the call, but not hang up the ringing. In effect the caller would then just wait for an arbitrary amount of time before either hanging up or leaving a message. Analogically the situation is same as if the recipient of the call had not noticed that someone was calling.
In my opinion that type of behavior is blatantly rude and arrogant. My personal policy is to answer calls if possible. If answering isn't possible, then I hang up the call with the red button, which gives a clear signal to the caller that their call was acknowledged by not taken, instead of leaving them wondering if the recipient didn't hear the phone or whether they are just ignoring the caller. I also attempt to immediately follow up with an SMS stating that I cannot answer at present but that the person can send me a message or if it is a matter of life and death, call again. If the person calls again, then I will answer the call.
The logic, from my perspective, is very simple and at least I feel that the above method is polite to all parties involved. I do not leave calls unanswered or unacknowledged just because I can, because it is not polite. But if I am otherwise engaged, e.g. having lunch with someone, I do not interrupt the engagement unless there is a heavy enough reason to do so, at which point you of course apologize for the fact that you absolutely must take the call.
That's just of course my take on the subject...
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
On financing studies
The discussion around students and whether or not the subsidies they receive rages on again in Finland. One Finnish blog posting by a local student politician went on to complain about how "students are one group of people who are forced to fund their life with debt." Apparently this was a reply to some other comments, which supposedly suggested that students were taking too long to graduate and that "25 year olds are able to get subsidies while doing just about nothing."
Currently the situation is that Finnish students get a 298 euro subsidy from Kela for studies. Additionally Kela subsidizes living costs by 80% and up to 201.6 euros per month. Additionally the state ensures that each student is able to get an additional 300 euros of loans per month. So for an average student living in an apartment that costs over 252 euros a month in rent the state shells out 499.6 euros and an additional 300 euros in guaranteed loans. Students are also eligible for student housing, which is apparently roughly ~200-300 euros for shared apartments (students get their own rooms and share common facilities) or ~300-400 euros for studio apartments. Assuming that the student uses the exact 252 euros for housing, that means that from the 499.6 euros they will have 247.6 euros or 547.6 euros with the debt. With this type of setup the student is allowed to have incomes of up to 11850 euros per year, meaning that if the student studied full time and worked only during the three months of summer vacation, they would be allowed to earn a monthly salary of up to 3950 per month. Or if spread out evenly over the year, the student could earn 987.5 euros per month.
So, assuming that the student is able to employ themselves so that they earn the maximum of 11850 euros per year, it means that in total, including the debt, they are able to accrue 19046.4 euros per year, or an average of 1587.2 euros per month from which they still have to pay all costs of living, including housing.
Alternatively, if we assume that a student is able to tackle a job that pays 10 euros an hour and works 10 hours a week through the semester and 37.5 hours a week during summer, then the income would be 3600 euros during the semester and 4500 euros during summer for a total of 8100 euros of auxiliary income and an average of 1274.7 euros per month including subsidies and debt.
The student gets the above mentioned subsidies for 9 months every year, meaning that in 5 years time they will have used up 45 months of subsidies and accrued 13500 euros of debt (not including interests). At this point of time the student is eligible for tax deductions of 3300 euros as they were able to graduate on time. This essentially means that on graduation, the student now has 10200 euros of debt.
At this point I'm starting to wonder what all the complains are about. If you are willing to put in a bit of work, you are able to get a decent standard of living during your studies while accruing a relatively modest sum of debt. Sure, some may argue that the above scenarios are unrealistic. In my personal experience, for instance, I have entirely foregone state subsidies after my first ~year and a half of studies and financed my studies through working first part-time and then full-time and as of now it appears that I will be graduating in about 6.5 years. Out of those 6.5 years I've worked full time for about four years. During that time I have not accumulated any debt from studies. This may again be slightly unfair as I may be an outlier, but it just goes to illustrate that there are many different possibilities to finance one's studies.
Overall, however, even in the above scenarios, the student should be fairly well able to live off of the current system and further increase their level of living with a minimal amount of work. Even if the student takes the maximum amount of debt, the result is relatively small and the state continues to subsidize through tax discounts. Now, considering that studies are typically an investment in yourself which in turn offers a wider array of choices in regard to lines of work and also often increase your ability to earn money in the future, it still seems a relatively simple choice.
And regarding debt, there are again a few ways to look at it: if you don't want to finance your studies with debt, there are other alternatives as well. Then again, putting up some debt is a good statement in regards to commitment to your studies.
Currently the situation is that Finnish students get a 298 euro subsidy from Kela for studies. Additionally Kela subsidizes living costs by 80% and up to 201.6 euros per month. Additionally the state ensures that each student is able to get an additional 300 euros of loans per month. So for an average student living in an apartment that costs over 252 euros a month in rent the state shells out 499.6 euros and an additional 300 euros in guaranteed loans. Students are also eligible for student housing, which is apparently roughly ~200-300 euros for shared apartments (students get their own rooms and share common facilities) or ~300-400 euros for studio apartments. Assuming that the student uses the exact 252 euros for housing, that means that from the 499.6 euros they will have 247.6 euros or 547.6 euros with the debt. With this type of setup the student is allowed to have incomes of up to 11850 euros per year, meaning that if the student studied full time and worked only during the three months of summer vacation, they would be allowed to earn a monthly salary of up to 3950 per month. Or if spread out evenly over the year, the student could earn 987.5 euros per month.
So, assuming that the student is able to employ themselves so that they earn the maximum of 11850 euros per year, it means that in total, including the debt, they are able to accrue 19046.4 euros per year, or an average of 1587.2 euros per month from which they still have to pay all costs of living, including housing.
Alternatively, if we assume that a student is able to tackle a job that pays 10 euros an hour and works 10 hours a week through the semester and 37.5 hours a week during summer, then the income would be 3600 euros during the semester and 4500 euros during summer for a total of 8100 euros of auxiliary income and an average of 1274.7 euros per month including subsidies and debt.
The student gets the above mentioned subsidies for 9 months every year, meaning that in 5 years time they will have used up 45 months of subsidies and accrued 13500 euros of debt (not including interests). At this point of time the student is eligible for tax deductions of 3300 euros as they were able to graduate on time. This essentially means that on graduation, the student now has 10200 euros of debt.
At this point I'm starting to wonder what all the complains are about. If you are willing to put in a bit of work, you are able to get a decent standard of living during your studies while accruing a relatively modest sum of debt. Sure, some may argue that the above scenarios are unrealistic. In my personal experience, for instance, I have entirely foregone state subsidies after my first ~year and a half of studies and financed my studies through working first part-time and then full-time and as of now it appears that I will be graduating in about 6.5 years. Out of those 6.5 years I've worked full time for about four years. During that time I have not accumulated any debt from studies. This may again be slightly unfair as I may be an outlier, but it just goes to illustrate that there are many different possibilities to finance one's studies.
Overall, however, even in the above scenarios, the student should be fairly well able to live off of the current system and further increase their level of living with a minimal amount of work. Even if the student takes the maximum amount of debt, the result is relatively small and the state continues to subsidize through tax discounts. Now, considering that studies are typically an investment in yourself which in turn offers a wider array of choices in regard to lines of work and also often increase your ability to earn money in the future, it still seems a relatively simple choice.
And regarding debt, there are again a few ways to look at it: if you don't want to finance your studies with debt, there are other alternatives as well. Then again, putting up some debt is a good statement in regards to commitment to your studies.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
... makes the world go round
I recently popped by New York and one thing was blatantly obvious: the correlation between the size of cities and the affluence of the top tier is quite clear. New York's club scene is a case in point of how money talks and the rules of the game are clear: the clubs are there to maximize their profits. Which isn't really that big a surprise, I guess.
Another interesting aspect related to that was the dynamic with which clubs in the big world operate. To maximize money, you need to maximize the amount of affluent customers who are willing to shell out money. And that typically still means men. So as a man, you can essentially bring two things to the club: money or women. If you bring money, you better bring a hefty pile of it. If you bring women, they better be quite the lookers. The women are actually quite obvious, since naturally the wealthy men will like to be surrounded by beautiful women. And to get things going, men will have to show their colors by shelling out as much cash as possible to get the most expensive bottles. This then naturally attracts the women, who will tend to flock towards these tables either because they are gold diggers, or because they were already paid to do that.
Naturally this dynamic can be ruined if the average material in the club makes the club less desirable. So groups of men need not bother unless they are prepared to drop a thick wad of cash. Interestingly enough this dynamic isn't as present in Finland as it is in London, New York, and other big cities. The conclusion to draw from here is that Helsinki obviously isn't a big city or there aren't that many young and affluent people in Finland. Or both, which is very likely the case. This is, I guess, supported by a recent statistic that an average customer in the night will drop about 20 euros of cash per night, which is two or three orders of magnitude different than the wealthiest customers in the more exclusive clubs of the biggest cities in the world.
Another interesting thing is that despite the whole discourse on gender equality seems to have left the dynamics of the night very much untouched. Sure, some will argue that women on average have the upper hand when it comes to power, but in the more exclusive settings it is still the dollar that has the last say. Which is best illustrated by a question on Craigslist a fair while back in which a girl from NYC was asking about how he might go about bagging an affluent hedge fund manager. The response was that the setting should be looked at as a deal: the girl has nothing to give but her looks, which are melting away, while the guy has status, wealth, and power, which will keep on growing unless he fumbles. So ultimately the girl will want to bag the manager while the manager will want to only lease the girl for a certain while, until he can upgraded to next year's model. Which I guess is precisely how the world works in some circles.
Then, what is left at the end of the day in terms of lessons? Well, for me the very positive realization is that I'm in fact very happy with my life. I can enjoy myself by observing these types of dynamics at play while at the same time being satisfied by knowing that I don't need to partake in these games. And that's a really comforting thing to know.
Another interesting aspect related to that was the dynamic with which clubs in the big world operate. To maximize money, you need to maximize the amount of affluent customers who are willing to shell out money. And that typically still means men. So as a man, you can essentially bring two things to the club: money or women. If you bring money, you better bring a hefty pile of it. If you bring women, they better be quite the lookers. The women are actually quite obvious, since naturally the wealthy men will like to be surrounded by beautiful women. And to get things going, men will have to show their colors by shelling out as much cash as possible to get the most expensive bottles. This then naturally attracts the women, who will tend to flock towards these tables either because they are gold diggers, or because they were already paid to do that.
Naturally this dynamic can be ruined if the average material in the club makes the club less desirable. So groups of men need not bother unless they are prepared to drop a thick wad of cash. Interestingly enough this dynamic isn't as present in Finland as it is in London, New York, and other big cities. The conclusion to draw from here is that Helsinki obviously isn't a big city or there aren't that many young and affluent people in Finland. Or both, which is very likely the case. This is, I guess, supported by a recent statistic that an average customer in the night will drop about 20 euros of cash per night, which is two or three orders of magnitude different than the wealthiest customers in the more exclusive clubs of the biggest cities in the world.
Another interesting thing is that despite the whole discourse on gender equality seems to have left the dynamics of the night very much untouched. Sure, some will argue that women on average have the upper hand when it comes to power, but in the more exclusive settings it is still the dollar that has the last say. Which is best illustrated by a question on Craigslist a fair while back in which a girl from NYC was asking about how he might go about bagging an affluent hedge fund manager. The response was that the setting should be looked at as a deal: the girl has nothing to give but her looks, which are melting away, while the guy has status, wealth, and power, which will keep on growing unless he fumbles. So ultimately the girl will want to bag the manager while the manager will want to only lease the girl for a certain while, until he can upgraded to next year's model. Which I guess is precisely how the world works in some circles.
Then, what is left at the end of the day in terms of lessons? Well, for me the very positive realization is that I'm in fact very happy with my life. I can enjoy myself by observing these types of dynamics at play while at the same time being satisfied by knowing that I don't need to partake in these games. And that's a really comforting thing to know.
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