Friday, February 06, 2009

Working class hero in Aarhus

My first week of work in Denmark is over. Tomorrow I will finally wake up at a normal hour, not 4 o'clock in the morning, and enjoy my breakfast. I never thought I would say this, but I have to start learning more. Physical labour is ten times worse than mental labour. I would rather stay 10 hours locked in an office thinking about projects or doing whatever, than cleaning a 3-floored large building in 3 hours. I feel the stress double from all the others jobs I had till now, not only because I wake up earlier than ever, but also because you have to finish in a given time and make it shine. The good part is that I get to experience this and start to see things a bit differently. I never knew that a cleaning job could do that to me. Anyway, I will keep on doing it till May. I also solved the problem with my taxes here. They have a difficult to understand, but very helpful social system. They pay taxes according to their revenue. The more you earn the more you pay for tax. Taxes are 8%, 38% or 60%. A person who starts working for the first time or earns very little, gets only 8% (which is the mandatory health insurance) taken out of the revenue. When you reach a specific amount taken out of your revenue through taxes, you pass to the 38% and so on. Usually, people with two jobs or money both from school and a job have 60% taken. For now I am on the 8% scheme. So, I will earn from cleaning 3 hours/day almost double to what I was earning at home for sitting 8 hours/day at the office. But I swear this is 10 times more stressful and I feel 10 times more tired. Working conditions are good though and they care about employees. We have almost everything we need to make cleaning easier (or I hope we will soon have). I will see in time how this whole thing goes, especially from the employer-employee perspective.