Montag, 4. November 2013

"My First Job" Revolution

I recently joined LinkedIn. A little less recently I graduated with a master's degree in Economics. I'm 27 years old and for some time now my father's been throwing phrases at me such as this one:"I'm only obligated to pay for you until the age of 26." So, yes, I am looking for a job. Its not a new thing to me. "Been there, done that" after finishing undergraduate studies and it wasn't very successful. Maybe because I graduated in November 2008, just when the crisis was starting to dominate as the world's No.1 "sorry we can't hire you" excuse, but who knows...

So, I'm on LinkedIn now and I consider myself to be active there. I expanded my network to over 225 people in about a fortnight and I am now trying to make this network work in my interest. As I was reading the news feed on the homepage, there seemed to be a lot of "My first job..." titles authored by people known and unknown. And it got me thinking about why my mind is drawing a blank about MY first job. It's not that I haven't worked. Even as a child my parents would make certain tasks into "jobs" and "pay" my brother and me to do them. I've also done a number of internships that I guess qualify as work, but I still wouldn't call any of them a real Job. As my father would put it:"You're 27 and don't have a day's worth of work experience."

Most people posting these articles on LinkedIn were talking about them delivering newspapers, working as lifeguards, and whatever kind of a summer job you can think of. But this is not something typical in Serbia. Sure there were kids my age who got jobs as waiters during university years, but isn't that already too late to start working? And especially so in a country where people don't have much money (but yet love to sit around in cafes all day drinking coffee with friends)? Probably has something to do with the "children" living with their parents basically till the day parents die. One does not simply move out of your parents' place in Serbia.

So, I guess what I'd like to see is a society that promotes work from a young age (not in a child labor kind of way), and have them do professional internships by the time they're in high school, so that as university students they could be looking for full time employment with relevant experience "under their belt". Revolutionary? Hardly. But there seems to be a lack of both demand and supply for summer jobs, which is actually a waste of resources when you come to think of it. And I do believe that you need money to be changing hands a lot to have a functioning economy, which Serbia isn't. Not really.

Sonntag, 17. März 2013

Zašto ljudi ne koriste bicikl kao prevozno sredstvo u Beogradu



Daću vam šniclu na početku, što bi rekao moj profesor sa fakulteta: ne voze ga jer niko ne vozi bicikl u Beogradu. Svaki drugi razlog je daleko iza ovoga. Čak 78% Beograđana rado bi koristilo bicikl, kad bi videlo da i drugi to rade i kad bi postojala kultura upotrebe bicikla kao prevoznog sredstva. Ovo i slična izmišljena istraživanja će vam potvrditi da se ne radi o nedostatku infrastrukture (43%), nebezbednosti u saobraćaju (41%), lošim vremenskim prilikama (32%), nemogućnosti kombinovanja poslovnog odela i bicikla (21%), nedostatku bicikla (17%),odbacivanju čitave pomisli jer misle da su stari (13%) i tome slično. Svi ovi ostali razlozi gledani skupa navode Beograđane da ne sedaju na bicikl kad kreću na posao u čak 167% slučajeva, što je svakako samo po sebi besmisleno, čak i kad ne bi bilo izmišljeno. Isto tako besmisleno je i sedeti u autu u gužvi pri povratku kući, a sami ste deo problema.

Mislim da je za Srbiju veoma karakterističan način na koji su moji roditelji gledali na moju želju da u Beogradu tokom zime na isteku vozim bicikl koji sam dovukao iz Austrije: „Pa ti si lud, da voziš bicikl po snegu i hladnoći!“. Voleo bih da su imali pristup Norvežana koji je sumirao jedan naš iseljenik: „Ne postoji loše vreme, samo loša garderoba.“

Šta još ima da se kaže? Možda da se odgovori na ono „Ah, pa lako je Holanđanima...“? Šta je tu lako? Nema nigde ništa lako (trostruka negacija!), sve se mora izgraditi, ako smo vredni. Nekoliko stvari treba uraditi: izgraditi infrastrukturu (biciklističke staze i trake, semaforsku i ostalu signalizaciju, parkirališta za bicikle, stanice za samo-opravku bicikala), promovisati bicikl kao održivu alternativu automobilskom saobraćaju (poznate i uticajne ličnosti da budu viđene na biciklima), uvesti podsticaje za korišćenje bicikla umesto automobila, kao i takse za ulazak autom u centar grada.



Nema se para za sve ovo? Ma nije moguće! A ima se para da se ne radi ništa? Ko to sebi može da priušti? Zar je jeftinije ne pokušati rešiti problem saobraćajnih gužvi uključivanjem bicikla u saobraćajni sistem Beograda? A koliko novca ode za potrošeno gorivo u gužvi? Ko plaća potrošeno vreme u zagušenjima i začepljenjima zbog previše automobila (koji su ovde lična prevozna sredstva)? Koliko velelepnih mostova će rešiti taj problem?

„Nije naša kultura takva...“ Pa, jeste, naša je kultura da deca na biciklima ginu pod točkovima automobila.  Uzgred, takva je bila i holandska kultura, pa su je promenili. Ovo će najduže trajati, ali ako odmah krenemo u tom pravcu, pre ćemo izgraditi društvo u kome je saobraćajna nezgoda između automobila i bicikla šokantna i retka.

Svakoga dana saznajem za nove načine da se Kultura vožnje bicikla uvede u društvo. Uvek me obraduje duh biciklista koji ih povezuje i inspiriše da zajednički pokušaju da prilagode okolinu jednom zdravom i pametnom načinu života. Ne verujem da u toj borbi mogu da izgube, jer nikada neće odustati, bez obzira sa koliko malo razumevanja ih drugi sputavaju i otpisuju. Nećete razumeti tu snagu ubeđenja u ispravnost bicikliranja dok ne probate i sami.