Earning money

From quite an early age I realized that by earning my own money I could buy the things I wanted, without having to ask for them from my parents, with the very strong likelihood that they would say no. I cannot remember how old I was when I started receiving a weekly allowance "veckopeng" but perhaps I was around 7. At home my brothers and I had various chores that belonged to us but there were also chores that could be carried out and a small amount could be earned. For example, clearing off the table and cleaning the kitchen after dinner, could earn you about 0,50 euro cents (5 Finnish Marks). I have a very strong memory of a pair of golden small earrings that I wanted to have, but they cost around 70 FMK, so I cleared the table and did various other chores for weeks, the amount earned per time written out on a piece of paper on the fridge, eventually it summed up to 70 FMK and I could buy my earrings. I remember the earrings as well as the great feeling of having earned my own money to buy them. I also went job hunting at a very early age, actually I must have been around 6 or 7 when I tried my luck for the first time. At the time I was hanging out with three sisters that lived in the same building as we did, their father owned a music store and the three sisters cleaned the store in the evenings and this way they could earn some extra pocket money. Inspired by this I walked into our local candy store in Jakobstad (Holländers) and asked the sales assistant if I could start cleaning the candy store in the evenings (my choice of location was not a spontaneous one, after all it was, and still is today, a candy store)...The lady in question stared at me and said 'come again', I suddenly realized that this might not be appropriate and suddenly felt ashamed of my question so I ran out of the candy store and did not dare to go back there for a very long time. Naturally the lady was surprised by my question, its not every day that a 7 year old walks in to ask if she can have a job, and definitely not a cleaning job...but I did. I don't think I told my parents about this until years later and they were, to say the least, somewhat surprised. Around the same age I told my father that I would like to have a summer job and that maybe I should open up my own kiosk in my playing cottage on the island where my parents have their summer house. Impressed by my entrepreneurial spirit, I guess, my dad agreed and together we went to the wholesaler and bought candy and lemonade. By hand I wrote my own marketing leaflets that I handed out to the other summerhouses on the island, we still have one and its hilarious to read today, I would share it if I had it here with me. By the end of the summer my father and I concluded that I had made a loss but I still claimed that I had the right to a salary, after all I had worked in my kiosk all summer. My father explained to me the basics of profit and loss, but nice as he is I kind of got a small bonus anyway. When I was 16 I had developed such an affection for clothes and shopping that I just had to get somekind of job next to school. my weekly allowance did not cover my wants. At the time we had a cleaning lady who cleaned our house and I told my mother to let her go and let me do the weekly cleaning instead, 3 hours every Friday after school I would clean the house. In addition to cleaning our house I also asked my dad to get rid of the cleaning lady who cleaned his office and took over that. I cleaned his office three times per week + then cleaning our house. My earnings were good for a 16 year old :-). I bought my own television set and stereo and went to Greece with friends, all paid for by myself. After awhile I realized that I needed a back-up for when I could not clean my father's office and my grandmother who was still very energetic by then said that she would not mind having some extra money so she said 'I'll be your back up'. I thought this was pretty cool and decided to call us 'Städmaffian' (the cleaning mafia). I asked my father to sponsor two sweatshirts where 'Städmaffian' was printed on the back and on the front our names. At the entrance of my father's office I put up a sign where it said 'The cleaning mafia cleans here'. I also had various summer jobs, amongst other's working as a guide at 'Jacbostads Wapen' (a ship relic build in the same way that boats were built hundreds of years ago). I truly enjoyed being in control of my own finances. After high school (Gymnasium) I wanted to take a year off and work, to get some work experience, I was to become a business women :-) A family acquintance had connections to the Chamber of Commerce in Lyon and I managed to get myself an internship there. I spoke no French whatsoever but decided that Lyon and France would be a great place to live and work for a while. I did not earn much money there, but instead I earned life experience that money cannot buy. When I started studying in Maastricht it did not take long before a good friend asked me if I wanted to start waitressing at Château Neercanne, an old castle made into an expensive restaurant. It was hard work but I truly enjoyed it because the colleagues and the setting were so nice. I especially enjoyed seeing all the beautiful gowns that some of the women wore to the various parties, sometimes if felt like standing inside of a fashion magazine. I used to love coming home at maybe 04.00/05.00 on a Saturday or Sunday morning aching all over my body, because I had been walking and carrying stuff for sometimes 10 hours in a row, feeling that I had worked and earned money, instead of coming home drunk and having spent money. YEEEES I did that too plenty of times, but it felt better coming home sober having earned money :-) During my student years in Maastricht I also worked two times at the Formula 1 races, once in Japan and once in Belgium. In Japan I got to work in the VIP tent of McLaren the year that Mika Häkkinen became world champion, that was a very cool experience. Although I have to say that working for a Viennese company was slavery, wow we worked hard, blisters on feet and hands, working hours were mad and the brakes few. Still, it was an experience that I would choose again if I had the choice and the money was good. I also did some promotional work for Bison tobacco, the kind that you roll yourself and together with my friend Veva we drove around in various German cities going to bars with UGLY promotion clothes, needless to say I became quite good at rolling my own cigarettes :-) During my University years I did not have any summer jobs, I felt that since I worked throughout the year next to my studies, I could spend my short summer holidays relaxing, so I did. In 2002 I started working full time as a professional and have been since then, with the exception of my maternity leave with Sophia. Sometimes people say 'oh if one only did not have to work and could be on holiday all the time' but I truly think that we would not function well and would loose our purpose in life if we would not have a job. If we would be on holiday all the time it would not feel special anymore. One can absolutely argue about how much one should work and where to draw the line, and with what one should work to feel satisfied, but that is a different topic altogether.