The time is flying and I haven’t written a blog post for quite some time now. I am now at the end of my first two week at my assignment in Amsterdam. I am going to be here for two months working for a department called Project Governance and Improvements and that is pretty much what it is, how to governance project and also work with continues improvements. This is a new department and it is going to be the support for all Vattenfalls big projects like building a wind farm or an R&D project. My task is to look at parts of our project model and optimise part of the process.

On our last seminar week we talked a lot about culture awareness, we had a lot of interesting discussions about how we experience our own culture and from that sees others. How is to come to Sweden and work? Think of it, have you had colleagues coming from other countries or maybe an exchange student came to your class when you studied? How did you greet them welcome? How do you think he or she experienced it?

This is a very interesting question to look in to and I am trying to think of how I react and behave when I am here in Amsterdam. My first impression of the Dutch people is that they are very friendly and honestly curios to get to know me and my culture. While walking out of the office yesterday I got yet another confirmation of the openness here. I meet some of the national trainess that I only meet ones when they where in Stockholm, they where going for a beer and invited me to join. I hade a great night and meet many new people and also made some contacts that can be really useful for my project here. We hade quite a few drinks and no dinner (eating is sheeting the say here) only the tradional Dutch snack Bitteballen, it is mixed meat that are fried and you dip it in muster, really good actually. So I didn’t get the relaxing evening with a lot of sleep that I hade planed, but I had a really great night instead so much better!

This weekend have I been up in Åre working and enjoyed the Swedish mountains. Vattenfall is proud sponsor of the Swedish ski association, which means that Vattenfall takes part in different ski events. We hade a big event during WM  in Garmisch –Partenkirchen and now this weekend a event during the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup in Åre. We where 11 persons from different locations in the Vattefall organisation working during this event. We had a big tent at the arena where visitors could try ski simulators and see how much energy the generated while doing slalom, cross country skiing or ski  jumping. We also had a cheering competition where the person how cheered the most by shaking there phone whit the app “Power of cheering” won. It was a great weekend even though we didn’t get any Swedish medals.

 Someone how  was there? Let me know what you thought!

Hey!

Welcome to my blog, I hope you will find my first year as a trainee at Vattefall interesting. Where should I start? Introduce my self maybe. My name is Johanna Häägg and I am from Uppsala, Sweden’s forth largest city and a big university town as well. After high school I moved to Perth, Australia for one year, where I studied and also worked as a graphic designer. When I got back home in 2006 I started studying Computer Science and System Development at Uppsala University. After four amazing years in the student’s city Uppsala, I started working for Vattenfall 1 Sep 2010!

I have now been a trainee for 6 months and the time as been flying. I started working in my home organisation Vattenfall IT for a couple of months. I was part of a project building up a new Test Centre of Excellence within Vattenfall. This was a perfect start, I was from day one part of a team, I could contribute directly whit the knowledge I had gain from my thesis work (Requirement management and Test) and I got to know a lot of people within the IT organisation.

During this half year have I also been on 3 seminar week’s whit my trainee colleges from all over the organisation. We are 15 international trainees working in Sweden, Holland, Germany, Poland, Denmark and UK.

The first week we where outside Stockholm, mostly working on building our team and getting to know each other. We also visit Forsmark nuclear power plant and Älvkaleby hydro power plant.

The second seminar was held in Berlin and the area around Cottbus which is a big mining area in east Germany. We started of whit a day at the main office in central Berlin, meeting some of the people working there and also 20 former Vattenfall trainees from Germany, Sweden and Poland. When you join the trainee program you also become a member of Vattenfall Alumni Association (VITAA). The second day we had a very interesting and inspiring day at European School of Management and Technology (ESMT). The rest of the week we lived in the small village Lübenau and visit a coal power plant, an open coal mine and a village that hade been moved because of the mine. We hade a lot of interesting discussions about coal as an energy source and how different the conditions are in all countries and how that affects the choice of energy sources in each country.

The third seminar was held in Warszawa three weeks ago, there we got an insight on the aspects of running a large company buy playing a business game. We also visit the office in Warszawa, a heat power plant and learned about polish history and culture.

I have also have had the time to do one of my two assignments abroad. The first one I did at the Sales department in Berlin. It was very interesting to get insight in a new business area and in the German way of living and working.

Now I am back at the office in Stockholm but that I will tell you more about later on!