"Yuck, what a horrid northern city. There are no people up there, let alone any civilisation or culture."
OK. Who is talking here?
Wrong first time. It is not an employee of the National Agency for Medicines bemoaning the move from Helsinki to Kuopio.
Read on...
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/COMMEN ... 5242883778
The article does come back to Kuopio when it asks readers:
" And is Kuopio really such an awful and impossible place?"
Companies seem to have no problem finding topflight staff outside the famed wolf-line of the capital region's Outer Ring Road [Kehä III]. In fact the opposite would appear to be true. The big one - Nokia, the most successful and most international of Finnish companies - has made both Oulu and Salo into vibrant technology cities.
Who'd want to move to the boondocks?
Who'd want to move to the boondocks?
People do not become more irritable as they grow old - they simply stop making the effort to avoid annoying others.
Re: Who'd want to move to the boondocks?
In contrast, I have a friend who went to Naples, Italy and said it was the most filthy city he had ever seen (garbage everywhere) and that he never wants to go back. Don't know about Parma though.
Socialism has never managed to create anything beyond corpses, poverty and oppression.
Re: Who'd want to move to the boondocks?
The choice of Parma as the location for the European Food Safety Authority in 2004 was of course a peculiarly piquant moment in history, as it coincided more or less to the month with the collapse in disgrace and amidst huge multi-billion financial fraud charges of Parmalat, the large dairy goods and bakery products conglomerate based in... yup... Parma.
The SEC described it as "one of the largest and most brazen corporate financial frauds in history".
The irony of this was doubtless not lost on the Finns who had been told by Berlusconi (no stranger to corporate fraud allegations himself) that he would veto any EU plans for a European arrest-warrant - thought necessary for the "Woah on Terrah" - that had left Rome in an EU minority of one, unless Parma got the choice little EFSA plum.
The founder and CEO of Parmalat was duly arrested and put away for ten years, but the smell of corporate corruption still hangs over the city like over-ripe parmesan.
A tale of two cities (and one EU authority)
The SEC described it as "one of the largest and most brazen corporate financial frauds in history".
The irony of this was doubtless not lost on the Finns who had been told by Berlusconi (no stranger to corporate fraud allegations himself) that he would veto any EU plans for a European arrest-warrant - thought necessary for the "Woah on Terrah" - that had left Rome in an EU minority of one, unless Parma got the choice little EFSA plum.
The founder and CEO of Parmalat was duly arrested and put away for ten years, but the smell of corporate corruption still hangs over the city like over-ripe parmesan.
A tale of two cities (and one EU authority)
Re: Who'd want to move to the boondocks?
Reverting to the National Agency for Medicines move away from the Capital Area.
I suppose one should have some sympathy with the minister who had to make/annouce the decission and had to face the barrage of angy civil servants.
Finland must be one of worst (if not THE worst) example of a country that sucks most of it's population into the capital area..Because that is where most of the work is.
I cannot remember what percent of the working population live withing 50 kilometers of Helsinki, but I know it is large.
When ever there are big job cuts they almost always seem to be in places like Kuopio.
Minsters have a duty to try and prevent these places be coming ghost towns and moving National Agencies there is one way to do this.
Another example...
Have a look at your tax form, which you will be getting soon to fill in, and check where you have to send it.
I live about 200 meters from the main Helsinki area tax office, last year I had to send my tax form to Kemi.
I suppose one should have some sympathy with the minister who had to make/annouce the decission and had to face the barrage of angy civil servants.
Finland must be one of worst (if not THE worst) example of a country that sucks most of it's population into the capital area..Because that is where most of the work is.
I cannot remember what percent of the working population live withing 50 kilometers of Helsinki, but I know it is large.
When ever there are big job cuts they almost always seem to be in places like Kuopio.
Minsters have a duty to try and prevent these places be coming ghost towns and moving National Agencies there is one way to do this.
Another example...
Have a look at your tax form, which you will be getting soon to fill in, and check where you have to send it.
I live about 200 meters from the main Helsinki area tax office, last year I had to send my tax form to Kemi.
People do not become more irritable as they grow old - they simply stop making the effort to avoid annoying others.
Re: Who'd want to move to the boondocks?
It is in fact recommended practice for tax offices to be located away from their "customers". This is to avoid conflict of interest issues. When I worked in the Inland Revenue in Reading (student summer job checking the maths on tax assessments, no computers in those days!!!) there was a rule that as soon as a local company's PAYE exceeded x number of employees, the whole company file would be moved out to a different office. Makes sense. Nowadays I guess it is all centralised inside some mothership mainframe mega-computer (ie the one that cocked up all the child benefit payments).sinikettu wrote: Have a look at your tax form, which you will be getting soon to fill in, and check where you have to send it.
I live about 200 meters from the main Helsinki area tax office, last year I had to send my tax form to Kemi.
Funnily enough I did a simulation of a relocation negotiation with one of my language groups just before Xmas. It was a sort of role play with union reps, line managers, personnel managers, consultants etc etc. Great fun, everyone "played the game" and the negotiations really got off the ground. I got the impression that the subject was something that Finnish civil servants could relate to. But we were only relocating from Helsinki to Turku. Maybe that made a difference. Next time I'll modify the role cards to read "Kuopio"
