Kaisa Climbs

After Memorial Day, I start my 4th week here in NYC (Memorial Day is a U.S. federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. It is a day of remembrance for those who have died in the military service.)  During my first three weeks, I have learned a lot. I have gotten seven training sessions for different software and two own larger projects. It seems to me that they have a lot more software and online databases here than we have in Finland.  In addition, all software here is new to me. In my usual work, I use approximately 3-4 software/databases on a daily basis.

Within these three weeks I have had the opportunity to get to know my colleagues. My team consists of nine women and two men, and they all have their own area of responsibility on which they concentrate. That's obviously the biggest difference between my work back home and here: in Finland I am a part of sales team and the only person working on research. Another significant difference is that my workmates here do not create PowerPoint presentations of survey findings for the sales team. It is the marketing department's responsibility. In Finland, it is one of the most time-consuming tasks of mine. At the moment I am working on more editorial than research subjects: I collect background information for an article that will be published in Working Mother magazine.

Besides work, I have explored the NYC climbing scene. I am a member at MPHC climbing gym at Hell's Kitchen and I have met some NYC climbers who I already consider my friends. There is a new huge climbing gym under construction in Brooklyn and I have volunteered to help them build the wall on Saturdays. That place, Brooklyn Boulders, will be open in the middle of July, so I am lucky to have two weeks time to go there.

In my next blog post, I promise to tell you about media research in the U.S. I bet you can't wait!

Slide show: Kaisa Climbs