Well, I did not know how to do it and off the letter went.

Not that ugly

I was brought up thinking that directness serves as a value. It’s about being constructive. We don’t waste time. Especially other people’s time. So, we shoot out what we have. For example at school, the pupils were expected to say something in the class only when they were absolutely sure that they knew it right.

Therefore, labelling someone as “dumb head” was not uncommon. It has happen to to everyone, up to the level that my English teacher once confessed to my grandmother (teacher at the same school) that “I might not be high-school material”.

Fine, having experienced shameless criticism and directness in extreme levels, I should probably not have been hurt when I received this critical e-mail another day. Shamelessly direct message from a distant colleague, totally unpacked, not hidden into flowers. I thought it was rude! I was hurt!

So, the iron-Estonian is turning flowery? Probably. It is not difficult to get used to the institutional politness here. “Just to remind you all that working hours are from 9-18. Thank you!” said one of my superiors in the team meeting. You can just guess that the message was directed to someone who was probably showing up work little before lunch time. Saying but not really saying. Not saying but saying a lot. A bulk of mud wrapped in a silver paper with some beautiful red ribbons on with a “thank you” note on.

I understand that criticism is vitally necessary for things to move on. But how often it really does? It’s a delicate business. Often I see it taking few steps back ruining relationships, motivation and ability to cooperate. Isn’t it sometimes, more often than we think, better to keep the ugly truth underground?

At one point Belgians and other friends appeared but lion’s share of my friends were still about to pass by in my work corridors.

Coming to Brussels I knew no one, except someone I studied with and who was also working in the parliament. I started going out with very nice colleagues: easy-going, intelligent and open-minded. Lots to talk about. But you don’t really socialise with your colleagues, do you? Maybe in a coffee break but not after work?

At least that I used to think in Estonia where I found it too private to ask a colleague if she had a partner or not, not talking about asking how she spent her summer holiday! I was used to having a very clear line between work and life. There is work, there is life, not much in-between.

Here everything is different. In the first months I found myself mingling max 1 km from the European Parliament, sometimes even worse, inside the building! And of course, with my colleagues who introduced me to more colleagues and more colleagues. Even if they were from some other EU institution, I still felt they were my colleagues. It’s all one EU crowd working together in the adopted city.

At one point Belgians and other friends appeared but lion’s share of my friends were still about to pass by in my work corridors.

I must admit it was a bit scary to mix “business interests” with private life. Why should I challenge my friendships like that?! What comes if there is a conflict? Or maybe there will be a conflict only because of that – we are friends and we are colleagues?

I don’t know how you deal with it but at one point I just gave up “the Estonian thing” and talked openly with colleagues about my family back home and even introduced them my boyfriend at the time. Today, after few years working here, some of my very best friends are sitting just few meters of me in the neighbouring offices and it feels just alright.

Touching the reader.

I am talking about the mysterious “citizen” to whom we explain in as light as possible a manner what the EP is dealing with. We want to do it in such a way that a person with little background knowledge would get it, but it is still more often easier to write for somebody who takes an active interest, who knows a bit about legislative procedures, what a plenary sitting is, a hemicycle, co-decision and an MEP.

Apart from family at home who are forced to follow the EP website in order see if I am still alive, have I ever met a reader? Yes and no. It always makes my day when I hear a lobbyist in Place du Luxembourg commenting one of our articles. It made me fly when a EU friend of mine was linking one of our articles in Facebook. And I love to see a blog or even an online newspaper stealing a piece of our work (it happens quite often!).

Still, months pass and I cannot get rid of the feeling that I want to meet one of the tens of thousands of people visiting our website daily. Want to meet the real reader, to hear what they have to say, what they like, what they hate, what more they want to know, how we can do things better.