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Emanuela Karastoyanova

My friend Lia is packing. After several years working in advertising agencies in Athens and Thessaloniki, Lia believes that the clothes Greece has for her are too tight...and she will not wear them. Few days ago she told me that she has decided to go to Denmark. She will study, she will work, and she will start a new life. She has even started to move around with a bicycle, in order to get to places faster and to get used to it, because everybody in Denmark rides a bicycle. We traveled for a while back in time and Lia told me:   

                                                MY FIRST JOB 
  

I have many good memories from my first job. In Rosebud I worked as a marketing assistant. For some firms I even did communication management. At one point I just started to take the responsibilities of others as well. I started from scratch, without having any experience or knowing specific things. However, I was showing great interest in learning many different things in many different areas of the company. I managed to do something very important and responsible. I managed to get other people to trust me, to give me more work to do and to have more responsibilities.   

My memories from Rosebud are very positive. It was precisely this job that gave me the incentive to start my Masters in International Marketing at the University of the West of Scotland. If I had not worked there I probably would have not taken this degree. I would have done something else. I liked those companies both from the business side and in terms of marketing. Since I was very interested in that area, my boss gave me chances that are not given easy. It is not so easy to simply say: "Well, do it, I trust you.” The truth is that I did many things in a short period of time, but the appreciation could have been less. It is not easy for a company to say: "This person is young. She might not have the experience of someone who has worked for 20 years, but I see that she constantly strives to gain knowledge in the field, I see that she wants to work, I see that she wants to be informed, I see that she puts in the effort...", basically she gives 100 percent of her capacity.   

After that I worked in the advertising agencies MSPS and Bitmad as an account manager, at Care Direct as account supervisor and at Cat Advanced in the new business department. I applied for new jobs because I was looking for the best I can find. I was finding the companies and I was leaving them. The problem everywhere is that there are people with work experience of 20, 30 years, who have none of the qualities that you have. In no way, though, can you take their position. No one is going to accept this. You will always be at a lower level. Independently of whether you have skills or not. There is no chance for any kind of cooperation between the two of you. Those people will never stand by your side.

              NO CHANCE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE IN GREECE 

Young people are struggling to find their place in Greece, because they face terrible neglect. First of all local education is not taken seriously by anyone anymore. We have all become equal. Whether we have dedicated 10 years of our lives to studying or we have not spent even an hour on it, we have all become the same thing and we are fighting for nearly the same positions. Either way the positions for which we, the people with Bachelor or Masters Degrees, are fighting for, are taken by people who often lack the appropriate education. But because they are there for 20 years, you cannot move them from the position for anything. In many fields there are people whose position is destined... In order for young people to be able to take their places, they will have to wait for them to die...  

Young people are not given chances because there is fear. When you see that someone is good and works harder than you, there is fear. What do you do then? You try to make them like you. And to teach them what is right and what is wrong. You teach them to work and exist the way you work and exist. So in the future you will become like them. 
  

BUT I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR SOMETHING MORE SINCE I WAS YOUNG 

  When I was young I did not want teachers to stick to the book - to what had to be done and to what had to be studied before being accepted in university. Overall, I wanted to have teachers with whom we have roughly similar views, nature, and way of life and through this contact our interaction to go to other levels. And not just learning today’s lesson by heart, we get an A and everything is fine. We always had something more than just a lesson with the teachers I had chosen. We had discussions about psychology, sociology. Something always comes out of such discussions. They were not waste time. Once, my mother had gotten very angry at a teacher. However, this was unfair. I have always had a problem with learning things by heart. It was my responsibility that I did not read and learn things by heart. And my mother got angry at the teacher and decided that he does not motivate me to read. We saw things differently. She could not understand that whoever the teacher was, he could not oblige me to memorize, just because I did not want it. I deal a lot more with things that interest me. I found motivation in myself and in the person I have chosen. 
 

                         I WANT TO GO TO UNIVERSITY   

Ever since I was young I wanted to study German philology, because I like German - as a language and as type of communication. However, I was not interested so much in studying German history or literature at the university. I could do this at some point but purely out of encyclopaedic point of view and only if I wanted to. The first year I applied for university I had only one wish - German Philology. German philology was a compromise, because I knew that if I graduated, the road I would follow would be working in the public sector. I could be appointed as a school teacher or German tutor for children. I attended my lectures for about a year and I saw that it does not fit me very much. The people I met at university had one thought – we will graduate and we will be employed immediately. We solved our problem. I saw that the chosen major has little to do with communication. We did not bother to speak German very much.   

                             NEW BEGINNING 
  

So, this time I applied in the Athenian Pandio University, majoring in Mass Media and Communication... 

Pandio was not a bad university. I do not regret for the choice I made then. You might not go out of there with any specific degree, a specific specialty or profession. However, because we learned many and different things, the desire appeared to deal with things that interested me. As a result this created very solid foundations. The foundations were many, not just for one thing. Later came choices. Adulthood came too and I did not have the knowledge of a 19-year-old anymore. I could think and decide in which field I want to start my career. Therefore I chose to work with culture, but in combination with communication and marketing. Not that the diploma I took had anything to do with that. However it motivated me to expand to arts, cinema, culture and all of that helped me very much. And it is still helping me. 

                                COMMUNICATION 
  

I believe in communication very much. On a personal level, communication is one of the most important things a person has. Over time people change. What we require from ourselves and others, increases. We see that the number of people with whom we can communicate is substantially decreasing. This is fact. You cannot afford not to pay attention to communication because it is a very important. It is the foundation of relationships you will choose to keep over time. Many people restrict themselves to the formal and necessary things, which just aid you in having an everyday connection, a simple contact. 

There is a big crisis in relationships between people. Friendships get destroyed and relationships deteriorate. There is no communication... Because people no longer interact deeply and meaningfully. 

                BEING SMART AND DIFFERENT IN GREECE 
  

There is no point in saying that

to be smart and have your own ideas here is purely a curse. If you voice your opinion you become the bad guy or you are just complexed. Or you are a snob. In any case you will not hear a good comment, because the majority of people have learned to behave and think in a certain way and you cannot break this peace.   

                      GENERATION LIVING ON THE EDGE  

The previous generation takes many things for granted. This is the generation, which for the most part is currently working in the public sector. My generation is not a generation of public sector work. It is a generation of the edge. It encounters difficulties, because in the beginning things were granted and secure, but little by little it is starting to lose them. This generation has entered into a new reality. The past generation never lost anything. On the contrary, it gave us things too. The truth is that our generation is angry, but I am not sure to what extent this aggression and anger can give any results. I do not think something can change. People who are angry are not the majority. I know many people my own age, who do not deal with what is happening around them. They are people from my generation, 28 years old, with whom we have similar experiences in life. Surely we face the same situations and with the same difficulties. Not all are angry, they are just not interested. 

                               DO WE HAVE DREAMS? 

I do not know if we have dreams. I believe that dreams are a form of luxury, if you stay in Greece. A dream can be just to have a job and to pass through life. Because, as things are going, this is becoming a real dream. It is not something that is concrete and a given. I personally do not have dreams in relation to this country. I do not imagine my future here. I do not think something here will change for the better. I believe things will go for the worse.   

I believe that Greece is over. It cannot provide more opportunities for people of my age. First of all, it is extremely difficult to find a job. I am not talking about a job in my field but about any job that can bring me money. From then on all these things with the new measures, etc make my contempt even bigger. If until now young people had a problem at work, from now on the problem will become even greater. People won’t be able to work at all. The unemployment rate will reach 20% and those unemployed will be us. Therefore, I do not believe I have something to do here. There is no plan for me here. 

                                           HAPPY 
  

I am happy because I know very well who I am, what I can do, I have clear goals in my head and I want to achieve them. These things are extremely clear for me and I feel happy. With regard to Greece, however, I feel disappointed. 

                      IN MY SOCIETY I WOULD CHANGE

I acknowledge and respect the fact that Greeks are smart and capable people. When they deal with something that truly interests them, they can cope very well. That's for sure. However, negative things are much more than the positive ones. First of all, they forget very quickly what happened in the past. They repeat the same mistakes and never learn their lesson from the past. They are becoming more individualistic. They do not care what happens to the person next to them. What they care about is for their family to be fine. They have no collective sense. This is why this madness with state jobs exists. We all want to settle down, to have sure money and to work less. We do not understand that it's absurd to have so many civil servants for such a small country like ours. I believe we do not have political consciousness, because if we had, we would vote for so many years for two families of politicians. We would have sought for something different. We could erect a new leader. I also think that we have become very passive. People sit on their couches and watch TV... online they do not seek to inform themselves and improve their knowledge about what is happening around the world. Their main interest is to have fun. I do not think they are interested in serious things that are happening around them. These are things I would change. I would keep the sun and the sea. I would offer them in a more organized way though.   

                                         I WISH   

To myself I wish to do everything in my power to succeed in achieving the objective I have set. I think that my relatives will be calmer, because they are worried from all that uncertainty. To everybody else I wish not to be afraid of anything, so they can pursue their goals. I also wish them to wake up and try to change a few things first in themselves and in their own lives, in order for Greek society to change as well. Otherwise, things will be very difficult.