Newly joined Emre Ag: Teamwork is essential in my line of work
Every workday Emre spends overlooking the railroad. “The best thing about my job is the flexible working hours”, he says. Photo: Vesa-Matti Väärä.
Emre Ag, who joined PAM during the summer, works in train facility services. In his line of work, speed is an asset but team work plays a bigger part.
I am Emre Ag
I live in Turku
I became a PAM member 16.8.2019.
I work with RTK palvelut in Turku at a branch which is in charge of cleaning the trains. I have been with my current employer for 3 months. I like my work within facility services because it is not too demanding, and it allows me the flexibility I need in my life right now. As a semi professional basketball player, I need quite a lot of free time. Apart from that, it makes it easy to combine my studies with my working hours. I am doing my master’s degree in Political Sciences and I plan to graduate next semester.
My work includes taking out the trash and handling general cleaning of the train. If you work on the train between stations, it requires that you are fast. Personally, I do not see the work as stressful, but for others it can be. Most of the work is in the actual railway station area. Sometimes I work alone, sometimes in a team, as it depends on the task you do. If you are responsible for filling up the water tanks on the train, then you are by yourself. Basically, it is all about teamwork, and everybody doing his or her fair share. If somebody needs help and cannot catch up, I give them a hand, and vice versa.
The team I work in is multicultural consisting of mostly Finnish people, but also Nepalese, Chinese and myself, who is originally from Turkey. Therefore, we use English a lot. I do like when there are discussion in Finnish, as it helps me to learn the language. I really want to learn how to speak Finnish. Lately, I have become friends with some of my work mates, and it is always a good thing. It is important though, to have respect for each other and everyone pulls their own weight at work.
I joined PAM, because if there is unfairness at work, I know that I will be in good hands. The decision of joining the union, was for me a question of keeping myself safe and guaranteeing that I have the support of an organisation, in case I need any. It was actually my wife who recommended union membership to me. So far, I am getting to know what the union has to offer.
Finland is a society, which is encouraging union activities. In many developing countries, the unions are blamed and portrayed as slowing down the work progress, but in Finland they are valuable and union activities are respected. I can also tell that here, people encourage each other to join, which I think is great.
In my spare time, I like to play basketball. I play basketball in the Finnish regional league, so I spend most of my evenings practising with my team. Apart from that, I spend time with my wife and sometimes play the guitar for relaxation. However, aside from all that, going to sauna after sports or with friends in the weekends has always been my favourite relaxing activity since I was a teenager.
Text:: Marie Sandberg-Chibani