Tuesday, October 25, 2011

It is quiet here

I am elsewhere talking about language.

Two months to Yule. Here's some countdown calendar ideas. You have about a month to make it and fill it with small gifts :-)


Here's some paper cone pattern downloads
nice pyramid box
Dreidel box template - why not make a Chanukkah countdown calendar? It's 20.-28.12. this year.
Winter solstice is on 21.12.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Hemslöjdskonsulenterna

I don't know what that is in English. Slöjd is craft part of arts and crafts, hemslöjd is the homebased industry of crafts and konsulent is consultant, adviser. Someone whose job is to encourage people to craft more. We have those in Sweden and Finland, and it seems in Norway and Denmark too. Not so interested in those, it's the Swedish ones, and especially one specific one I'm a bit angry with right now.

I live in a small town near Stockholm. I wrote a mail to the person I though was the hemslöjdskonsulent for our town. I wrote the mail 1st of October. I received a note that the person was not available until 6th. Today, 18th, I received an answer to my mail.
She informed me that they work by county (which I know), my town belongs to another county (which I did not know), so I need to contact them (naturally), and then she gave me the url to their website. (The same website I found her email address from. Not the email address to my hemslöjdskonsulent, which she most certainly knows.)
With kindness.

That's all.

Okay, so I'm not her responsibility. Fine. But did she really need almost three weeks to tell me this?
Really?

What the heck is she doing to be so busy that she must take three weeks to write four sentences, not answer any of my questions, not explain me anything of how they work in Sweden, just telling me to go bother someone else.
THREE WEEKS?

I mean... I understand if she's busy being a hemslöjdskonsulent and all...  but I would have appreciated the kindness of responding me earlier, as the response was so general and noncommittal, so it didn't ask much of her to write it. My mistake is easy to make, as our little town is counted as part of the district she responds for and sometimes not. I have lost three weeks here without a chance to get an answer to my questions. I know, it was my own fault, I should have checked which county my town belongs to, and she doesn't really have any responsibility to tell me that much... nevertheless... I feel offended. She could have at least bothered reading my mail and answer the questions she can answer.

Also, there doesn't seem to be anything happening in my little town. Everything happens in the *~*Capital*~*.  If you are interested in crafting, you go to the *~*C*~*.

Also, I couldn't find the textile hemslöjdskonsulent for *~*C*~* so I sent the email to the office, which means that I'll probably get a mail telling me I should contact the textile hemslöjdskonsulent and I'll find her email from the same damned homepage. Or they'll just send me a copy of the general information that's on the homepage about all the things that happen in the *~*C*~*

Right now I hate them. I hate all of them. May the crafting in Sweden vanish and be forgotten, and may the hemslöjdskonsulenterna be forgotten and lose their jobs and never find anyone even remotely interested in crafting ever again. May no-one be interested in crafting ever again in Sweden, may the schools drop craft education, may all the yarn shops and fabric shops go bankrupt and may this damned woman choke on her own hair in her sleep. Or not really. Forget all but the last one. May she choke on her own hair.

Added 9/1-12
The "right" hemslöjdskonsulent responded... after I had sent a reminder 22/11...
So - I suppose I can forgive 3 weeks respond time. It usually takes THREE MONTHS!!!
And, guess what?
She didn't answer any of my questions, but sent me forward to sites I had already mentioned and said I can't find answers to my questions there.
Ok, may all of them choke on their own hair as they sleep.