- Pay and all the amenities of home, particularly in regard to food (both fast and cooking at home varieties)
- Well, a wife, but everything else is in the negative
Very short version of a long story: Am American. Company got bought, I was laid off. Travelled for a while. Friend eventually got me to move to Estonia to work. Hated it immediately. Made plans to move back, met a girl, stayed for said girl because US immigration is excruciating.
Now you may be asking what I disliked about it. I’ll try to highlight the top points in roughly descending order:
1- Pay in Europe sucks by comparison with the US, and I’m not talking net pay after you pay for your free healthcare, I’m talking gross… it just sucks. I would say take what you made in the US and halve it, at least. In Estonia a Senior Dev salary is about what a teacher makes in the US somewhere in the south (not a high income area). Living expenses are not necessarily commiserate with the pay, especially with my €850 power bill last month.
2- The weather is abysmal. No one on either continent seems to realize how far north Europe is vs. the US (thanks Mercator!). In Estonia the sun doesn’t actually set in the summer, and in winter you get sun from about 9am to 3:30pm. Both HUGELY messed with me (and still do 4.5 years later).
3- There is a huge language barrier. Even in Tallinn, and places you would kind of expect to be better about it, like a big pharmacy chain, you’ll routinely (read: daily) have issues if you don’t speak Estonian or Russian. I’ve also had people just get annoyed and throw up their hands and stop helping me if I speak English. They calm down and come back… most of the time. I’ve even considered moving to Helsinki (80km north) just to live in a society that doesn’t glare when you say “hello”.
4- The free public healthcare is worthless if you don’t speak Estonian or Russian. There is one GP that every expat I know goes to in Tallinn because he speaks English very well, but if you need anything else you’re screwed and will probably just pay out of pocket to see a private specialist. Private health insurance is a growing trend for this reason, but if your company is largely Estonian (or Estonian run) no one will ever think it’s worth spending money on. Even the Minister of Health recently said they’re working on the issue but that the “ultimate solution is to learn Estonian”.
5- People aren’t friendly. It’s (somewhat) true that Estonians “warm up” once they get to know you, but neither friends nor strangers will ever come close to what you’d be familiar with in any of the English speaking world. I even actively avoid making eye contact with people now - just walk with your head down. At a bar you never talk to the drunk stranger next to you.
6- There is a definite racism and xenophobia issue here. If the US had been conquered as many times and by as many different groups as Estonia I’m sure we’d have the same problem, but I honestly expected better for an EU country. Even if you’re as pasty white as they are, as soon as you challenge or complain about something, out comes the “Estonia is perfect, leave already” attitude. As with many places in the world, you also run the risk of paying the “foreigner tax” - knowing that you’re a foreigner they’ll just assume you don’t know how much something costs and will just blindly pay whatever they say. Complaining will likely get you a string of Estonian or Russian you don’t understand and potentially the person to just leave.
7- Service in general is awful. I don’t know if it’s because they don’t work for tips or because employment laws make it almost impossible to fire someone or what, but I hope your food comes out right the first time and you don’t finish your drink because chances are good you won’t see your server again until they want to be paid.
8- Kind of related to that, and something I have trouble explaining that should really be higher on this list… no one seems to care about their jobs in the same way they would in the US. I don’t mean as far as keeping the job, I mean doing it. Kind of an “I’ll do my job, but I’m not going to work my ass off or do anything more than absolutely required” kind of apathy. It doesn’t matter if the company is trying to win a new client or is afraid they’re going to lose one, none of the employees seem to care either way, like they don’t realize or care if their jobs might disappear as a result.
9- For some reason every employer wants to give you a stupid cheap backpack. I’ve already got an expensive one, how about just giving me a bonus of whatever you’d have spent on it instead?