Maybe for some people it’s unfamiliar with it (because in Japan it is for sure.)
No worries even if you are unfamiliar with it, I’ll explain it.
The sick leave is a long-term paid leave due to sickness. In Estonia, though it depends on the work environment or style, it is quite common to work at home when you caught a cold for instance. One of my (Estonian) colleagues who works at part time caught a cold the other day and worked at home. I think this is one of the good points to be an office worker.
In Japan, according to my friends, they need to use their annual leaves when they caught a cold, which never happens in Estonia (as far as I know). Then, what about the hospital stay in Estonia? The sick leave is used for it.
Like the annual leave in Estonia the sick leave also limits the number of days that you can get, which is approximately 6 months for office workers.* You need a proper document for the leave but also can get benefit from Haigekassa (the Estonian health insurance organisation) and your company.
(*Check this website for more details. I definitely ommited the information.)
Here are three items for my case with the sick leave.
1) The unissued sick leave document
On the 31st of December 2019, at the final talk with my doctor he promised to issue the sick leave document. In Japan the first three days of the new year (the first to third of January) are national holidays but in Estonia/Europe they start working from the second. My company started 2020 on the third. However, everything started from the sixth because our boss couldn’t come owing to the cold.
Though it had been a week since January started, netiher my boss or our accountant nor I couldn’t see anything on our State Portal. Then my boss and I called the hospital, who said there was some kind of problem on Haigekassa’s system or something. This is actually a negative point of Estonia.
Any procedures online will be delayed sicne everything is digitalised in Estonia.
Eventually it was already the third week of 2020 when my boss could contact my doctor’s secretary.
Jesus, it took a fortnight to get the sick leave document.
Next day, both my boss and I could check the sick leave document on our State Portal.
Soon after the sick leave document was issued, the system worked so quickly.
I got the benefit on the next day my sick leave document was issued.
In order to get this benefit, you need to register your bank account beforehand on State Portal. Be careful – you can register only one account (= one account per person).
The calculation system is written in the following section.
2) Calculation of the sick leave with two years
In my case although I was officially released from te hospital on the 31st of December 2019, the sick leave document had the date 2nd of Januaru 2020, which means that I had two years in the document (2019 and 2020).
Haigekassa provides you with 70% of the social tax from the previous calendar year according to the number of days that you were in the hospital. The picture below is my actual sick leave document.
The first row of the table shows the benefit for the period that I extended to stay in the hospital (13 days). I was curious because in 2018 I worked at part time and in the half of October and November in 2019 I worked at full time so the social tax that I paid might be different. However, since my sick leave documents had the same number for the social tax, I guess it doesn’t matter whether your sick leave ended in the new year or within the year. Only the starting date seems to be considered. In other words, if your sick leave documents started in 2019 and ended in 2020, because it started in 2019, your benefit is calculated based on the social tax in 2018.
Also as seen in the image above, the third row shows 11 days but you can count 19 days based on the period in the second column. This is because you cannot get the benefit for the first three days (in my case the second to the fourth of December) and your company should provide you with the benefit for five days (the first four to eight days, meaning the fifth to the ninth of December in my case). Thus Haigekassa will give you the benefit based on the period from the ninth to the end of your leave.
In 2018 I worked at part time as mentioned and since I expected that my benefit wouldn’t be that a lot,
Jasus Christ, such a small amount money!!!!
weren’t my words or I had no damage. It was just good to know how much I could get.
3) Expense of the hospital stay
Finally, how much did I pay for the hospital stay for one month?
It cost 0€.
Usually, it costs up to 2.50€ per day and up 25€ per stay but it was an emergency in my case so I didn’t even get any bills and pay at all.
Actually, I still wonder if I do evrything correctly… Even if I have to pay for it, it’s not too much like a hospital stay in Japan. There wouldn’t be any financial issue on my side. (The thing is that since it costs a lot to stay in the hospital in Japan, my mam was worried about my finance.) When I was told to stay in the hospital the psychiatrist said it would cost a bit but there’s nothing (yet). I also asked Haigekassa but they told me to ask the hospital that I was staying and they didn’t deduct the stay fee as giving the benefit. I’m just lucky that I don’t have to pay for it.
In Estonia the medical stuff is way cheaper than in Japan.
I’m pretty sure this is not the major or universal topic but at least you could get some ideas regarding the medical side in Estonia and the sick leave. As for the family doctor, I’ll write another article in the future.
This is actually the third time to chage the flat since I came here. (I mean, this includes my first flat because I spent one night or two in the hostel when I arrived in Tallinn.)
My friends know my first place. It was a hostel-like flat which had 11 rooms shared by 12 people. I met many types of people/students: self-centred German girls, a Ukranian girl who loves Sailor Moon, some Italians, Czech, French, Iranian and Japanese who played games and drink together. It was a really international flat. (Sometimes there were also some Hungarians, Cyprusian, Spanish, Estonians, Thai, American as well as Georgian.) Usually I had meals with some of them and talked with them instead of frequent nights out since my programme gave me and my coursemates too many readings every time.
However, in Autumn in 2018, I started working at part-time being a student as well so I had to go to both school and the office. It wasn’t easy to change the class timetables and I had a lot of readings as assignments as mentioned so even though my working time was 20 hours per week, it was tough to spend 40 minutes including one connection for one way every time I worked.
For this reason I moved to a flat close to the office.
Oh, this is not what I want to talk about this time but the event after this.
The flat which I moved in was a shared one by two other people, had no living room but a small kitchen, a toilet and a shower room. Although my room’s size was spacious – 15㎡ having a double bed, it was weird for me to have meals by myself.
But that doesn’t mean I wanted to eat with the flatmates.
There was one Ukranian guy and one Indian guy. Both graduated universities in Estonia and were working.
The Ukranian was okay. He wasn’t an interesting or fun guy but he wasn’t a bad guy either and he actually kept everything clean. The problem was this Indian one.
It’s not about dirtiness (as the common topic that is raised when it comes to a flatmate issue). When there was a problem or something, he always put (his own reasons and) the cause aside pretending that he was completely innocent and thought that the causes were all lack of communication. If you don’t want to read the followings and skip this and some paragraph beyond and read the next fourth paragraph. In more detail, he always kept 1.5L plastic bottle in the toilet to wash his butt, his “cleaning the toilet” is only to wipe the floor (that is, he didn’t clean the inside of the toilet), used my stuff even though I marked them told him not to do, said that the chopsticks in the dryer basket next to the sink hurt him (I didn’t understand), etc.
But the ultimate thing was that I couldn’t accpet him as a human right after moving in. Imagine, would you be happy when an unknown guy or stranger suddenly said “oh your hair is beautiful”. Creepy. (If you don’t get it then maybe you have never experienced to be hit on by strangers. This is the same thing.) Also my personal space is as small as what the Estonians have – possibly even smaller than theirs.
For this reason I didn’t want to talk with him and he never leant even though I repeated saying something such as not to use my stuff. Such a waste of time.
In addition, while he was in the flat there was always loud sounds of TV, video games and music (I could hear even when I closed the door and sit the furthest position from his room), and after he used the shower room in the morning I hated his spray smell.
Initially I told our flat managers to kick him out, he was one of the causes that I had to stay in the hospital, I gradually felt that it was troublesome to fight again and that this type of self-centred person eventually would be deserted by the societies and people. Then I started looking for a new place. As of Novemeber 2019, my flat manager didn’t have any vacancy in any flats so I also asked one of the teachers at TLU, who contacted her friends. Of ourse I was searching the new one on my own as well. (I checked the websited every day when I was in the hospital.)
Sorry my premise was too long.
Here are finally the main things: there are 3 websites (?) to look for a place to live and the result of my case.
1) City24.ee
First of all, it is a website called City24.ee. I used this website when I was looking for the flat in Estonia while being in Japan. You can change the language but some places lack the information. In such a case I recommend you to change the language into Estonian and use Google translate by copying and pasting the texts written in the website. Mostly it says “only Estonian speakers” or something like that.
If the description says “only Estonian speakers” it is better than “only the Estonians” because it seems there are. Why I used “it seems” is because I just have heard and not experienced. However, if you contact the manager or broker who have described like that and there are no response, just try to think that they just cannot understand English. Don’t say or think that they are racists or something – English is not their mother tongue. If you really want to live in that place, then it is better to make a phone call. In Estonia, it doen’t matter whether the business is toC or toB, normally they don’t reply. (The sad fact for those who have communication disorder 😦 )
2) KV.ee
The next one is KV.ee. I used this website for the first time this time. They have almost the same information as what City24 has but really occasionally they have what City24 doen’t have so it can be your option to check. There is nothing to compare in my opinion and the advice is the same as the above. (I noticed that this website is number one in terms of searching places to live when I got the link.)
3) Facebook
The third thing is not a website but a social media. These days it sees there are a number of people who look for places to live on SNS. It is true that groups like Expats have brokers and flat managers and they posts something to get new tenants, but I personally don’t recommend.
This is becasue the websites are more secure and have higher possiblities that there are actual physical houses or flats, meaning that they mostly don’t lie. (If not, I think that the website stops that company, broker or manager to implement sales there.)
Besides this is not anything about those who want tenants but those who look for places to live, I often see something like “Hi! I’m looking for a place to live! My budget is XX euro! Thanks!”.
Honestly it just looks miserable.
Why do you have such a mentality that “it is natual that people should help me” though you come in other people’s country with your own will?
If the texts were “I’m looking for a place to live! Please let me know if there are any vacant room!”, it is better though. (But I think this kind of people would contact brokers or managers rather than write a post on facebook.) Also I think there is no problem when the brokers or managers say “we are looking for tenants!”.
For those reasons based on my self-judgement and bias, the use of Facebook to look for a place is just one option but not my recommendation. Just consider what is better for you by yourself.
4) Eventually I’m always blessed with good people.
Lastly concerning my new place, as described in this section header, I am really blessed with people in the end even if I have troubles. My flat managers offered me a place in the same district in Tallinn.
Gods.
Saviours.
The flat is located 15 to 20 minutes by walk or 2 bus stops away from the closest stop to the office and has 9 floors, in the middle of which in terms of the height and width they had a shared house.
The house is shared with three people, although the toilet and the shower are in the one room, the kitchen was more spacious having a couter table with three bar stools, has a storage space with many shelves and has my room with a balcony. At that time a German girl, Hong Kong guy and a Lithuanian girl (who I didn’t see) lived there. Since the German girl was leaving, I’ve got an opportunity to move in there. I also talked with the Hong Kong guy, who didn’t seem annoying but nice. They said they lived peacefully. The kitchen and shower room were both clean as well (possible they cleaned because they might have known that I would visit to see there :P)
The rest half of the room was still messy so only the bedding area.
The building itself is beisde the huge road and my room has a balcony but the house was quite away from the road so it is quiet inside. The rent got 10 euro more expensive and my room is a bit smaller but it was actually hard to find negative points.
My flat manager told me that he was too busy to give me the keys for the new flat on the day that I was moving in so he gave them to me in the previous day, helping me carry the stuff by his car. Nevertheless I repreated going there and coming back to the previous flat FOUR times.
Super exhausting.
Also whenever he said he would come to check or fix the stuff in the previous flat, I tried remembering to ask him to take of “stars” on the celing but I always forgot. (I asked my friend when moving in there but he was for sure working at that time as it was Thursday.) Then I asked one of my colleagues to come and take of the “stars”, but
listen, he changed the history.
Whenever I invited my friends I told them the address (the position of hallway and the floor as well) and the door code. They always successfully opened the door and came to my floor. However, my colleague couldn’t enter the door code and instead rang the bell and called me so I opened the hallway door but still he couldn’t get in so I eventually had to go downstairs – from the third floor to the first floor.
AFTER the FOUR round trips. (Though it was really appreciating to come and take off my “stars”.)
Then he helped me taking of another decoration as well as the “stars”.
However!
This is not the end of the story.
★How to Change the Address
When you moved out you old place and moved in your new one, of course you need to change your address. As I moved in the second flat, nonetheless I experienced changing the places in Japan, I completely forgot and the got an email from the Estonian population registry.
Then, how to do?
You can access from State Portal but I put the link here so that you can easily access. The website is called e-population register. There is one thing you should be careful. When it comes to online shopping or asking your family or friends to send something, you may write “StreetName BuildingNumber-(hyphen) FlatNumber, Tallinn, Estonia, Postal Code” (e.g. Jakobsoni 21-4, Tallinn, Estonia, 10120). However, on this registeration, don’t include the flat number (and the postal code). In the case of the example above, type “Jakobsoni 21, Tallinn, Estonia”. (If you start typing, it shows the expectation having the area so no worries about some details. Just start typing the street name.) On the right of the address entry box, you need to type only the flat number. Easy Peasy.
After the entry of all the information, go to the next step, choose the contract type and wait for the approval. (It doesn’t accpet Digi doc files so in case you signed digitally, ask your flat manager their full name and personal ID, enter those, ask them again to approve what you entered and wait for the final approval from the population registry.)
That’s all.
Your Estonian ID card and number are used for the population registry, prescription, family doctor and bank account so once you changed the residential address online and got approved, such information, for instance, the bank account gets the same information so no need to go here and there in the whole town.
I wish Japan would have this system asap.
Surprisingly I haven’t done anything bad so I should be able to get approval. If there’s nothing renewed in this article please consider that I successfully registered my residential address.
zooks.ee 