By now I have passed two exams and achieved the accreditation for work as tier 1 ticketer/troubleshooter for easyJet. We operate things on an outdated DOS program, one of those unforgiving systems which shows green hieroglyphs on a pitch black screen, but never gives you a clue what it expects from you next. Had I known there would be exams and then two systems to handle simultaneously while on the phone, I am not sure I would have mustered the courage, packed and traveled fifteen hours to seize the opportunity. I am not at all sure. I now work in a hall full of boys and girls all chirping into their head sets or running about to obtain info and authority for to deal with disruptions at Tel Aviv Airport, flight passengers carrying chihuahuas in their handbag, payments without booking or bookings without payment, cancellations costing more than the original flight, Siamese twins booking one seat only. More to come. I still have to budget my earnings versus living costs hereabouts and see where I stand, but life seems OK. Except that Swiss authorities dealt me a heavy blow when leaving the country, the tricky bastards almost sank the venture for no reason, I am still suffering. Found a nice apartment anyhow and am very anxious to keep it. Whats more, there is a great demand for German speakers in Poland. So if I leave my dossier with local recruiters I may well find something doubly lucrative, perhaps building more on my specific strengths, whatever they are. Then finally Ill buy that big mid life crisis muscle car to show off my virtues, whatever they were. However I have not yet started to investigate raising alpaca on these lush waiting lands. Thats a future project. The vast countrysides are emptying out, land is up for grabs, the EU farming policies are a totally disruptive disgrace. Not for the people. But for the moment my horizon is still solidly limited by a computer screen. Krakow is trekking ground for herds of tourists. Much as in Africa you sit still in the heat to watch the gnu and wildebeest wander. But it is also a city of students and culture and of exiles escaping the conformism and surveillance of the smaller Polish towns, so the city gets more lively and interesting off the beaten track. Thats where I lurk to watch the girls, after watching them all day at the office. Maybe Ill step up from aficionado to connoisseur, well see. What I miss is first rate Swiss cheese. The stinky kind. What I do not miss, but still am battling, is the Swiss Social Security. The stinky kind. Those fantasizing Herisau brutes have lied to my face and treated me abominably, staging a juridical slapstick like something by the Marx Brothers, albeit without a single laugh. Its hard to decide whether their repeated three page deliberations are wrong, wrongheaded or perhaps deliberately absurd. The latter vastly overrates the famed Appenzell sense of humour, I suppose, but can I be sure? And what to do without a lawyer? I take the reasoning, their very words, turn them around and send them back. The issue has now escalated to the Gemeinderat, who, because its urgent, takes two weeks and a friendly prod from my part just to decide they will answer to a postal address in Switzerland instead of doing things by eMail, readable in Poland. Id love to hit them hard with a pitbull advocate, aha, and then with a stick. They prefer keeping me hostage in Switzerland instead of asking how I finally found a decent job in Poland? London was exceptionally grim. The people are delightful, I adored the work, had fun with my great students and the food is frankly better than in Switzerland. Surprise. But once the day was over it did not help being unable to walk, earning a lecturers hunger wage and having the November rain rot my shoes. I found the city navigable, but strangely unappealing, Brit. Museum, Brit. Library, Globe Theater and all. Is this where I want to sip my tea? Perhaps I will be back to skate the ice rink in the court of Somerset House, certainly to shop books at Foyles and Watermark. But when I picked a book about the citys social history, and London has the absolute dejected worst, then I seriously began seeing ghosts and the city grew dark. But still, first those awful Swiss jobs with those idiot companies either going bankrupt or unwilling to pay salary or loosing their franchise or actually getting shut down by the financial police, then me fighting it out before court without a lawyers representation and winning every single row, then knowing a soul like Simona, then shining at work in London, then having to owe up to my son, finally realizing what the creaking trouble was and getting my back fixed by a surgeon ….. - the fighting succession blew away a shadow, someone who has come close enough to walk with me a year or two. I will never say he was an unwanted guest, just very stern, very discreet, loyal and biding his time and absolutely silent. If you ask him he comes to stay with you. Poland is a yet unread book, I am only turning the first pages. The place doesnt have a Slavic feel, not for me at least, though the population bewilderingly speaks Russian with the heaviest Portuguese accent. And call it Polish. Honestly, should I learn this language? Ill probably fall in love with it. Neither have I met any raving Catholics, they are somewhere about. I meet the good folks of Krakow. The most joyous impression, however, comes from the bunch of Ukrainians and White Russians among my colleagues at work. They are the most urban, chic, amusing and open young people imaginable, they fit in so well, they are gorgeous. Who would have thought so fifteen years back? Give people half a chance and they seize it.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 08:52:49 +0000