Work in the German capital is not lying around – many of our compatriots have become convinced of this.
FOR ANY REFUSAL – DISMISSAL
But here, finally, is the familiar locker room. I was the first. 'Our guys' have already learned to value precious minutes of rest and come to work no earlier than five minutes before it starts. The precisely observed transport schedules allow calculating to the minute the time spent on the journey from home to work. I, however, still leave a 'corporal's gap' of 15-20 minutes – you never know. If you're late, it will be too late to make excuses to the boss. And I don't intend to lose my job over such a trifle as a quarter of an hour of free time. There's never enough of it as it is.
The workday, like the previous one, began with lifting plasterboard sheets. Only this morning we carried twice as many as yesterday. You see, the boss asked us to 'help' his compatriots (the same 'manual laborers' as us) lift the plasterboard to their floor, because they can't keep up. As if we are keeping up! Favoritism thrives here too. Refusing the boss's 'request' implies immediate dismissal. He will, of course, pay for the extra hour of work, but who needs such 'hack work'?! To haul heavy loads from the very morning, and then flutter like a butterfly on ladders all day. Oh well, we're used to it. But the 'Yugos' – the boss's compatriots – came to work exactly when we lifted the last sheet for them. That's what they call help now! The feelings towards them are not pleasant, especially when you catch their condescending gaze. A wild desire arises to arrange a 'little Kosovo in big Berlin' for them.
By the time they arrived, I couldn't feel my hands, feet, or back. What a great start to the workday! We still had to lift the same number of sheets for ourselves. I decided to 'rebel' and sat down on the stairs for a smoke break. The punishment came immediately. In the form of a German Bauleiter, who appeared out of nowhere and silently pointed to a sign with a picture of a smoking cigarette crossed out with a thick red line. Then he uttered some phrase in an extremely displeased voice, from which I only understood 'Arbeiten!', 'Gut', 'Schnell!' and the name of my Yugoslav boss.
Shaking his finger at me, he calmly disappeared back to where he had emerged a minute earlier. The conclusion from his monologue quickly formed even in my brain, not too capable of grasping the mysteries of foreign languages: if I don't work quickly and well, he will report it to my boss. What that threatened me with, there's no need to explain. In that same minute, I was blown off the steps like the wind, and I was already rushing headlong down the stairs, not afraid of smashing my face on the slippery, ice-like steps. And where did the fatigue go?! Such a powerful doping was not even dreamed of by Olympic champions. And it leaves no traces in the body. I recommend it!
The fear that the German would report my misdeed to the 'Yugo' spurred my tormented body until the evening. Now I understood the true meaning of Tikhy's words when he spoke about the need to constantly 'create movement.' Whether you have work or you've done everything long ago but no new orders from the boss have come – you still have to move, simulate work. That is, just stand and wave your hands with a tool clutched in them; carry the same plasterboard from one room to another and then back; climb up and down the ladder, taking God knows what measurements, etc. In short, do whatever your soul desires and your imagination is capable of. As long as it looks plausible. And when the boss asks about the expediency of your movements, you can always put on an idiotic expression and report your sincere intentions to do better, just so as not to stand idle. And casually add that you don't intend to get paid for nothing.
A couple of such tricks are enough – and from then on, the boss will load you with work so much that you won't be happy. But at least you can hope that the boss will form a favorable opinion of you, and non-payment of wages for a day due to a five-minute downtime will be excluded. Such 'fines' are far from rare. The sudden appearance at work during a smoke break saves the boss from 90 to 120 marks in the form of the daily earnings withheld from the 'smoker,' and all bosses, especially the 'Yugos,' use this method very willingly.
Our 'Yugo' was no exception to the rule, and on that day he paid us three unexpected visits, the last one five minutes before the end of the workday. And this despite the fact that he has several sites like ours. He gets everywhere, the bastard! But we behaved properly. Exactly at 20:00, the signal on Tikhy's 'Orient' beeped, and only then did we start gathering our tools, packing them into plastic bags to later hide them from prying eyes. On construction sites where Yugoslavs and Poles work (i.e., on all construction sites), theft thrives. You turn away for a moment, and something gets stolen. It's okay if it's a small thing like a plasterboard knife – it costs pennies (from one and a half to thirty marks) and I always have a spare with me, but what if it's something more serious? For example, a staple gun for 70-80 marks, or worse – an electric screwdriver. A good professional 'shraubitsa' (from the German 'Schraube' – 'screw', but in the Yugoslav variant) from 'Makita' costs up to 700 marks. You won't be able to pay it off. And the thief will 'sell' it at the Turkish market for about 200 marks, without even thinking about your dire financial situation.
As a result, we hide the tools so well that we can't find them ourselves later. Some do it differently: they buy tools with their own hard-earned money and then carry them with them constantly, even to the toilet. That's a good option, but it only suits those whose professional activities involve small-sized tools. For example, a plasterer – he can carry his staple gun in his pocket (if the pocket is big), and spatulas in a bag, they weigh little. But a 'shraubitsa' weighing one and a half to two kilograms with three meters of cable is not something you want to carry back and forth, especially after hard work. Your hands are already like a monkey's from this plaster, and now you have to carry this 'training' weight in your hands. Every gram counts, let alone kilograms.
During his second 'inspection,' the boss caught me trimming excess plaster around the door frames leading to future offices. The knife was duller than a Siberian felt boot, my entire stock of swear words and their most incredible combinations directed at the manufacturers of plaster and replacement blades for knives was exhausted, and I was frantically wielding the knife, more gnawing than cutting the damned plaster. The boss flew into our floor like a Hudson hawk, and, drilling me with his gaze, asked: 'Cutting doors?!' (like 'trimming doors?') I didn't yield to him in the intensity of pupil drilling, having decided for myself that the German had indeed 'turned me in' to the 'Yugo,' and I had nothing to lose. But, to my surprise, his gaze suddenly warmed, and he patted me on the shoulder in a friendly manner. Maybe that's how they test newcomers for psychological stability? Like, if you have sins, you'll slip up.
My unperturbed answer, 'I'm cutting your doors, I'm cutting!' finally dispelled all his suspicions, and he even paid me for the previous day. Apparently, the frenzy with which I 'gnawed the doors,' which he took for diligence, played its role.
First paycheck! My joy knew no bounds – almost 90 Deutschmarks for a day's work! For that kind of money at home, I would have had to work at least ten days. Maybe not as intensely, but still! At that moment, I didn't yet realize that I had already spent eight marks on transport that day, minus food, cigarettes... If I'm lucky, maybe 60 marks will remain from this money – if I have steady work. Otherwise, even 30 marks 'net' per day would be good. And they become completely 'net' at home when my family receives them – subtract another couple of marks for postage. Total – a quarter per day. Not much. But not nothing either. At home, I wouldn't have earned that kind of money anyway. So I've been existing to this day – whatever I earn, I send home, and there it disappears as if into an abyss. In almost a whole year, I've only managed to save a thousand marks 'for a rainy day.' Winter is ahead, and that rainy day will come very soon. Most likely, I'll have to spend this winter at home, in Ukraine. Living expenses are lower there, and there will be no work here in winter anyway, no matter how much you look.
But I digress. So, I'm standing, dreaming of fabulous earnings in 'holy' Germany. Completely relaxed. But I wasn't allowed to 'fly' too high – the boss roared right in my ear: 'Cut the doors!' All the nonsense was knocked out of my head in an instant. And the knife suddenly became so sharp! The plaster began to fly out from under it like shavings from a lathe! That's what the fear of losing a job does. You'll gnaw this plaster with your teeth, just to get paid. So I 'cut the doors' until the evening, until the boss showed up for his third 'personnel inspection.' He counted the doors I had processed that day, twirled my knife in his hands, and, with a heavy sigh, handed me a whole pack of new blades. With such an expression as if he had pinned a medal on my chest, and I should be grateful to him for the rest of my life. Dream on! Now I buy these blades myself. They cost five marks, last a week, but at least I don't have to humiliate myself before the boss, begging for what is rightfully mine. My nerves are worth more.
That day I returned home in a completely different mood than yesterday. After all, the first paycheck! The Germans on the transport no longer paid any attention to me – thanks to the bag for clothes and water for washing I had brought with me. And the TV tower at 'Alex' (Alexanderplatz) flashes its 'clearance lights' in the night sky, reminding planes of its height, and everything is wonderful. Oh, life is good! It's just that I don't quite fit into all this, clearly aware of my second-class status in this beautiful but hostile world. With these gloomy thoughts, I fell asleep – working at such a pace was still unusual for me. This time I was luckier, and I woke up just before my stop. This internal alarm clock still works, thanks to which I'm not afraid of missing my stop and calmly fall asleep on the way home, getting off the S-Bahn already slightly rested.
The evening passed in a festive atmosphere. We 'christened' the first paycheck. We went to bed late, after midnight, fully relying on the 'conscience' of the now non-virtual radio-controlled alarm clock. A very useful gadget: several times a day, such an alarm clock automatically synchronizes time with some central station (or with time signals, I don't know exactly), so it's almost impossible to be late for work because of it. Unless the batteries die. And it beeps quite annoyingly – it would wake the dead. True, it's not cheap – from thirty marks and up, but what are thirty marks compared to a job lost due to being late?
DAY THREE AND LAST
The boss was already waiting for us to deliver the most unpleasant news for me: today we must finish work on this site at all costs, and tomorrow he is transferring all his subordinates to another construction site. There is no place for me there. Not even Tikhy's assurances, who was considered a great specialist by the 'Yugo,' that I work excellently and grasp everything on the fly, helped. The boss advised me to first 'grasp everything' and then come to him about work. Maybe then there will be a place for me.
But where am I supposed to 'grasp' all this? In the computer game 'Kill the Plasterboard Installer'? I even offered to work for him for free for a week or two as an apprentice, but he flatly refused, justifying his refusal by saying that during my training I would constantly distract the 'specialists' from work, and that would cost him more than my free labor. For him, deadlines are important now, not the incubation of professionals. If he doesn't finish that site on time, the penalty will be more than my annual salary. No means no. It was time to start working.
I remembered the first day when I didn't even want 20 marks for half an hour. Now I would have agreed to five per hour. What can I say, I had just offered the 'Yugo' free work. Not needed – and that's that! True, in the evening, when he paid me for the remaining two days, he gave me his business card – call, he said, if anything. 'So he did take a liking to you after all,' Tikhy said about it. 'Others have to beg for his business card.' A weak consolation, but still. By the way, I later worked with this 'Yugo' more than once. He turned out to be a pretty decent guy. Never cheated me, unlike others.
By lunchtime, we had finished the rework, and during the lunch break, Tikhy led me somewhere to the upper floor. On the way, he told me to walk as quietly as possible and keep silent. I didn't understand anything, but I had long learned the rule 'Trust the professionals!' Quietly, like partisans, we passed by the room where the 'Yugos' – the boss's compatriots – were having lunch to music, and entered the next one. Tikhy pointed to a lightweight aluminum ladder that had disappeared from our floor on the first day, replaced by a heavy wooden one, all loose at the joints. It was scary to climb it myself, let alone with plaster in my hands – it wobbled so much. Then Tikhy pointed to a construction wheelbarrow standing next to the ladder and gestured for me to take it with us. 'An eye for an eye,' so to speak. I completely agreed with the revenge plan, remembering the trembling in my knees that occurred every time I climbed the wobbly ladder to the ceiling, afraid of dropping both the plaster and myself along with Tikhy. Just as quietly, we carried the wheelbarrow out of the room on our hands and moved it to our floor.
My indignation at the 'Yugos'' audacity knew no bounds. To which Tikhy calmly remarked that this was nothing. Par for the course. Normal! If you don't get used to it, you'll eat yourself up from the inside to the delight of the 'Yugos.' Moreover, they won't get anything for such things, but if they complain to their fellow countryman boss, you could be asked to leave. But for that, they need to catch us red-handed, and we're not born yesterday either. And this wheelbarrow we just 'swiped' is no different from the others on this construction site. Go ahead, prove it was our doing! All complaints to the Bauleiter, Bitte! In front of him, we are all equal, both us 'illegals' and them. In a word – Auslandische Scheisse (translation is unethical).
After lunch, a new saga began – we had to clean the entire floor (about 50 meters long) of leftover plasterboard and sweep it clean by evening. 'Leftovers' are pieces from truly unnecessary ones up to half a sheet. All this is broken and thrown into a huge special container. I counted a total of up to fifty half-sheets of plaster. That's 25 whole sheets at 20 marks each. The vaunted German economy...
The wheelbarrow needs to be loaded 'three stories high,' building up its sides with large pieces of plaster. The trimmings should be stacked tightly, not dumped haphazardly. The result is something very heavy, and after a few hours of handling the wheelbarrow, your arms stretch almost to your knees. At least, that's how you feel. Have you seen a gibbon in the zoo? That's exactly how you'll look at the end of the workday. This wheelbarrow has only one wheel, so at least half of the total weight falls on your arms. Steering it is also a pleasure. On turns, it tends to run into something new and shiny, like the glass railing of a stairwell. And when it tips over, you need to jump aside in time, otherwise all your male pride will be smeared across its support legs. On top of everything, you'll inevitably bury your nose in the pile of trash you just dumped due to losing balance from the impact of the wheelbarrow when it rolls back half a meter. Experience in handling comes only after realizing that the money earned will never be enough to restore the most important part of your body.
Let me tell you a funny story that happened to me that day. I was taking out another wheelbarrow of trash. Approaching the freight elevator (thank God we didn't have to carry the wheelbarrow on our backs!), and seeing that it was occupied on the first floor, I decided not to wait for it to become free and pressed the call button for the regular elevator. Just the day before, we had taken it up to work. Its interior walls were then covered with special material to prevent damage to its expensive cladding during construction work. Even its control panel was covered with thick transparent film to avoid scratching the buttons.
But on that day, the elevator gleamed with polished stainless steel panels, from which the protective covering had been removed. On its inside hung a sign with large red letters and an exclamation mark. Paying no attention to any of this, I boldly rolled into the elevator, trying not to touch anything. As usual, I pressed the 'EG' button ('Erdgeschoss' – first floor in our terms) and rode down. How was I supposed to know that this building is on two levels, and the 'EG' of the passenger elevator and the 'EG' of the freight elevator are completely different things? And that the part of the building where the passenger elevator stops at the bottom had been put into operation since yesterday evening?
The elevator doors opened. And what do I see?! Oh, horror! In front of me is the lobby of either a hotel or some business center. Black marble floor, a black carpet runner from the elevator to the entrance doors, behind the counter – some guy in a black suit. But most importantly – the entire lobby is packed with Japanese people, all of them, as one, in black trousers and white shirts with black ties. The 'palefaces,' who had been chattering animatedly, fell silent at the sight of me. Just in case, I shook my head, hoping to explain this vision as overwork, a hallucination. It didn't help. Well, since that's the case – 'Banzai!' – and I confidently moved the wheelbarrow into the thick of the Japanese. Should we be afraid of them?! It smelled of Khalkhin Gol...
The guy behind the counter was simply stunned by my audacity. Naive! This is not audacity, but fatigue – I was sick to death of this wheelbarrow, and since I had come down, you might as well open the doors! He only had enough strength to follow me with square eyes to the door. He couldn't even lift his jaw, which had dropped disgracefully. The Japanese behaved more courageously – without showing a shadow of emotion on their marble faces, they silently parted, perfectly understanding that a collision with my wheelbarrow promised nothing good. For some reason, I felt like a kamikaze. On the black carpet, a trail of white marks from the wheelbarrow wheel and my shoes stretched behind me. The entrance doors of the lobby automatically opened, and I sped up.
Instead of steps from the doors to the sidewalk, there was a gentle slope, and the heavy wheelbarrow pulled me along, gaining speed. It took enormous effort to stop it right next to the bumper of a brand-new BMW. The Japanese watched me with interest through the glass doors of the lobby. 'No, guys! There will be no show!' I hissed, just like a hero from a Soviet war movie pulling the pin from a grenade. Gathering all the strength I had left, I lifted the wheelbarrow off the ground and, purely intuitively, turned right. I wasn't mistaken – fifty meters away was the very entrance through which I had been getting into this damned construction site for three days.
Driving straight onto the road, weaving among cars and snapping back at the sounds of horns like a cornered beast at the cries of hunters, I almost ran towards the saving gate. I fully realized what I had gotten into only on my floor. But the deed was done. Then the German Bauleiter came running, shouting something in his enemy language (they figured me out quickly!), and someone of a lower rank even tried to utter Russian swear words, but I didn't care anymore. Tomorrow I won't be here. The main thing is to hold out until evening, until payday. Or reckoning?...
Holding out until evening turned out to be quite difficult. The 'Yugos' from the upper floor received a similar task – to remove trash from their area. I don't know what happened there, but from above, a heated argument was clearly audible, and in the hard-to-pronounce phrases, the word 'chariot' (wheelbarrow) constantly appeared. It seems they have some problem with wheelbarrows. And then, as luck would have it, another boss of an even lower rank came running and also started teaching me a lesson in a raised voice. It got to the point where he led me to the elevators and, pointing at the passenger one, repeated the word 'Nicht!' about ten times. He was almost foaming at the mouth – he was so agitated, poor thing. Probably, they got an earful for my 'kamikaze feat.'
The 'Yugos' from above, hearing all this commotion, came down to our floor, saw 'their' wheelbarrow and... No, I didn't give them the wheelbarrow. A scuffle was brewing. The German – the little boss – slipped away from sin at that very moment, instead of restoring justice. Only Tikhy and the Germans working on our floor separated us. After all the previous events, I had finally 'lost my cool' and decided to stand my ground. My determination slightly sobered the 'Yugos,' and they backed off. Look at them, used to getting away with everything, while they push us around like cattle! But we are also to blame – we agree to any conditions for money. And I had something to lose – two days' wages. That's all.
They hovered around me for a while, hoping to take the wheelbarrow while I was collecting plaster in other rooms. But since I held onto it with a death grip and didn't step away from it, they went back empty-handed. Never mind, they'll steal another one somewhere; it's not their first time. And I continued my journeys along the route 'seventh floor – container.' Once I managed to tip over a fully loaded wheelbarrow right in the middle of a narrow wooden walkway that served as a road to the containers, causing a traffic jam of other similar chariots that were approaching the containers one after another. A crunch is a crunch, and site cleanup was in full swing throughout the construction site. I heard curses in so many languages while clearing the passage, even Russian ones. Only German ones I don't recall. It's not a gentleman's job to haul trash!
My third (and last on this site) workday was coming to an end. I had already removed all the trash. Tikhy finished sweeping the last office. The 'Yugos,' already changed into clean clothes, came down to our floor and sat on the windowsills, not at all embarrassed by the thick layer of dust on them. Everyone was waiting for the boss. It was Saturday, the last working day of the week. On Saturdays, it's allowed to finish work 5-10 minutes early. 'Wochenende' (weekend) after all. For such a holiday, the 'Yugos' didn't even glare at me as fiercely, hoping for revenge. Unfortunate! They didn't even suspect that we were seeing each other for the last time. The boss came exactly at eight, quickly paid his compatriots, and addressed me with a lengthy speech about the dangers of smoking (the German did 'turn me in' after all) and the danger I had exposed the Sons of the Land of the Rising Sun to. All this was translated by Tikhy, who spoke Yugoslav better than I spoke Russian. 'Well,' I thought, 'there go my money!' But no – after about five minutes, the boss decided that I had had enough lectures and, to my greatest surprise, handed me a stack of twenty-mark bills and even four iron marks. He paid me to the last penny. Lucky, they say – 'beginners are lucky.' I was among them.
And so ended my labor initiation. I never saw Tikhy again – a week after our parting, he 'threw out' his back and barely managed to go home for treatment. At the site where the boss transferred him and where there was no place for me then, there was a crazy rush. They worked 14-15 hours a day for a whole week – that's how Tikhy overstrained himself. I learned about this from his partner, with whom I happened to work a couple of months later for the same boss.
By that time, I had become almost an 'ace in plaster,' and the boss often called me, offering work. True, one-off, for two or three days. But I was glad for that too – work here is not lying around. And if it's offered, you need to agree immediately, of course, if the person offering the work pays steadily. Hesitate for a moment – and before you blink, they'll hang up on the other end. Every boss has a whole book of phone numbers like yours. And after your first refusal, your number is crossed out (or erased from the mobile phone memory – that's forever), unless you are a high-class professional.
Well, that's all. Now you know how to become an illegal. And most importantly – how to remain one, that is, to stay afloat in this nightmare swamp and not go crazy. As they say, 'Work, work, and once again work!' However, luck won't hurt you either. Only that way!
Also read related material: THREE DAYS IN THE LIFE OF A BERLIN ILLEGAL -1
Andrey Yevdokimov.
Special for 'Zagranitsa'.