First week of class

New Dutch class!  Gone is the pint-sized Armenian in tall shiny leather boots, the crazy-eyed Romanian advising me to try killing pigs for a living, and the teacher yelling at us for making mistakes.  (I am sad to say the crazy-eyed Romanian did not pass the course, though the good news is that now you can move here during the summer and take the class with him yourself next Fall!  Go for it!)

Nope, new class, new school, new town.

My old class was a twenty minute bike ride away and in the evenings, but now since I don’t get home from work until ten o’clock, I had to find something else.  That something is a morning class in Lier, a larger town just up the rail-line, then continue up a little further to Antwerp for work.

By the end, the old class was 14 (or 16) people and 9 (or 11) nationalities (depending on if you count the Russian and Latvian guys who dropped out at the very end).  So far the new class is 12 people and 11 or 12 nationalities, since one guy from Chechnya sometimes says Russia while the other never has in his life and never will.  I hope I never jokingly say anything pro-Moscow in front of him or he will crush me like a bug.  The dude if frickin huge.  His massive wool coat somehow spans the Chechnyan Steppes of his shoulders, left dozens of naked sheep, and on me would hang down to the knees like a pea coat.  I picture him at dinner with a large plate piled with sausages, taking whole boiled potatoes out of a bucket on the floor next to him, and drinking vodka from what can only be described as a goblet.  He has the mannerisms of a criminal underworld player and the face of the cute little boy down the block who you could tell your mom kind of thought of as another son.

Poland, Armenia, Cuba, and Russia still have delegates to my Dutch learning experience, but Congo, India, Romania, Latvia, and Puerto Rico have lost their seats to Albania, Thailand, Iraq, Syria, Macedonia, and China.

So the more urban environment of the larger town has a heavier Middle Eastern quotient than the more rural town of before; this is also reflected by the people on the street.  During the mid-class break conversation is mostly in Arabic, though Russian is a close second, and I think that is Farsi in the hallway.

The classes are held in a somewhat decrepit old schoolhouse, raw plaster patches, buckled tiles, and hanging wires, but it is warm and dry.  Small vents and decorative lines on the building opposite make little faces that smile at me across a brick courtyard sectioned off by yellow caution tape, a little bicycle rack in one corner,  and a few cars parked with the obstinate inefficiency that always results when there are no marked spaces.  Battered lines of past soccer fields show up here and there, and stains mark areas that hold continuous puddles for most of the year.

Half of the building is devoted to adult education classes, just Dutch during the day, while the other half is general education for children who have emigrated here, and are learning Dutch in addition to normal schooling.  The men’s bathroom is downstairs, out of the building, and across foyer named after somebody where stacks of lumber and building material await workmen, and through a fractured cafeteria space where a handful of mid-teens were having class Friday morning, one fellow banging on the table and shouting “Meneer!  Meneer!  Finito!”  That is: “Sir!  Sir!”(Dutch)  “Finished!” (Italian).  The kid was middle eastern.  The teacher ignored him with the resolute ease of someone used to this dynamic.

My classroom is long and tired.  Mismatched shelves stand self-consciously in the back, empty except for an inexplicable dusty gnome.  Behind them is a tinny ladder, and in the corner is a chaos of stacked chairs.

On the desk I generally sit at are written “Fuck a duck and try to fly” and “You’re all mother fucking huslers.” (sic)  This reminds me of the other school, where I took my first class, where one of the dictionaries stacked in the corner proclaimed “SEX” in blue ink capital letters.  Actually, these notes remind me of basically every classroom I have ever been in.

First week at work

I am a liar.  I am being rewarded for it at work and I don’t think I am going to stop any time soon.  I only feel about 15% sorry about it.

See cuz I work as a researcher in the medical field now (can you tell I am presenting it in the best possible light?) I call US doctors and administrators all evening.  For the first half of the week I was a professional young American, who earnestly wanted to talk to you and get your professional opinion.

That got me just one step past nowhere.

So I became Scottish.  Now people sometimes call me Sir, and secretaries in Florida, Ohio, Washington, Connecticut, and Oregon gave me the direct number to their office to call back tomorrow after they spend today trying to get one of their oncologists to make an appointment with me.

Cheers, oi do apershiate yer help, ye have a grreat day.

All in all the job is actually more fun than I was preparing myself for (even in addition to the fact that I get to play Scotsman).  The other researchers come from all over the world and have varied stories, although a heavy majority are in Belgium for a spouse or partner.  I have Kenya on one side and Australia on the other, although I think he left because as of yesterday it is China.  Behind me are a couple Portugals, one Philippines, Ghana, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Malaysia, and an actual Belgian.

The doctors in the US are known as among the hardest to get in touch with, and the second rudest, following only the UK, although I have found that for the most part they are brusquely polite when they tell you to go away.  The rudest hospital I have yet encountered was in Defiance, Ohio.  According to trusty Wikipedia, the town was founded by General “Mad” Anthony Wayne, has a population of about 17,000, and is almost 90% white.  They are so far the only people to just hang up after a few words of my introduction, and I have to wonder about the psychological effects of living in a town called Defiance.  It’s a very strong word.  And they were very lame people.

(If anyone from Defiance ever reads this and you are in fact not lame, please let me know, I would love to be corrected.)

Let’s see…  The only other moment that stands out from the calls this week was when a voice recognition program (I can’t believe these are still used, they just don’t work well enough) picked up on the background noise in the office as my request and sent me to the Proctology Department.

So I basically enjoy the job, do not dread going in to work at all, and would say several of my colleagues are friends already.  And the lack of windows makes sense, because looking at a clock set to Eastern Standard Time and having no window to remind me it is actually 8:00 PM, I keep referring to my dinner break as lunch, but when I leave I am so tired it makes perfect sense that it is basically bedtime.

Unfortunately the office I work in has poor ventilation, + two researchers who came in coughing on Monday = approximately 90% of the office sick by Friday.  Thursday night was not so much sleep as an interminable series of trips to pee (I swear I didn’t drink THAT much tea), sweating, and rather amazing temperature fluctuations.  So I’m gonna take this bundle of body aches and go sit on the couch with a book.  And look, it’s a rainy day!  Wull tha’s jus lovlay.

Coming home from work

It’s raining tonight.

It’s usually raining here.  Especially at night.

I like the rain.

On the train everyone has their own something to read.  We sit looking down at our laps.  We don’t look at each other.  Someone left their broken umbrella, open, in the exit doors.  Every other disembarker nearly trips over it.  None of us pick it up.  I want music as I bicycle home.  Metallica is not right.  The Supremes are not right.  Shuffle guesses “Andare” by somebody whose name is probably Ludovico Einaudi.  It was a free download.  It’s piano and pretty.

It’s still raining.

The girl in front of me rides her bike with her red umbrella open.  She disappears when I’m not looking.  I pass the school where I took my first Dutch class.  That was fun.  Nice people.  I can’t continue with them because of my new job.  I’ll miss them.  Someone in the line of cars honks, and I consider the idea that someone knew me.  It’s unlikely.

I listen to the same song a second time, not wanting to risk a wrong next one.

I feel like I am riding fast, and wonder if I have the wind with me.

Today was the second day of my new call center job.  Still training, normalcy starts Monday at 14:00.  It is totally different from and resembles my last job.  I made my first call today.  To Saint Anthony’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado where Kathy was very friendly and gave me a different number to call.  My brain produced endorphins.  I hypothesize that it was like the first time I jumped off the high dive at Eagle Pool, 10 years old I think.  I’m not sure yet how I feel about it…but I want to do it again.  I think I could get good at it.  Swan dive?  I think I am the only one of the new people who tried it.

I listen to Ludovico’s song a third time.

I pass the house on the corner that just had a new baby.  They hang baby clothes and a banner outside, which says the name is Nieke.  I am guessing that’s a girl.  I wonder if she’ll go any of the places I’ve been.  And how they’ll be different.  I wonder if I will ever do any of the things she will.  I wonder where we’ll be on each other’s 40^th birthday.  I’ll be 70 at hers.  Will I be 70 at hers?

The third time through the song ends as I pull up to the garage we share with the other tenants, who fill it with bags of recycling and a baby carriage, and which smells like my rusty first car when it’s damp.

I turn the music off.

Well...I found something.

That didn't last long.  About 6 minutes after posting that last one, the temporary agency called and said it would be okay if I worked just 14:00 to 20:00, and I took it.

So if I never blog again, it's because a Call Center has eaten my soul.

And I stiiilll haven't founnnd...what I'm looking fooor.

I had a job interview tonight.  Well not an interview, an “info session.”  Just like it wasn’t another bloomin’ Call Center it is a “strategic impact consulting” company.  Blech.  Spending all day in a cubicle, annoying people over the phone…is a call center.

I got to the dingy mixed business-residential district outside of Antwerp super early, and inside the building it was a mutant cross-breed between a traditional hellish office and a modern Google-inspired “workspace” but straying far closer to the former than the latter.

They put me in a room to wait, plasticky whitewashed walls with the rectangles of unevenly settling cinderblocks clearly showing through.  A big bookshelf loaded with books on marketing, sales, and all the assorted weird shit businesses talk about.  The only window was a porthole into the central office.  This turned out to be the design for the whole place, only interior windows and white cinderblock walls.  I kept thinking we were underground, but the funny (that is, horrendous) thing is: we weren’t!  There was no valid reason to have no windows beyond the sadistic design tendencies of capitalism.  The same people who gave us midlife crises, nervous breakdowns, and the term “human resources.”

Anyway, I was sitting in the little room, kinda digging the place still, and my first co-interviewee came in.  Turns out he’s from Portugal, and was told the job is in Portuguese.  Then the third guy showed up and he’s Chinese, expecting a job in Mandarin.  The fourth guy is from Valencia, and is expecting Spanish.

The interview was supposed to start at 16:00, but they left us in there until 17:00.  We were discussing half-jokingly the possibility that this was the interview, hidden cameras seeing how we interacted with each other.  Did I say half joking?  Make that 10% joking.

Eventually they did come claim us and we were taken to the conference room, past the call center area, rows of undecorated shared cubicles facing each other with blank-faced automatons looking at us walk by exactly like zoo animals.  I expected them to snarl, beg for food, or possibly fling their feces at us as we passed.  Or maybe just mouth “Run!  Save yourself!  Take me with you!”

Over the course of our short chat with the company lady I came to the belief that this company is chronically understaffed, by policy (bad idea, I’ll never understand that) and by a relentless habit on the part of their employees to flee.  (Oh, and it turns out Juan is a lawyer!  From lawyer to Call Center Jockey…I want to know his story!)

My co-interviewees were all cool guys, and I enjoyed chatting with them.  Wang (not either of the Iberians, in case you hadn’t guessed) drove me and Juan (Wang and Juan…the cultural linguist in me was positively titillated) to the train station where I thoroughly enjoyed watching the ebb and flow of humanity as it is uniquely visible in European train stations.

Middle aged women with headphones stuffed in their ears.  Frumpy businessmen looking intensely annoyed whenever they are forced to interact with others in any way.  Greetings and farewells among friends and coworkers, and the differences between them.  Warm scarves, fogging breath, and of course a waffle shop in the hallway smelling fantastic.

It was an interesting experience, but taking the job would mean giving up Dutch lessons (as well as exercising, or having any social or romantic life outside of the weekends) since the hours are from 14:00 to 22:00, and that is too high a price to pay for a shitty minimum wage job.  I think.  Right?  Are my expectations too high?  Shit.

Kan ik in Nederlands schrijven?

I think I'll give Dutch a try tonight...

Vanavond wil ik in het Nederlands schrijven.  Ik ben zeker dat ik veel fouten ga maken, maar dat is hopelijk geen probleem voor jullie.  Maar ik heb een probleem dat ik wil met jullie moeten overpraten.  (Ik ben ook curious als mijn Nederlands is beter dan de programmas!)

Ik wil Nederlands leren.  Maar ik moet ook werken, eigenlijk wil ik ook werken.

Voor de eerste.  Ik volg nu een cursus twee keer per week, en het gaat heel goed…maar een beetje traag.  Okay, heel traag.  In de les, denk ik dat ik Nederlands kan leren, maar na de les…alleen weinige minuten luisteren naar andere Belgische mensen en ik ben heel… frustrated and intimidated.

Nu, het tweede probleem, over het werk, ben ik ook soms frustrated and intimidated omdat ik geen werk kan vinden omdat ik geen Nederlands spreek.

Vandaag was de eerste dag in een change in dit situatie, maar ik weet nog niet hoe.

Vanavond ben ik naar Berchem voor een sollicitatie gegaan.  Het was voor een bedrijf dat zoekt mensen die Engels spreken.  Dat ben ik!  De vrouw heeft aan me gezegd dat weinig “native speakers” in het Engels hebben, en dat zij meer willen hebben.  Goed nieuws, nee?

Maar het werk is naar Amerika opbellen, dus moet ik van 14:00 tot 22:00 werken.  Dus zou ik mijn Nederlandse les niet meer kunnen volgen.

Maar vanavond heb ik ook mijn finale oral examen gedaan.  Mijn lerares heeft over mijn sollicitatie gevraagd, en heeft gezegd dat er een andere les in Mechelen is, van 9:00 tot 12:00.  Vier keer per week.

7:20 – 8:00  Fietsen naar Heist o/d Berg station

8:00 – 9:00 Trein naar Mechelen

9:00 – 12:00 Les

Zoek iets te eten.

13:00 – 13:30  Trein naar Berchem

13:30 - 14:00  Wandelen naar werk

14:00 – 22:00  Werken

22:30 – 23:00  Trein naar Heist-op-den-Berg

23:00 – 23:30  Fietsen naar huis

0:00 slapen tot misschien 6:20.

Ik ben zeker dat heel veel mensen voor mij hebben een schedule zo…maar ik wil het niet doen!  Ik wil naar de fitnes!  Ik wil lezen, relaxen, een meest belangrijk, mijn vriendin zien!

Als het een goede werk was, misschien wou ik het doen, maar het is een “Call Center.”  Zij betalen alleen tien euro per uur, voor taxes, dus misschien acht euro per uur, mijn leven te geven!

Amai.

Wat kan ik doen?

Ik denk dat ik ga vragen als het possible is part time te werken.  Ik denk dat het is niet possible is omdat er twee bedrijven zijn, en de bedrijven zijn altijd heel inflexible, especially met bullshit entry-level jobs like this one.

Dus.  Ik kan daar werken, en in de dagen andere werk zoeken, en volgen geen Nederlandse lessen.

Of ik kan continue as I have been, met mijn traag lessen, en het werk aan het zoeken.

Of.

Ik kan de intensief Nederlandse les in Mechelen volgen en werk zoeken, maar het gaat heel moeilijker werk te vinden zijn met les vier dagen elke week, maar ik wou veel sneller Nederlands leren, en er zijn veel andere interim kantoren, inclusief een vlakbij dat aan mee heeft gezegd dat zij veel werk in het Engels kunnen gaan hebben.

Okay!  Dank jullie wel!  Ik denk dat ik heb decided.  Nu moet ik alleen met de interim kantoor praten over de possibility of working part-time, and then get ready for some serious Dutch learning!

(Some assistance and correction provided by ons Katrientje.)

First Day at Work, Part 2

I’ll have to keep this short because it hurts to type.  Okay, it’s not that bad, but the ends of my fingers have some sort of heat bruise; they ache when I push on anything or when I get them warm…I am a far less effective dish washer today than normal.  The first hour and a half of my first shift as an industrial cleaner were kind of fun.  We swept out the floor of the massive factory room, heaving desks out of the way and aiming pressurized air jets at hard to reach places.  A quick break with the rest of my eclectically international cleaner crew, then the fun was over.

The factory makes foam car seats and who-knows-what-else (I saw no sign of paint production…makes me wonder about a temp agency that doesn’t know the work they are assigning) and they use large metal molds, which hang on a sort of giant nightmarish enclosed conveyor belt, and slide by continuously, emanating heat; I think the guy said they are about 160 C.  They were covered in oily wax that we were to lean over and wipe off.

We wore heat resistant gloves and arm sleeves that reeked of chemicals unknowable and sweat immeasurable.  By the end my shirt was soaked, and I am going to be somewhat embarrassed to return my borrowed steel-toe boots (and am deliberately not wondering how many sweaty feet wore them before me).

We used endless strips of stretchy nylon fabric that looked like someone shredded the world’s largest pair of stockings, which is kind of sad because I’m sure some Midwestern town would have been proud to have them in a roadside museum.  The guys who actually work there used the air jets in the crevices, and we scrubbed, for six hours, at the searing metal.  I escaped any bad burns, but I do have a decent sized red welt on my right forearm from one brief lapse of concentration.

There were six of us cleaners, Daniel the regular, who has done this often enough to be our de factor supervisor, a quiet Belgian kid whose pants were falling down to show us his technocolor skivvies, two Turkish dudes who talked more than cleaned, me, and a guy who looked kind of like Dave Chapelle, only super shy.  I of course gravitated to the last dude, though I never did learn his name or what country he was from since our discourse was barely audible and mutually incomprehensible.

One of the Turks left at the meal break, saying it was too hot and unpleasant for him.  His giving in made me feel tough, like I made it through to the second round of the world’s most boring reality TV show.  I was next to the other Turk for awhile, but his uselessness got pretty annoying after a few hours (he just kept wiping the broad already clean zones, not understanding that we had to dig out the crevices), so I moved to the end next to Dave Chapelle, where I thought about how if I didn’t get my arm out of the mold before it moved under the wall the machine would rip it right off.

For at least the second half of the six hours of nonstop sweltering metal I thought we were surely almost done, which made it more bearable.  I don’t know how anyone does that on a regular basis, knowing from the beginning what is in store.  Especially when the normal shift is Friday night from 11:00 PM to around 7:00 AM.  I am looking for work, but praise every kind soul in the cosmos that I am not yet so hard up as to need to trade my entire weekend’s energy for fifty euro and eight hours of scrubbing scorching metal molds.

So a toast to all the industrial cleaners out there!  You make the making of our junk possible, bless your dehydrated hearts.

First Day at Work, Part 1

One sharply cold night I was talking about finding work with my Romanian classmate, Traian, who looks kind of like a Lego version of Tom Cruise but with burning-crazy eyes.  He assured me:

Traian:  Yes, you can find work here in Belgie.

Me:  Yeah, I hope so, it’s just kind of hard to find sometimes.

Traian: Yes, something.

(thoughtful pause)

Traian:  You can kill pigs.

Me:  What?!

Traian:  Serious.  When I first come here this is my job, I work in….abattoir.  All day I cutting pigs (makes thumb across the throat gesture, staring at me with those caffeinated eyes).

Me: (nodding)

So suffice to say, for awhile there I was feeling somewhat discouraged about work, as one temp agency after another said “yeah…we’ll uh, call you if something comes up.”

I passed up a job in a call center that would have entailed over four hours of commute a day to sit in a cubicle and ask Brits if their printers were working, but I was starting to have second thoughts, despite the pocket change pay rate.

But yesterday’s round of temp agencies was more fruitful.  I have a job today!  Just today, but it’s something.  I am going to spend eight hours tonight as an industrial cleaner.  There is a factory in the next town over that makes paint, and since they are closed this week for vacation, the machines can be cleaned any time (versus the normal 10:00 PM – 6:00 AM shift).

I was issued with battered, steel-toed boots and signed a waiver that I am aware that I may receive chemical burns, and told to meet Pascal in the canteen at 14:00.

I’ll tell you how it goes later, assuming I don’t burn off my fingers with industrial strength lye and/or acid.