Four Hours of Hell: Cashiering at a Grocery Store

On Wednesday I went to the second job that I booked via the student app: four hours as a cashier in the basement of a mall in one of the tourist hotspots of Berlin. At home I'd reviewed the instructions for cashier work in general and the two or three different PDFs for this grocery chain in particular, although I felt fairly sure it was impossible to remember it all. Locking up my bicycle, I found the grocery store sooner than I feared.

The first step was to familiarize myself with the fruit and vegetable section so that it would be easier to ring up the produce later, which was a quick process. The second step was to meet my supervisor. A brisk, petite woman with her hair in a ponytail, she was communing with the dairy refrigerator section in the back when I found her. She escorted me to the employee break room. We passed through a storage area with trolleys, shelves stacked to the ceiling with disposable gloves and other supplies, and a loud machine built into the wall (pipes, toggle switches?, etc.) that I took to be a roaring air conditioner, and greeted a colleague. The narrow hallway was lined with bottles of water, which my supervisor invited me to drink from, and jackets with the store brand for the employees arranged on hooks.

The break room itself consists of a kitchenette with a wood laminate counter and a heap of grey polo shirts at the far end and a packaged Christmas tree stand stowed away at the near end, white cabinets above and below, and a sink in between. Blue storage lockers fill another wall — some of them labelled with names and roles, and others not. Papers pinned to a bulletin board explain hazard symbols, how to report inappropriate behaviour like harassment, a psychological service available for employees who are stressed by difficult encounters with customers, etc. Behind a pane of glass, a graphic of a tree rhapsodizes about the values of the grocery store chain. Taking into account the low table that fills the remaining corner of the room, I doubt that many more than 6 people can fit into the room. But it felt collegial.

Not sure if I should wait in the room until fetched, I decided to anxiously wait. After a while I took out my pens and my 'cheat sheet' of notes about cash register work, ready for duty. Finally I went out into the public area of the store again. Across the aisles, the cashier whose shift was ending made eye contact with me and waved me over.

In a little office, we started the handover. As a senior employee kept a practiced eye on a computer screen with her back turned to us, the supervisor asked me to weigh out all the coins and bills that were in the black cash box that I'd be using. Then she ushered me out of the office and over to the till, the previous cashier left with alacrity, she handed me my cashier ID card, and I sat down on the rolly chair prepared to serve the first customer — who was already hovering.

My supervisor showed me one or two procedures, told me to ring using the switch at my lefthand side if I had any problems, and then strode off. Fortunately the Francophone colleague at the bakery counter — a tall young man perhaps in his twenties who I think was called José — was able to ring up purchases that didn't require weighing, as I found out in the course of my shift. Otherwise, for all intents and purposes, I was the only cashier in the shop.

I passed the first two or three loads of items across the scanner as if I were an alien acquainting myself with earthling objects, not sure if the bar codes would be read in properly or not.

But after that the main problem was navigating all the buttons for weighing fruit and vegetables, deducting the 30% discounts, accepting forms of payment that weren't cash or mainstream credit/debit cards, scanning in coupons and loyalty cards or keying in customer reward app codes, and figuring out how to process a bottle returned for deposit that hadn't been accepted by the machine in the back of the store. Customers asked if there were disposable spoons, and I could only guess that they were at the round bar table; they asked if I had a bottle opener, but I didn't.

I wasn't able to tackle all of that properly. I usually asked for help from colleagues, explained concisely enough what was needed, and got it. Once my supervisor swooped in before I needed to signal her and helped out; another time, the shopper was in fact an employee and she helped me out. In the one case that I rang twice and nobody came, there was a brief dispute at the bakery counter afterward ('why did you leave the one employee by herself?'). But people were very forgiving to me specifically; the supervisor who'd seemed uncertain at the beginning started intermittently smiling at me.

On the bright side, my upbringing in Canadian manners became a superpower: I automatically fished up a polite greeting and smile for every customer no matter what catastrophe was going on. Counting out change was also straightforward as I was used to doing so as a shopper myself. Finally I found myself embracing the customer service side of things and liking the customers.  Figuring out if they spoke German or English or neither was like a game. But also semi-consciously noting the different shopping styles; guessing at which jobs or travels they'd come from; classifying them as health and fitness aficionados, businessmen, heads of families, young women 'adulting' by making themselves nutritious meals, partiers with wine or beer or mojitos, cheeky teenagers splurging on small treats, tourists getting themselves pots of honey or other items they couldn't get at home, etc.

On the other hand, after a while I thought that the same customers were shopping again: it felt like they were repeating in an infinite loop. I only came up for air again two hours later when finally nobody was standing at the till for a minute or two, psychologically battered and feeling like I had been swimming for hours against a current as water kept flooding into my mouth. I looked at the clock, shocked that it was only shortly after 6 p.m.

(During that quiet time, as the online training suggested, I took a spray bottle of disinfectant and cleaned the till with a cloth... which I realized later was actually only intended for the computer screens.)

Twice the line of customers grew so long that stirrings of discontent were audible. Besides I made a few mistakes with customer reward apps where I think I didn't properly give the discount because I thought that just scanning the card was enough. Once I failed to realize that a bottle was for deposit and then, long after another customer pointed it out to me and I'd finally figured it out, was unable to get away from my till to tell the customers that they could get money for it. In other words, I shorted the customers.

But the worst thing I did that day probably cost the company a large pot of money in one go. A customer who had bought food for over €70 apparently did not confirm her purchase by pressing a green button twice as she needed to (or perhaps there was a technological malfunction in the online data transfer?). After she and her groceries had disappeared from the shop, I saw that the EC debit card payment process was incomplete and running out of time. I did have the presence of mind to ask my supervisor to archive that set of purchases in the till, so that I could ring up the next customer. Unfortunately I did not have the presence of mind before that to swing around and check the screen of the card reader, pressing the green button myself if that was what was needed.

Finally at 8 p.m., my colleagues and I checked repeatedly that all the customers were out of the shop. The senior employee and José had already signed out for the day. I handed over the two bottle deposit receipts that I'd gathered over the past four hours and my supervisor hauled out my cash box. Then I awaited with fear and trembling in the office as my supervisor jotted up the totals of the electronic payments, the bottle deposit, and the cash box at the computer. She shook her head over something and redid a calculation. I was worried that I would have to pay the €74 that I'd accidentally cost the company out of my own pocket — so I'd owe the company money instead of being paid for the past four hours. But then she turned around with a broad smile and told me that I had €1 more in the cash box than expected. It didn't really make sense, because two or three customers had told me to keep the change, but it was always only 1 cent or 2 cents. Still, it was a relief.

After I'd changed back into my street clothes, the supervisor joined me looking far more relaxed and ready to go back to everyday life. She even said that I'd done great, especially considering that it was my first day, and that she expected to see me again. With the €74 metaphorically stamped across my forehead like the scarlet letter A, and my guilt over the times I'd accidentally shorted the customers out of money, I candidly said that it had felt like one catastrophe after another to me. She laughed, and led me out through a warren of corridors into the outdoors, locking up the shop behind her. And I cycled back home in a daze.

***

When I passed through the apartment door, I felt like I'd journeyed through a few circles of Dante's cosmology into something more Paradise-like. But even at home, I was so stressed (and the air was so warm and humid) that I could not properly go to sleep until past 3 a.m. The feeling of buzzing energy had passed when I'd eaten dinner that the family had prepared and when I'd done a few progressive muscle relaxation exercises. It also felt weird to complain as a grown adult with her fair share of privileges about a common job that many teenagers, and many adults who have fewer privileges to cushion the stress, do.

But I was still quite worked up. My conscience was uneasy about all of my cash register mistakes — which felt like theft — and I was stuck on a loop of being constantly afraid of doing something wrong. An additional twenty or so minutes of yoga did not change that. Once, when I did doze, customers appeared on the other side of a phantom till in my sleepy imagination again. It took what felt like a few minutes to get rid of them.

In the event, I didn't get more sleep than four hours. At 7:15 a.m. city maintenance workers started using a chainsaw to lop branches off a bush outside the apartment and I couldn't get back to sleep again. In fact, I didn't properly go to sleep again until after midnight.

In between I've done hours of research about translations of Nikos Kazantzakis's writings into English and two trips to libraries, piano playing, leisure reading, housework and grocery shopping, and sunset strolling with my sister.

Partly the past weeks have been delightful and I've hopefully conveyed that in this blog.

Yet to be whiny but open, this is not  — given the facts that I still need to earn more money this month, finish three essays, finish reading the book that my Greek professor wanted me to finish reading, and get my spoken Greek and written grammar up to snuff for the exam at the end of this month — the relaxing summer holiday that I was hoping for.

Let's see if it changes for the better tomorrow. One of my brothers and I'll take the train to Austria for a short trip, joining other family members who are traveling by car, returning on the 12th.

The Friendlier Face of Bureaucracy

On Thursday I set off into the near 30°C temperatures to the Gesundheitsamt in order to watch two instructional videos about food safety and certification, and then to receive a certificate.

It was organized on the fourth floor of an office building. The interior was cool enough that it wasn't a hardship to walk up the flights of stairs instead of taking the elevator. First we were sorted into a waiting room. Amidst the pleasant wooden furniture that reminded me of a pediatrician's waiting room in the early 1990s, I became aware that the other applicants were younger than I was (some of them likely even still in school or recently graduated). Then we went one by one to the office to pay the 30€ fee and verify that our name and birthdate were accurate.

After that, we took our seats in a room where the videos were screened. Rows of chairs, two leafy potted plants taller than I was whereof one was alive and one dead (like the comedy and tragedy masks in theatre), a desk fan that had the seal of the City of Berlin stuck to its centre (presumably to discourage us from smuggling it home under our coats and calling it our own), blinds covering the open windows and a faint hum of traffic wafting in, and a coffee table or two, completed the interior design. We were something like 20 people at the end.

The videos were painless. Admittedly some of the acting in it had a touch of ham in scenes that required agonizedly swiping at a perspiring brow and clutching the solar plexus. The first one told us which foods were the most perishable, which illnesses and health conditions are dangerous, and how to behave if we feel sick or have an open wound. The second walked us through our certificate and told us that we needed to get it sealed and signed by an employer within 3 months, in order for it to be valid for the rest of our lives.

Finally, we returned to the office to receive the certificates. The ladies in charge were warm and friendly: one of them came up close and half-touched my elbow to greet me, and another wished me success as she handed me the paper.

Delighted to be ready early, I went back home at 11:30 a.m. — long before the temperatures rose to 38°C toward the evening. At home I was even more delighted to find that the student app seems to confirm the food safety certificates on our behalf. So that essentially I have fulfilled and will fulfill a basic precondition for food and service industry jobs for the rest of my days.

Since the bicycle transport work I haven't done another job ... yet. But I have made progress on university coursework: researching the Greek-Russian literature essay and reading the Kapodistrias biography. And, relieved to have so many chances at work where people actually need and want me, I have felt quite cheeky and good-humoured.

A Tragic Pride Week, and Student Job Life

It was a strange weekend in Berlin considering the attack at the Christopher Street Day parade events on Saturday. Most of the main parade was already over when the news came late in the evening. Since I'd stopped checking local news for the day, mostly, I first spotted it on the Guardian's website. I had thought of attending CSD (albeit this time for amateur journalistic purposes), the same as last year; but I would have been long gone by the time the violence happened. It was unsettling to hear helicopters near Potsdamer Platz late into the night — between midnight and past 2 a.m. — and then for long stretches the next morning. Usually we hear them when there's a visit by a head of state who requires heightened security measures, but this time I presumed that police were using them to look for suspects.

As for the reaction in Berlin, it impresses me that the organizers of the CSD parade have repeatedly stated that they do not want the attacker's self-affiliation with Islam to lead to any stereotypes, generalizations, or hatred toward Muslims. What I just wish is that the press's coverage had focused less on the perpetrator, which from what I understand of criminology raises the probability of copy-cat attacks. It also didn't feel nice to be subjected to a livestream of predominantly Crime and Punishment updates, instead of reactions from the LGBTQ* community and, say, the flowers that were being left at the Tiergarten park where the attack happened.

*

On Friday I'd gone to a Pride Week demonstration, a smaller one, for amateur journalism purposes.

After reflecting on going to the CSD parade last year and what felt right or wrong about being there as an ally, I concluded that I'd felt out of place because I go out of my way to not express my personality when it feels socially risky. Whereas out-and-proud attendees are taking a lot of risks.

So, despite the general preferability of wearing neutral clothing when doing amateur journalism, I put on a baby-blue sweater, a flowered scarf, and lipstick this time. Besides I approached the organizers of the Pride Week demo to make doubly sure that protestors wouldn't feel uncomfortable being photographed, because I can imagine that you can begin feeling like a zoo animal if lots of strangers take snapshots of you without asking because your clothing or make-up look unusual to them. It felt like the right decision and I felt very at ease.

For comparison, a professional journalist was there alongside a camerawoman, and conducted a stand-up interview with the organizers later in front of the glass and steel Paul-Löbe-Haus where German parliamentarians work. She wore (as I seem to remember) jeans and a striped red-and-white sweater, i.e. a little colour but nothing splashy.

Besides the gay community at the protest was diverse in terms of clothing styles and cultural affiliations: some were drag queens who went for old-time glamour, others preferred slim 90s-style party gear and stiletto heels, a few into animal masks or leather, many dressed down in t-shirts and shorts or jeans, and so on and so forth. So perhaps I'd have fit in just fine with my old amateur journalism uniform of dark blue slim jeans and black long sleeve shirt.

Another reason I enjoyed the event was that — unlike many foreign-events-related protests I've been to — there was little tension of the kind that people usually emanate when protesting against totalitarian or otherwise extremist regimes.

***

This morning I went to the first student job that I've booked through the app. Waking up at 7:22 a.m. was a minor ordeal, the transit took 50 minutes but all the transfers went beautifully smoothly, and it was not too bad that I was a little geographically disorientated and not 15 minutes early at the place of employment because my supervisor hadn't arrived yet. It was out in the sticks of eastern Berlin, but well within the city limits with GDR housing blocks, a huge Höffner furniture big-box store, a smattering of plane trees if I recall correctly, and the characteristic East German tram lines. In the end the job was far easier than anticipated: with a fellow student from southwestern Germany and the supervisor, we moved a few dozen rental e-bikes in boxes from a truck into storage cells, then labelled them with the email address of the customer. After two hours we were done. What I also enjoyed were the interactions with the others at the facility.

A few burly movers were shifting household furniture for a lanky white-haired man in a logo'd jersey sweater who did some of the labour alongside them. And the truck driver who had driven the e-bikes from a factory in France, his large vehicle having a Polish license plate, didn't speak much German but mentioned that he did speak Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian (and maybe Hungarian?). He had a vein of humour, was easygoing, and patiently pushed the cartons one by one where we needed them for over half an hour. We also met a thin facility manager in a dress shirt with the professional air of a 20th-century train conductor, brisk but friendly, who took care of opening gates and checking in with my supervisor. And a receptionist at the entrance, despite being engrossed in a telephone call, waved in a cheerful way when the fellow student and I left.

None of the men were shocked or condescending because I was a woman doing manual work. It's also a sign of a good dynamic that when the fellow mini-jobber and I met up again at the nearest tram station, it wasn't remotely awkward.

We finished two hours early, so I'll probably get half the pay for the projected four hours. But I was actually happy to be let off the hook. On the way home I indulged myself by going for a walk in the sparkling sunshine between train stations. After lunch and a little internet time, I took a long nap.

Beautiful British Columbia: Our September 2024 Holiday, Part Eight

Uncle Pu retraced another journey from his past, and took us to the ghost town of Sandon. From the highway the first signs of it we saw were an elaborate system of tall white buildings and passageways at the creek's edge, constructed I think in the mid-20th century but still operational. Klondike Silver Mining Co. or a similar name was written on the side. Densely embedded in the evergreen trees, with slender railway tracks teetering along the hillsides, as this area was, I was amazed yet again that anyone had been able to navigate from Vancouver to here in the 19th century, let alone set up little or big mining outfits, before the arrival of post-war highways.

— As it was, even in 2024 road maintenance crews were working between Slocan and Sandon in conditions that did not lack adventure. Workers in high-visibility vests were scaling steep banks beside the road, chainsaw held in one hand, to clear tree saplings, as cars like ours passed beside them. Other work crews had been renewing the asphalt. —

The visitors' part of Sandon, at any rate, is upslope of the Klondike Silver Mining Co. complex. Perched beside a creek on a declivity that had already put paid to a few chapters of the town's history by collapsing it in an avalanche, the creek itself also flooding the town in the 1950s, wooden frameworks were exposed where the riverbanks had eroded underneath the buildings. Whether these frames were mining apparatus, like supports for a flume, or slope stabilization attempts, I was too ignorant of engineering to know.

Riverbank fortification beneath Sandon, B.C.
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

Sandon's visitor's site started with a modestly sized veranda'd house and then a string of Canada Rail train wagons behind a locomotive, which accompanied the road up to a parking lot. Behind the tourists' cars, which had US as well as Canadian license plates, there was a gift shop. It was in a building that looked very much like a drug store emporium or general store out of a Laura Ingalls Wilder book. Two stories high, impressively towering above the river like a lookout post, it had a certain flat rough-and-readiness to it that did suggest quick construction to accommodate a mining boom, as well as mysterious windows with uncomplicated plate glass panes that would give ghosts a fine view. My youngest brother popped into the gift shop and emerged with a black-and-white postcard, after chatting with the owner.

In the parking lot area, a collection of trolleybuses had been parked that traced the history of British Columbia's public transit during the mid-1900s: pastel beige shells, drivers' seats where one could imagine a uniformed conductor politely speaking in a British accent with his passengers, empty rows, an accordion door, displays on the fore of each vehicle revealing whether the bus had been in service in — for example — Stanley Park (Vancouver) or some other neighbourhood or town.

Old mining(?) structures at Sandon, B.C.
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

Odds and ends of old, rust-tinged equipment were scattered around. Above the gift shop and the buses, one or two business buildings that predated the First World War had been lovingly rebuilt. Their façades, like the shop, hinted at the first decades of Sandon, when it had been thriving with hotels, sports venues, brothels, telephone office, post office, an Opera House, and men on the hunt for mineral ore. Specifically these men were extracting galena, which — so an online encyclopedia informs me — is an ore that yields lead but also silver. But Sandon was also an internment site of Japanese-Canadians during World War II.

Information sign above river at Atherton Block, Sandon, B.C.
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

Further up, two or three historical houses that had belonged to engineers or other staff (and were inaccessible to prying eyes as they are still in use, if only for storage) sat below a very old hydropower house from the reign of Queen Victoria. Still operational over 125 years later, thunderously loud to the point that I could not hear the guide explaining the history of the site to my brothers from where I was standing, it still feeds electricity into the BC Hydro network. Below where I stepped out of the station again, frothing water went crashing out below the turbine's screw, to rejoin the river. Piles of dark grey rubble nearby looked like fertile terrain for archaeological foraging, but I realized soon enough that I didn't have the necessary knowledge of materials to 'read' the spoil heaps.

The guide told my brothers that old mine shafts and tunnels hidden in the hills around the ghost town are often searched out by prowling visitors. A few of these tunnels are accessible and safe enough; others are less accessible and hardly intact. Needless to say that my imagination could hardly have been fuelled more. I'd have happily poked around — if amongst other doubts I weren't afraid of creeping someone out by trespassing on their private property.

View of Sandon, B.C. from the power house
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

I was in a stinker of a mood, however. (Which is also why I took only about 12 notes on the site and may have made a lot of mistakes in the past few paragraphs.) So it was a relief to drive back toward New Denver, by way of Kaslo. We passed many faintly haunted corners, like Zincton, a ghost town established in 1892 that was tenanted by miners of zinc ore, just like the name suggests. What we saw of it was a hushed, marshy green pond steeped in trees. We passed a sign warning of danger — explosives — avalanche control ... a wooden boat in antique shape ... a Mudslide Area ... and a cross-country skiing sign.

***

Church in or near Kaslo, B.C.
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

STEAMSHIPS, like gold miners in 19th century garb standing ankle-deep in the pebbles of a British Columbia river or a Victorian housewife wearing a crinoline while boiling hard candies for a party over a coal stove — as well as largely unchallenged racism and colonialist brutality — seemed like a figment of Canadian history that I could read about but never see.

That said, Kaslo brought brighter facets of this lost world back to life. Tourist destination via steamship a hundred years ago, it is still a tourist destination via car now. Dominating its lakeside fringes is a well-kept paddlewheeler, a National Historical Site of Canada, with historical exhibits like vintage automobiles in and around it. We arrived on a thriving but not overly crowded day, where rainbow-coloured Pride flags were flying around the false fronts of the old buildings. I ate a few cherries left over from the Okanagan region orchards before we strolled toward the ship. A few of the siblings went down to explore, while I remained on the street above.

Uncle Pu ventured into an antiques shop and I came along. It offered an eclectic mixture of war medals, historical currencies of many different countries e.g. from the 1920s, tobacco pipes arranged on top of furniture, candlesticks, vintage clothing like furs, vinyl records, Dickens volumes and the Bobbsey Twins, 20th century toys for children, perfume diffusers, and even a painted red memento box for the coronation (if I recall correctly; it could even have been the coronation of George V, in this style) of George VI. Other people were browsing, too, like a U.S. couple from Idaho. If I'd had more luggage space and hadn't quit my job a year earlier and thus been on a budget, I would have been tempted to buy at least the royal memorabilia for a British friend. A kayak shop was nearby, although I've forgotten how the negotiations went there and just jotted down that it was too late in the day for rentals — and a realty office and a Drill Hall.

The paddle steamer sternwheeler S.S. Moyie in Kaslo.
It looks taller in person, when not looking from the far side of the street.
September 14, 2024. All rights reserved.

Then we ambled into a café that offered ice cream — tiger and rainbow sherbet was my choice — and muffins (apple & bacon, blueberry) as well as the coffee. The two snug tables could barely fit us, and I felt mildly guilty as other customers came and left without finding a seat. Through the window we could easily see, without leaving our chairs, the comings and goings on the main street. Feeling well fed and relaxed after that — even I, despite my earlier grumpiness — we happily took our leave from Kaslo and returned to New Denver for the evening.

Holidays and the Scourge of Homework

I am beginning to suspect that finding a student job in an app is like a small pyramid scheme, if I understand pyramid schemes correctly. Before your application is accepted, I am getting the impression that 1. it is better to get a food health certificate (€30 if done through the public Health Office), 2. acquire new clothes (I might be a little eccentric in not having black suit trousers already, but I don't like the expensive idea of filling that gap in my closet), 3. own a pair of hard-toed safety shoes for factory/warehouse work, and 4. preferably already have job experience in a relevant mini-job, tracked in the app. (Investing some funds makes sense, but I'd prefer to find a job that doesn't have these prerequisites first, then to use some of the proceeds toward certificates and clothing.)

Regardless of the truth of this pessimistic assessment, I had better luck — as usual — finding volunteer work. Today I woke up incredibly early by my standards (7:30 a.m.), then toddled off to a Berlin food bank for what promised to be a long and stinky four hours of sifting through vegetables and fruit rotting in the summer heat. Instead, miraculously, three fellow volunteers (in their twenties and thirties) and I were set to distribute non-perishable food into black plastic crates that will be delivered to charities around Berlin. We packed over 150 crates with noodles, flour, rice, soup cans, tomato sauce, mayonnaise (since I detest it I would always pack one jar per crate whereas other volunteers packed two), cucumber pickles, apple sauce, bottled cherries, chili con carne spice mix, coffee creamer, sugar, etc. As refreshments we were given soft drinks and chocolate bars, so the snack I had packed for myself wasn't necessary. And the food bank staffer who was directing us was good about making sure that we were set up with everything we needed to work — tables, cardboard recycling bin, the food for the crates. He was at hand at once to inspect the situation when I stepped on a piece of glass, broke it, and briefly froze because I wondered if the shards would cut through my shoe sole. It was still stinky volunteer work, firstly because a fraction of the non-perishable food had been delivered broken open and decomposing, and secondly because the crates had been re-used from the fruit and vegetable section and we still had to remove some of the remnants. But it was far less stinky. And for once as I went home I still had a spring in my step — and marzipan in my bag that I was given because the food bank could not use it due to its alcohol content.

On the way home I saw that a building beside the railway tracks had evidently suffered a fire, broken white slabs of something scattered out the rear door where firefighters had presumably tossed them, windows empty of glass, and a gaping hole in the roof. I thought there was still a whiff of woodsmoke in the air. I took photos and saved them for my 'Blaulicht' folder, where I keep stock images of police cars, ambulances and the like in case I ever report on something crime-adjacent. Crime itself I want to avoid, because it's depressing and doesn't feel like my business as long as the relevant authorities are handling it. At home I checked if the fire had been reported in the news, saw that it had seemingly not been reported, and presumed that nobody was injured and that I wasn't a vampire for taking the sensationalist shots.

Since the volunteer outing I've done another of my daily workload of about forty-five minutes of reading the pages of the Kapodistrias biography that we were assigned over the holidays. It looks like I have at least 40 hours of work on that class alone to go. This homework will surely be good for me in terms of learning Greek. But a feeling of ire does arise when I reflect that, when finally reaching the end of a semester of lectures and seminars full of migraines, anxiety and pressure, and the intermittent loss of what felt like all of my personal and social life, as well as budgeting and inter alia doing a lot of home cooking to save money, not to mention sitting in an apartment that is partially messy due to me and that I'd been hoping to spring-clean, I am still chained to my desk doing hours of work for university instead of being able to call it done. Not to mention that plans to swim in a lake, travel to Oranienburg, visit free art and history exhibitions, or go on wild journalistic adventures are being pushed further into the distance. None of the grades or participation marks for any of my classes have been posted yet, either, so the feeling of 'not being done' is not just caused by the biography, the upcoming exam, or the three essays I need to write. Why may I not have actual holidays? That said, of course millions of people have had to take (or seek) jobs and study and save money simultaneously, so it is difficult to feel that self-pity is justified.

On a happier note, I also baked a gingerbread loaf cake recipe that turned out nicely, and went shopping at the local zero-waste shop. On a less happy note, the model of zero-waste shops seems to have perilously thin profit margins: the opening hours have been further reduced so that the shop is closed Tuesdays as well as Mondays. The cashiers and owner have shown signs of strain especially in the past two weeks or so, but before seeing the opening hours change I'd wondered if I was imagining things. [Update: I felt chattier than usual when shopping there again after writing this post. After I asked how long the new opening hours have been in effect, the shop's owner told me that it's something they also did last year during the school holidays. The reason: Berlin empties too much in late July, so standing around not serving (m)any customers is an expensive luxury.]

Sunset Days of the Summer Semester

It's the first day after the university summer semester, and it's been quite busy.

Last night, my mother went off for the next leg of her walking pilgrimage, which is still leading her through eastern France. It sounds like it was literally rocky today, but at least she has eaten a square meal for dinner.

One of my brothers had contracted what seems to be food poisoning, and was sleeping like a log in his room.

I was a bit unsettled on the whole and woke up before 6 a.m., before going back to bed and waking up before 10 a.m. It was far earlier than I usually wake up unless prompted by educational or vocational obligation. But it was worth it to see my once-ill brother happily zipping about his morning routine, well rested and ready to face the world again.

Since then I went on an errand, played one or two pieces from Bach's Well Tempered Clavier as well as an arrangement of an Edith Piaf song on the piano, and read the news (in my neighbourhood, there were a few very happy Spain soccer fans who let off firecrackers, honked their horns, and shouted in a primeval manner after midnight at the end of the World Cup final).

For university I did half an hour each of Greek grammar exercises and reading the Kapodistrias biography. Besides I emailed the Greek-Russian literature professor for help approving the topic for my end-of-term paper.

But aside from that I am quite focused on finding work, as I might otherwise have trouble paying my way in eight months' time.

***

In September, fortunately, I will be working as an exit poll helper for Germany's public media, just as hoped. The contract is signed, sealed and delivered. It will earn me €170 plus reimbursement for expenses incurred e.g. travel.

Fortuitously, a fellow student elections helper also told me in May about an app for student jobs.

I've signed up for the app now, although divulging a plethora of personal information over the internet went against the grain. Since then a cornucopia of possibilities has spread before me, with jobs that are a lot more realistic for me as a student than the 20-hour-per week jobs that are usually presented as 'flexible' but seem to me to leave ludicrously little time for homework, transit, etc. Warehouse sorting, bartending help, dishwashing, promoting high fashion brands, restocking medicines and accessories, cashier gigs, waitressing, etc. ... at any hour of the night or day.

The app offers online training for food service work and for grocery store cashier work, which combine written text with instructional videos. I was skeptical as to their value, but realized while watching them that they really might save a manager/onboarding employee from having to explain too many details at once to a student jobber. Having breezed through the food service work (a few tips, like that it's easier to polish silverware when it's somewhat wet from the dishwasher, were already familiar) I am finding the cash register introduction more daunting. It's nothing like the cashier work that I once did at the family bookshop. But I've been working on the tutorial in installments today.

All qualms aside, I can't deny that I find this job-search exciting. It's thrilling to think of catching up on experiences that I never had as a teenager, or even as a twenty-something student.