As many of you know, I have a job by now. It's been nearly a month now and I can tell you a bit more than only the fact that I work in McDonalds.
I work as a cleaner, which means that I have to make sure that in our lobby all the tables are clean for customers and that everything is nice and neat. I have to sort the garbage (mostly it's paper), clean the floors, empty the ashtrays and in the evening I have to wash the floors.
The beginning was painful. The first couple of weeks I came home with my feet killing me- you see, I have no time to sit except my 30min break which is fitted somewhere between 8,5hour working day. Besides my feet hurting, my hands were in a pretty bad state- we have to use chemicals and have no gloves. So when I have tiny wounds on my hands, then there's no possibility of them healing. So, at some point when my fingers started to swell up, I asked whether I could buy myself latex gloves and use them. I was allowed to do so, which means that my hands are all fine by now :)
My work is intense, I walk at least 5-10km per day because of my work. By now my feet have gotten used to it so I can actually come home and do sth else. I am starting to be more energetic on my free time, which is great!
I have often shifts that last until 24:00. That means I get home at about 20 past 12 at night. Going to sleep takes still some time, so I manage that usually by 02:00. My sleeping rhythm is a bit messed up because of my work and it affects Hannes as well. Not too happy about it. I now understand why in a normal country the shops close at 19:00 latest. The people want to go home as well! I would, at least.
As I work in the train station, there's a lot going on. We have to call police nearly every day for a guy who is probably homeless, comes into our place and falls asleep. He's not even drunk. He just doesn't get up any more. Every time he's taken away with ambulance. And couple of hours later, he's back.
I've met Estonians in our McDonalds- from the band Defrage. There was about 6 of them. When I met the first 3 of them, I managed to somewhat shock them- a random person in McDonalds starts to talk to them in Estonian, out of nowhere. You guys should have seen those faces! :) Besides, Estonians, I meet many interesting people and also annoying people. For my first two weeks there was a black guy coming to McDonalds every day- first day he asked my name and whether I am single. Then he started talking that he likes girls who don't look like anorexics and that have something to grab. I'm still not sure whether to take it as a compliment or not. Anyway, he started coming to me every day, just to watch me working. As it made me feel extremely uncomfortable, I told him I will call the security or police because he is harrassing me. He started apologizing and saying that he's a Christian and Maria is a sacred name blah blah. The result: he still comes sometimes, doesn't talk to me, just observes, sometimes says hello. I ignore him as much as possible.
Then I have interesting gypsy-style people who come and try to steal stuff from the trays (the things that are under the burgers). Once a whole bag of compost was gone. I guess someone had a really huge unhealthy meal...... I've seen once a Turkish guy trying to eat food out of my compost bin. As it's not allowed, I threatened again with security. That guy is in the station every day as well- I think he's got mental health problems, because he talks to himself, puts some weird gloves on his hands and off and does strange movements with his hands.
So in general, I see a lot of stuff at my work. And I eat a lot of burgers. At the moment I'm still a bit tight with money, so I use the discounts I can have at work and eat cheap (I have to pay 30% of the original price), usually with less than 1€- a cheeseburger, apple pie and fruit salad- 90 cents :) But as soon as I have more money, I will eat a bit more expensive, I think. Even though I run off all the burgers I eat, it's still not too healthy to have them every day.
Besides my work I've been busy with meeting people, cooking and christmas stuff. I gave Hannes a 50-minute massage as a christmas present and he already had it. And he loved it! He has a bad back because of office-work, so it helped him a bit. :) Yesterday I had the Bee-guy and Judith over at my place for a lovely christmas dinner with sauerkraut, black pudding and kotletid :) And mince pies and gingerbread. Nearly all of the stuff was made by me and Hannes. Delicious.
On the day before (Monday), we went to a christmas dinner at another Estonians' place, so we had 3 Estonian girls and 3 Austrian (sort of) guys. Was a nice evening! And the day before that we had lunch at one of Hannes's friends place. So indeed busy.
I went to donate plasma for the first time yesterday. I earned 25€ in one hour! The plasma donation centre gives money for each donation so it's a nice way to earn some (at the moment, as I'm a bit tight). You can donate max 50x per year. I don't think I'll manage to reach that limit but we'll see. Anyway, I had given my blood samples in the plasma center previously, to be tested. All was fine and yesterday, after going through the doctor's examination, I was put on a special bed and was connected to a needle. From the needle went the blood into a huge machine, which separated plasma and other blood cells and then pumped the blood cells back into my body. In the end it pumped nearly a liter of salt water also into my veins to make up the plasma I gave. The machine is really interesting, it's hard to describe, but it's cool. You can see your own blood being sorted to parts. Plasma itself is some yellowish-orange kind of liquid. Looks ugly to me. But what matters is the fact that I get to help people and earn money at the same time! Brilliant!
By now that's about it for the things I've been doing. Most of the time I've been too tired to do anything (because of work). I might get another job in January but as I have still no contract, it's not certain yet. It would be 1:1 work with children with autism- basically giving families free time from their children. I hope it will all work out and I can work more with that and have a part-time job in McDonalds and part time with the autism-association.
I work as a cleaner, which means that I have to make sure that in our lobby all the tables are clean for customers and that everything is nice and neat. I have to sort the garbage (mostly it's paper), clean the floors, empty the ashtrays and in the evening I have to wash the floors.
The beginning was painful. The first couple of weeks I came home with my feet killing me- you see, I have no time to sit except my 30min break which is fitted somewhere between 8,5hour working day. Besides my feet hurting, my hands were in a pretty bad state- we have to use chemicals and have no gloves. So when I have tiny wounds on my hands, then there's no possibility of them healing. So, at some point when my fingers started to swell up, I asked whether I could buy myself latex gloves and use them. I was allowed to do so, which means that my hands are all fine by now :)
My work is intense, I walk at least 5-10km per day because of my work. By now my feet have gotten used to it so I can actually come home and do sth else. I am starting to be more energetic on my free time, which is great!
I have often shifts that last until 24:00. That means I get home at about 20 past 12 at night. Going to sleep takes still some time, so I manage that usually by 02:00. My sleeping rhythm is a bit messed up because of my work and it affects Hannes as well. Not too happy about it. I now understand why in a normal country the shops close at 19:00 latest. The people want to go home as well! I would, at least.
As I work in the train station, there's a lot going on. We have to call police nearly every day for a guy who is probably homeless, comes into our place and falls asleep. He's not even drunk. He just doesn't get up any more. Every time he's taken away with ambulance. And couple of hours later, he's back.
I've met Estonians in our McDonalds- from the band Defrage. There was about 6 of them. When I met the first 3 of them, I managed to somewhat shock them- a random person in McDonalds starts to talk to them in Estonian, out of nowhere. You guys should have seen those faces! :) Besides, Estonians, I meet many interesting people and also annoying people. For my first two weeks there was a black guy coming to McDonalds every day- first day he asked my name and whether I am single. Then he started talking that he likes girls who don't look like anorexics and that have something to grab. I'm still not sure whether to take it as a compliment or not. Anyway, he started coming to me every day, just to watch me working. As it made me feel extremely uncomfortable, I told him I will call the security or police because he is harrassing me. He started apologizing and saying that he's a Christian and Maria is a sacred name blah blah. The result: he still comes sometimes, doesn't talk to me, just observes, sometimes says hello. I ignore him as much as possible.
Then I have interesting gypsy-style people who come and try to steal stuff from the trays (the things that are under the burgers). Once a whole bag of compost was gone. I guess someone had a really huge unhealthy meal...... I've seen once a Turkish guy trying to eat food out of my compost bin. As it's not allowed, I threatened again with security. That guy is in the station every day as well- I think he's got mental health problems, because he talks to himself, puts some weird gloves on his hands and off and does strange movements with his hands.
So in general, I see a lot of stuff at my work. And I eat a lot of burgers. At the moment I'm still a bit tight with money, so I use the discounts I can have at work and eat cheap (I have to pay 30% of the original price), usually with less than 1€- a cheeseburger, apple pie and fruit salad- 90 cents :) But as soon as I have more money, I will eat a bit more expensive, I think. Even though I run off all the burgers I eat, it's still not too healthy to have them every day.
Besides my work I've been busy with meeting people, cooking and christmas stuff. I gave Hannes a 50-minute massage as a christmas present and he already had it. And he loved it! He has a bad back because of office-work, so it helped him a bit. :) Yesterday I had the Bee-guy and Judith over at my place for a lovely christmas dinner with sauerkraut, black pudding and kotletid :) And mince pies and gingerbread. Nearly all of the stuff was made by me and Hannes. Delicious.
On the day before (Monday), we went to a christmas dinner at another Estonians' place, so we had 3 Estonian girls and 3 Austrian (sort of) guys. Was a nice evening! And the day before that we had lunch at one of Hannes's friends place. So indeed busy.
I went to donate plasma for the first time yesterday. I earned 25€ in one hour! The plasma donation centre gives money for each donation so it's a nice way to earn some (at the moment, as I'm a bit tight). You can donate max 50x per year. I don't think I'll manage to reach that limit but we'll see. Anyway, I had given my blood samples in the plasma center previously, to be tested. All was fine and yesterday, after going through the doctor's examination, I was put on a special bed and was connected to a needle. From the needle went the blood into a huge machine, which separated plasma and other blood cells and then pumped the blood cells back into my body. In the end it pumped nearly a liter of salt water also into my veins to make up the plasma I gave. The machine is really interesting, it's hard to describe, but it's cool. You can see your own blood being sorted to parts. Plasma itself is some yellowish-orange kind of liquid. Looks ugly to me. But what matters is the fact that I get to help people and earn money at the same time! Brilliant!
By now that's about it for the things I've been doing. Most of the time I've been too tired to do anything (because of work). I might get another job in January but as I have still no contract, it's not certain yet. It would be 1:1 work with children with autism- basically giving families free time from their children. I hope it will all work out and I can work more with that and have a part-time job in McDonalds and part time with the autism-association.