my berlin st*ry - part II

Yes, it's time to exhale that baited breath - part II has arrived!

This installment comes to you courtesy of Nadia, an Italian former-intern of Berlin St*ry. The bulk of this post will be her own words, translated from German into English, by yours truly.

Above: Nadia, my Italian ex-intern buddy.

Nadia and I were sanity lifelines for each other as we worked amidst a plethora of arbitrary rules, smiled inanely from behind the cash register, unpacked novelty shot glasses or performed 'Laden' ('shop') duties.

'Laden' was similar to water torture - seemingly benign but so drawn-out and excruciating it makes you want to eat your own face. It involved strolling slowly around and around the bookshop for hours on end 'looking helpful'. When on 'Laden', the Praktikantin (intern) is not allowed to look at any of the books, sit down, stand still, put away stock, or help other staff with their tasks. You are there for the customers. Your attention is focused entirely on the customers. Sadly their attention is not focused on you - most people direct their queries towards the so-called INFO POINT. Funny that. Moreover, Praktikantins actually make the worst 'Laden' workers due to their barely rudimentary knowledge of the stock etc. so that most questions were inevitably handballed to the nearest superior. Now that's what I call German Efficiency. Whaa?

(Incidentally, Andrew finds the idea of 'Laden' duties hilarious and often calls me over with a beckoning finger, only to shout the command "Laden!", after which giggling fits usually ensue.)

So now here are Nadia's experiences, spoken from the disgruntled horse's mouth:

"So I will now try to list my memories of this kind of Berlin slavery:

1) 'Big W' is really a charmer, he says to you how lovely you are and how good that T-Shirt looks on you, only because he thinks that in this way, you'll work better, that after such a compliment you'll feel like Naomi Campbell. That is a truly cheap psychology.

2) Racial slurs: 'Big W' said to me many times that I should control my 'Italian temperament' - what kind is that?? So is he referring to the fact that I have my own opinions?

3) Once 'Big W' took Veronica and me up to the Historiale (offices above the bookshop) to tell us that in the next 10 minutes we should either start smiling at all the customers, or we can go home and never come back. The only reason we had sour expressions on our faces was because we were so bloody cold, because the shop doors are open the entire year. 'Big W' doesn't even pay us health insurance, so he should at least make sure that the working conditions are acceptable.

4) Night shifts were paid a measly 5€ (A$8.45) per hour, after you'd already worked the whole day. Practically no need to go home. Normally, work outside of normal working hours is paid double.

(Blogger's Note: nobody should get out of bed for 5€ an hour. And, er, if you've already been working all day you should go directly to bed and then refuse to get out again!)

5) Ok, it is an internship, but why should you always have to work on the weekend for so little money!?

6) What kind of an internship is it? What do you learn there? All the foreigners there are people who have studied and upstairs in the 'publishing house' are people who've only finished high school. I don't know how it works in Australia, but in Italy it is exactly the opposite. The shopgirls are normally people who haven't studied.

Ok we improved our German whilst working there, but yeah, I mean, I can improve it by going to pubs at night and speaking German. 'Big W' wants foreigners so that he's got people in the shop who have perfect English, French, Italian or whatever. Smart, or?

7) The sad truth is that the system supports such behaviour, but the question is, how far? I understand that some companies have interns, but to have a bookshop where almost all the workers are interns or apprentices is too much! Where's the professionalism?

(Blogger's Note: in the shop there were only 3 full-time workers. Everyone else was either an intern or doing a poorly paid apprenticeship to learn how to, um, order and sell books. Even Samuel, the hard-working monkey who basically runs the Web Shop is 'learning'...)

Above: Samuel the Web Shop monkey is paid badly to learn how to do the job that he, er, is currently doing...

After I while I was fired, apparently because I was "sometimes unfriendly to the customers". I told them that is not a real reason for sacking someone. I believe I was fired because I think, and I say what I think. 'Big W' understood that I was no longer putty in his hands, that I was a problem in the shop and needed to be disposed of.

After I was fired, my quality of life improved."

So there you have it. A crazy rant from a feisty Italian flying off the handle. But seriously folks!

I'd like to thank Nadia for her entertaining anecdotes and also give a big self-indulgent shout-out to Annabelle (Hi Naboo!). Annabelle is another Berlin St*ry intern buddy of mine, from France. Sadly, she's still 'interning' there...

Stop Press: In part I, I promised to regale you with the story of the late-night meeting at 'Big W's house. Basically it was just screwed that we had to have a staff meeting outside of working hours, unpaid, and disturbingly at the private residence of the manipulative 'Greylocks'. Sick. Sick is also the adjective I'd use to describe the feraliser cheese on bread which he served us as 'dinner' after we arrived, starving, directly from our 8 hour shift at the bookshop.