Hats
I’ve worn a lot of hats.
My parents basically wore one each (in addition to being parents).
They were both teachers.
Mom taught elementary school for five decades beginning on the south side of Chicago in the mid 1960’s.
Dad was an economics professor.
Me, like I said, a bit more bouncing around leads to wearing a fair amount of hats over the years.
After high school I was a professional student, nine out of the eleven years spent almost getting a masters degree in European and Russian history, ended up specialising in post World War 2 dissident movements against occupying Soviet forces in eastern Europe.
Among the many hats I wore were doing things/jobs such as…
Cleaning hospital operating rooms, warehouse work, refereeing kids soccer games. Working at the Bingo Emporium selling bingo cards to little old blue haired ladies who would call me ma’am when my back was turned due to my having long hair at the time.
Other things I did…hmmm.
Worked banquet set-up at the Holiday Inn, worked at Burger Time and the local Goodwill store (where I got my first case of scabies).
After graduating with a History and Economics degree I got a job washing dishes in Tacoma, Washington before finding my way into the wonderful profession as a pizza delivery driver. That was good work, a decent wage, drive around, listen to music and make enough money to pay for tuition and rent when I went back to University west of Chicago at Northern Illinois University where I continued to deliver pizza while also working in a coffeeshop and the university library.
Then it was off to Europe, initially to Munich where I taught some English, washed some more dishes and attempted to be a cook in a couple of pubs before finding myself one summer in the late 90’s passing out flyers for a bike tour that I ended up working with for the next couple of summers while spending winters working at a youth hostel in Switzerland (that was a lot of fun, good times).
I moved to Amsterdam in 1999 and became a small business owner, I was okay at that.
Then Covid happened in the spring of 2020 and I became a bankrupt immigrant (finally, something I’m good at).
I found my balance as a bike mechanic and ended up getting a promotion to be a Master Mechanic (wooo hooo, fancy title).
I have also become a writer, self published my first book in May of 2022, and have a lot of other ideas to put down on paper next. Definitely never saw that coming, of everything that I’ve done, all the hats I’ve worn that is by far the most unexpected one I have put on so far.
There’s one other hat I’ve been wearing recently, one that I wasn’t even aware was on me.
We’ve hired a lot of new bike mechanics at work recently, mostly a fair amount of young men from Ukraine.
My boss set up this program as Ukrainian refugees began moving to the Netherlands. The idea was to work with the city, employment agencies and refugee centers among others to try to get some of these people work.
So this past summer we prepared for three days of trial periods where people would come in and we’d see if they could work a wrench.
I’d say we looked at 15–20 people in total. It was interesting talking with them, getting to know them a little bit. Just as you would with any job interview. But I must say that the answers you’d get, the conversations…well…damn.
One young man mentioned how he had been in Morocco a few days ago. But I realized immediately he hadn’t been there on vacation. He had been running from Russian bombs across the north of Africa because that was the only route available to him.
A lot of these young men (and women) had nowhere else to go, they just took off, running as fast as they could.
I don’t know very much but one thing is for sure. Seeing what these people have been through, how their home, their town, their country has been changed. How they’ve had to pick up and start over. These are some of the strongest people it has ever been my pleasure to know.
So for the past couple of months I have been training a lot of these young men how to fix bikes. It’s not all that difficult. They know how to work a wrench and like most immigrants they also know how to work. In fact they are proving what I have often said, “If you have a choice between an immigrant and a native hire the immigrant seven days a week and twice on Sundays, they’ll do a better job. Just don’t screw them on the wage”.
It’s been fun watching them get better at their jobs, moving on from normal bikes to geared bikes to Ebikes. They’re definitely doing a good job.
And one of them said something to me as I was leaving work the other day.
“You’re a good teacher”.
A teacher.
Me.
Just like my mom and dad.
…
Damn it.
It’s been a few days since I wrote the above.
Word just came down from HQ.
The company has decided to terminate all contracts with job agencies.
That ain’t right.
…