Weekends working in full colour and healthy (WEEK 173)

"Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the achievement. Total effort is total victory"

I've been thinking a lot about the work I've done on the weekends, I think a lot of my life, but when I read the topics that @galenkp proposed this week, I said although I've always done something on the weekends, I never sit still, this work that I will present was outside my home.

In 2019 through an acquaintance of my family I found out that they would open a greengrocer near where I live, a Chinese, I had never worked with Chinese and I was looking for someone and if he was recommended even better.

He immediately told me that yes, it is complicated to talk to a Chinese person, but you can .... They speak little and few words.

I started before the inauguration, cleaning and putting everything in order, labels, posters, everything related to the language, as the Chinese had a bad command of Spanish.

The job was initially from Monday to Saturday, but then the boss offered me to work on Sundays as well, of course for a bit more money, and I said yes. I had most of the afternoon free so there was no problem.

Among the things I liked the most, many things, was that the place of work was only a 10-minute walk from my house, I loved dealing with people and people treated me very well.

I was in charge of arranging the merchandise, stock control, customer service, keeping control sheets for the cold room (the Chinese didn't understand anything about these things, he had me as a translator).

I started the morning with the work of setting everything up and then cleaning the place.

My boss was excellent to deal with, every now and then he would bring me a coffee with a croissant or churros, we would share equally. He had a lot of confidence in me.

Then I started to get paid, I was at the cashier's desk collecting money from customers. There came a time when I was practically alone there and the customers would ask me if I was the owner.

I remember one lady who would wait until the last minute for me to attend to her and be the one to put in the bags what she wanted to take, and another customer to whom I took the goods home (the boss stayed in the shop).

Another good thing was that my boss would tell me: You try everything, then recommend customers. I love fruit and he told me to eat everything.

Besides the salary, which was the minimum required by law, the Chinese don't pay much, the boss gave me fruits and vegetables every day, every day, I never had to buy those products elsewhere and that was equivalent to what was missing in the salary.

He was very punctual in paying me and I had all my papers in order.

But the area I had chosen for the greengrocer's was not very good, an area of offices and not so much of houses, so it did not give the result I had hoped for.

Among the negative things I can mention that in recent times my boss left me alone, especially when it came to lifting heavy, very heavy crates or when there were a lot of people, I had no help and it was complicated. I still did my job, even if I got home exhausted and physically very sore.

As for the payment, as I said, it was the fair amount mentioned in the law without taking into account other items. It could be seen as bad, because other people in the same job were paid more, but it was compensated by the goods and the excellent treatment. He was a very good boss in that sense.

The fact that he worked on Sundays could be seen as bad, but there really wasn't much work that day, few people came in. The philosophy of the Chinese is to work every day no matter how little they get, accumulate and accumulate. Maybe the bad thing was that I had to get up early and go.

The fruit shop closed at the end of February 2020 because it did not meet the expectations of my boss, but I have very good memories.

What I would like to highlight the most was the beautiful treatment of the people who, when they heard the news, even hugged me and wished me well. They were very fond of me, and I was always attentive to what each person was wearing and what they liked. I love that.

For a moment I thought I had deleted the photographs I took there, but I searched hard and found some.

It was a great experience from which I learned a lot, I met a lot of people and I was in a line of work that I didn't know, I practically carried everything in that place.

As always, thank you Galen for these great topics that you bring us every weekend, life experiences, learning and evolutions. Thank you.

Best regards to all and have a great weekend.
Amonet.

_{All photographs are my own.
Miniature made with my own photographs in Photoshop CS6.
Used translator Deepl.com free version.}