Identity Crisis

There once was a woman who had it all: a cute little house in beautiful Portland, Oregon, an interesting job, two adult children whom she saw several times a year, a garden to tend, fresh produce galore, a soothing yoga studio, a challenging Italian book club, many friends with whom to hike, camp, visit, laugh and enough spare time to enjoy all of the above.

Now I feel like just the shell of my former self, stuffed with memories and a deep sense of loss. My new job is taking up all my waking hours and all my energy. When I finally get home in the evening, after a simple dinner I barely have time to respond to the most urgent emails before collapsing. I am feeling bloated from eating bad food. We are required to purchase the bakery's lunch. There is no choice as to the menu. Napkins are obviously too expensive to waste on staff. Afternoon snack consists of bread (plain, no grain nor whole wheat which also probably are too expensive to waste on staff), butter, jam, and lukewarm tea - daily. I have started to supplement with fruit and yogurt but still feel like I am eating too much bread and generally not well enough. I miss cooking my own food, I miss sharing it with friends and family.

I live in a beautiful area in the heart of the Alps but I get only short glimpses of the mountains, mostly when it's dark. They then feel like protective friends waiting for me and I yearn for them.

What ever constituted the frame of my life and whatever allowed me to define my personality is gone. I no longer have time to go to the ladies' evening gym, I don't have time to watch my customary Sunday night movie on Netflix, I no longer have time to follow the environmental news. I definitely don't have time to travel to the lowlands to see friends, or to entertain guests. The feeling of social isolation is aggravated by the looming holidays. I never got much into the commercial aspect of Christmas - for me it's about cocooning in the decorated and lit-up house, playing Christmas music and baking up a storm. It's about kids coming home and cozy times with friends and family.

So, who is Irene? The former webfoot, the happy mountain goat or the exhausted bakery girl? Whichever, I am still wondering whether I should stick with this job or quit. I am tempted to reclaim my life and myself in the process, but at the same time I am afraid I would feel like a quitter. How did Sarah Palin do it, to quit the job as governor of Alaska without feeling bad about it? Oh... to have her gall... If I quit I'd feel like I'd let down my colleagues who have patiently been training me in the subtleties of packaging up delicate pastries (see below). I would also preclude myself from getting another job in Switzerland, since my current employer would not issue the precious work certificate. Meanwhile my time for quitting is running out, since starting on Dec. 1 I'll have to give one month notice.

To my family and friends in the US: best wishes for a warm and cozy Thanksgiving. I'll be with you in my thoughts!

View from my bedroom in Zuoz.















Heaps of snow at the Zuoz train station.















My aunt and my father were born in the little house. My aunt lived in it until her late 60's at which time she then moved into the larger house - directly next door. She still lives there, by herself, at 93.











The pastry makers at the bakery create veritable works of art. This is a chocolate eclair morphed into a swan. Nobody bought this poor little guy so I felt sorry for him and took him home to give him a dignified end.

Nothing but Work

I didn't do very well in my resolve to make the best of my days off. My cold forced me to spend last week's days off resting. I have the next two days off, but I am hoping to travel to St. Gallen to cook for my aunt. They won't be relaxing days, but I want to do it for her.

So, since I didn't do anything write-worthy on my days off, this post will be all about work. Pretty soon, I am afraid, I won't have anything left to write about because I suspect that work stories will get boring rather quickly.

This job has definitely propelled me into another world. It consists of the bosses, two brothers, who come to the bakery almost every day. There's the "glider" (see last week's post), and his brother who will actually help out in the store when necessary. The other day he took an hour to teach me about the different chocolates. He was impressed by how much I had remembered from his previous lecture and I am hoping that he will teach me some more. Meanwhile I have learned that the business belongs to 4 siblings. As far as I understand they don't get along and the two working in the store have pretty much their hands tied by the other two. Meaning they are unhappy and therefore they are unable to care about the happiness of the staff.

The staff is multi-national. In the store we are only 2 Swiss. One, a very hard worker, is Portuguese, and 2 are German. They both are challenging, one because she doesn't like to be given advice despite the fact that she is prone to mistakes, the other because she is a loud motor mouth. Business is very slow this month (good for learning!) so there are many downtimes with nothing to do. We are not allowed to eat or drink on the job (I am losing weight since I cannot snack every two hours!), nor to read the paper or do anything else, meaning that when there are no clients there is nothing else to do but talk with each other. And often I'd just rather stand there in silence than have to listen to that talking! The Swiss woman is great, but this job definitely has catapulted me down from my rarified air into a mercyless tough world. One of the German women, whom I'll call Hilde, has filed 3 times for divorce but still spends most of her time off with her husband. She has taken a room at Hanselmann's, but lets him visit her there when she doesn't go home. She wants a divorce because he keeps on having lovers. Hilde threw one lover into a creek in the winter and the poor woman got pneumonia. Hilde also told Interpol some kind of story that led them to stop another lover at the German border and sequester her car, although Hilde knew that the lover was innocent. The car was returned, but only 6 weeks later. There is an unending supply of similarly hairy stories. I am not sure which to believe, but if they are not true, I give Hilde credit for a great imagination.

Hanselmann's is a mini United Nations - although we are not united at all. The Germans hate the Portuguese, calling them Portos, forgetting that they are foreigners as well. The Portuguese do the most dirty work. I am not sure whether they fight a lot amongst themselves, or if loud voices is just a normal way of communicating. Sometimes the screams come all the way down to the store through the food elevator. The waitresses are from Sud-Tirol, the part of Italy near the Swiss border, where they speak German. The cook and one of the bakers are Italian and Italian is the common language throughout the business. Except that the Germans don't understand a word of it.

On my first day I was given the job of answering the phone on the 3rd ring. Neither the Germans nor the Portuguese understand Swiss German, meaning that when the other Swiss woman is not there, I am the only one who can deal with whatever language the caller speaks. My high German (as opposed to Swiss German) has improved a lot over the last 2 weeks, as it's the common language among the women in the store. This means that I am constantly switching back and forth between high German, Swiss German and Italian, with sprinklings of French and English! Giving change in any language other than French still is challenging, especially at the end of the day when I'm getting tired.

Talking about being tired... It's time for me to go to bed, and this post is long enough for today. That means that I'll have more stories next week. I do want to end on a positive note: last night I stayed in St. Moritz because I went to a yoga class. It's very expensive (the equivalent of some $30!) and of course it was not as good that my Portland yoga class, but it was better than nothing, and today I have sore muscles, meaning I really needed it. I am therefore planning to go back when I can. After all I have to treat myself to something, otherwise the winter will be long and unbearable.

My mother died today, November 16, exactly 40 years ago. She was taken to the hospital on my birthday, two days earlier. Ever since, her death and my birthday have been inextricably linked. Rather than complaining about getting old, I am grateful for the gift of life and I am trying to age gracefully.

Taking a walk along lake St. Moritz during my break.













Fresh snow in Zuoz.














Another lunch break walk.















The town of St. Moritz. The store is next to the church.

Courageous or stupid?

Could it be possible that working is not good for your health? I have been on the job for just one week, and I have already caught a cold - the first one since moving to Switzerland, so indeed the conclusion is obvious!

Yes, I started work last Monday, November 1. I can't decide whether I am courageous or stupid to stick with it. It is quite the job from hell. The only redeeming factor is the colleagues, all extremely nice. So far most of my workdays have been from 8am to 7pm, five days a week, for a total of 45 hours per week. When I was offered the job, I called the bakers' guild and was told that the legal working week is 42 hours. Before signing the contract I asked the owner of the bakery about the 45 hours week - and he explained that the business was structured like that. Period. End of conversation. Take it or leave it.

The 9 daily hours of work are not consecutive. If I start at 8am, I work until 11:30 - no break. At that time I eat lunch. It's provided by the bakery (which also is a restaurant). It's not optional, and its cost is deducted from our salary. There is no choice, definitely not cafeteria style: you eat the dish that's waiting for you on the table. Fortunately I am not a picky eater and the food is rather good. A lot of meat thought, and although I am not a big meat eater, I do eat it, figuring I need the protein to make it through the afternoon. After lunch I have a long break, until 1:30pm. I have rented a room in the bakery's building and that's where I spend part of the break, putting my feet up, away from people, enjoying a cup of coffee. I have to buy the coffee at the restaurant, because there isn't anywhere in the whole house (5 floors) where the employees can help themselves to a hot beverage, or make one. I then make a point of going for a walk - after all this is St. Moritz, and there are many great options to catch some fresh air and get a bit of exercise.

I am back on the job at 1:30pm and work until 7pm with one 15' break. In the store there is no place to sit - meaning I am on my feet during all this time. There's a twist to the above schedule: the work day actually starts at 7:55am but finishes at 7pm - meaning that we actually work another 25 minutes per week without additional pay.

The business is owned by two brothers. One has a small office next to the store. He keeps a very sharp eye on the store, making sure that all the many rules and best practices are rigorously observed. When we are understaffed he helps out and therefore has a good sense of life in the store. The other brother is responsible for the business side of the enterprise. His office is basically inaccessible, at the back of the hall on the third floor. Once in a while he glides through the store. He takes no notice of us. We must be invisible for he never talks to us, other than remark when there are mistakes with the cash register. No hello, no how are you doing, no small talk of any kind, no thank you - great job. It blows my mind. If I were the owner of a business like this I'd want to know my employees, I'd want to take an interest in them, I'd want to make sure that we are a well functioning team, I'd want to motivate them to do their best. He depends on us to make money, but he doesn't seem to see us as an important component of his establishment.

There's so much to tell about my new life that it can't possibly fit into one post that my friends would read to the end. So I'll leave it at this for now. Next week I'll write about our uniforms, about my colleagues, about how I was assigned to pick up the phone, and about the clients.

All this being said, I did have 2 days off last week, and fortunately the weather was gorgeous and very mild. On the first day I just went for a walk in the afternoon after having done my chores in the morning. On the 2nd day, however, I went downhill skiing to the only area that's open. You take a sky tram up to 9,000 feet and then you ski up there using one relatively short chair lift. Not very exciting per se, but the scenery was stunning, it was very mild, not a cloud in the sky, perfect powder and no people. It couldn't have been any better. Since I bought the season's pass, I didn't feel bad about quitting after just 90 minutes of skiing. There was only one run, which I did some 6-7 times, gaining some more confidence each time. Then my bad knee started complaining, and besides, the one lonely run was getting boring. Although short, this day definitely lifted my spirits. I am determined to push myself to do fun activities on my days off, despite my exhaustion!

Pictures:

1. A new sight: Irene at work.
2. My lovely room in St. Moritz. The living conditions at the lodge in South Africa were better.
3. Walking along Lake St. Moritz last week.
4. Walking along Lake St. Moritz today (we got over a foot of snow in the last 24 hours).
5. Downhill skiing at Diavolezza. Note the spray of powder behind the skiers.