Chapter 6
My Third Profession
About a year before, when I went to the office of Futttar for the interview I hadn’t had too much hope about my perspectives. I knew that at fifty eight a person was no saleable ware and most people in such a situation would turn to private business, however risky is was. Fortunately, my case was the exception for this rule and I could go on translation activity. Translation I always considered a necessary activity, but no independent occupation for myself. I had to alter my vision considerably. My technical knowledge and practice, as well as my mastery of economics became less attractive in me for potential employers than the unattractive effects of other properties, e.g. my age. This is why it was impossible not to accept the situation that it was time for me to develop a new profession and it was translation.
Beside trying to develop my skills in translation, that period was a time of study for me in other senses too. Thus far almost all the time I had worked in big state companies – apart from the short periods of Tengiz and the Chinese food company – carrying overhead costs as a large burden. Here we were about half a dozen people with the boss included, there was no way of taking leisure time or making large phone calls (however, some did so as long as they could). It was almost a family. I was not the only person that considered this employment good luck, those who remained with us longer than a few weeks were all from Transylvania or living in the close neighbourhood. All wanted the firm to get along and thus keep their places.
Susan was our typist, postman (for a woman) and something like Germans call a ‘girl for everything’ (Mädchen für Alles). In earlier times she had been working with one minister of industry as his secretary. She was living on the same housing estate where we with my wife had our first flat. She was bringing up her two daughters alone separated from her husband. I must have known her when I was living there, but I didn’t remember her. She gave me a shoot of Chinese rose from the hibiscus family, as she learned that I was a fan of such plants. I planted it in the office and it prospered.
Another person for my study was Leslie. He was our graphic designer of the books and prospectuses for print. He was very skilled and was working long in the evenings during the week he spent here every month. I discussed several topics with L. and we found that our ideology was nearly the same. With some differences, of course, as the place of one’s childhood is always important. His Hungarian was very much characteristic of that of our compatriots living in Transylvania. He was working with the best PC and the largest monitor, although the latter had an alignment problem, L. was complaining that it causes him headache. The only scanner in the office, a good HP one, was also for his disposal.
With new tasks – telemarketing of training courses for cleaners, contacting potential MATISZ members, etc. – T. had to hire new employees. One was Eve, a woman with two little dogs rambling around in the office (she was the wife of a man of importance), and there were three other women from the neighbourhood, two of them living above us in the same house, they were at the end of their child care allowance and didn’t want to leave their home very far for a job, one was living on her job as independent cleaner and her apartment was a little way from the office. Also there was Emma, a former foreman for SERI, who started her own business and later joined the first masters’ course. They had to have a mobile phone each for their exclusive use, but they needed sometimes the wired phone too. T. had to buy mobile sets, as well as apply for two additional lines. Of course, it drove up costs considerably.
And with new employees at least a few new PCs were needed. That far the office had a young fellow as systems integrator, who also serviced devices or organized repair in need. He was the younger brother of the owner of the company, S. As he was also studying, he couldn’t fulfil this job properly and someone must have been found. I recommended S.M., the man I met during my job with Linda. He and T. made a good impression on each other and later they would venture into common enterprises several times. An agreement has been made and he did all that was necessary. He arranged also our network in the office and the ADSL connection. Beside that he helped T. to contact a supplier of office equipment, from whom T. bought a colour laser printer of high capacity for our own needs and also for preparing prospectuses and visiting cards for our partners in the industry.
I wasn’t part of these changes, I had a lot of work to do in translation for the codex, textbooks and documentation for the various events. There was an exhibition that spring during the period of the Budapest Spring Trade Exhibition that T. took with him from the time he had been secretary at GTE cleaning section. It was called Cleanexpo and of its kind it was the last one. However, it was a great success, with high expectations on the Millennium as well as the nearing of Hungary’s entry in the EU (joining NATO happened in the previous year). There were busy booths of domestic and foreign exhibitors, symposiums and conferences, even a contest for window cleaning. All the foreign associations were represented, T. and S. had dinners with them and very important – sometimes even confident – topics were discussed. At one of these semi-friendly and semi-official dinners I myself took part, I remember Ms Michelle Marshall, the editor of the British trade journal The European Cleaning Journal. I can say that it was the very instant when the Hungarian cleaning industry became an integral part of that sector in Europe. Even more, because also from the global federation ISSA with an American central office there was a representative here.
Wide connections have sometimes disadvantages too. Early in that spring there was a burglary in the office one night. The offenders came in through the back door by damaging the lock and they left the same way with stolen goods. Beside the really valuable colour printer they took only the scanner and the faulty large monitor. But they made me extremely angry with their cruelty: they ran off my flower from Susan. It lay on the floor beside the desk, it was torn into two pieces, because some of them even trod on it. I put the upper part in a bottle of water and after it grew small roots, I planted it. The lower part I put back into the pot. It was a great joy when I saw that both survived. One of them is in my home now and the other would be given to a colleague, a woman years later.
But actually my loss was a spiritual one. However, T. had to sit down with S. and they went through the budget to find sources for the replacement devices – the insurance company could give a certain sum, but it was not enough. Besides, the police was reluctant to do the investigation, it was going slowly, and the insurance company was not paying before the closure of the case. They succeeded and the stolen printer, scanner and monitor became replaced. There was a lot of guessing who could have done it, but neither T. nor the police could get a reliable answer. As I see it now, it could either be a visitor of us who needed them or the money or one of the managers of multinational subsidiaries who wanted to slow the company down.
I mentioned three new colleagues, one of them, Susan also by her name – let her call Sue –, living above the office in the house became active in editorial work of the monthly TTT. She played the reporter at the different client companies and the journal began getting fatter. Clients were keen to pay for being published. T. decided to make it a biweekly and then the order was restored. Also, when the owner, S. said that it was fine to have articles translated from foreign trade journals, but what was its use, the translated texts found there place in TTT. That way my digest translation work draw profit at last, as the journal became very popular and it earned us money. However, there were some very bad clients of Sue. A woman, Hungarian born, but Austrian actually, managing the subsidiary of a big German cleaning contractor, teased her often until she became angry. Being well bred she didn’t show it, but we saw her cry once from helplessness.
That woman was not alone with bad behaviour. There were other subsidiaries of multinational firms and they didn’t want the environment to change. They were in a monopolized position and wanted to keep it. If T’s effort were to bring results, there would come armies of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and would take contracts from under their noses. Later this topic would be elaborated.