The Alarm
I awake, nearly ten years younger - tired, dizzy, and exhausted. I suffer from sleeping problems, and last night was no exception. While studying, it was somewhat possible to deal with the issue - I tried to pick late seminars, and often slept from the early morning until the evening, living at night. Now I work in a ill-paid 7 to 4 job. I'm late. After dashing some water into my face and lifting my bicycle out of the cellar I rush to sordid building, said to be once a kinder-garden (but, as the "Stolpersteine" in front of the entrance tell me, this probably wasn't the initial phase of this buildings existence) - now a "private institution" for education. My employer is commissioned by various public sector entities to give classes and courses. It's impossible for exterior persons to grasp what is done for whom, and nearly impossible for the principals to control how and by what personal their task is executed - not that they seem to bother much. This is heavily utilized by the holder of the education company - every employee is "used" in nearly any assignment, and is often set in at various places in various tasks at the same time. Few work here for long. The payment is dismal, and the conditions are worse. Contracts are only given for short periods of time, and while this practice might be void by German law nobody takes the risk to sue - there is no doubt that an act of rebellion couldn't stay unpunished. My colleagues are either other rookies or crashed existences: People who - usually after a career in some other area of work (an academic degree or the title of a "Meister" in an non academic job is needed to work here) - are stuck here without hope for salvation. A wild mix of nonconformist intellectuals, drop-outs, addicts, mentally or physical ill, and failed pedagogues. In hindsight, they were the most interesting conversationalists I worked with - some of them have a remarkable political and cultural education. I share my office with a guy who studied languages and theology and ended up as a member of an evangelical sect and an former traveling salesman for prostheses who freely cites the works of Marx and Bert Brecht. This morning, I have to start by giving a talk about a recent topic to a class consisting of youths without graduation. Some of them are here voluntarily, some are somewhat forced to come by compulsory education laws. Talking about recent news in the morning is supposed to cool the group somewhat down, and to interfere some political education to them: Needless to say that it doesn't work overly well. I don't enjoy this sessions lately: In the last year, the class was ethically diverse, but now the most visible and audible group is a bunch of young nazis that already identified me as a potential associate of the green party (They err about this: I identify with anarchic-socialism and think of the greens as a right-wing party). While entering the room, I think what I shall talk about - being a news junkie is quite helpful here...
1: Talk about a political scandal