I am all better now

I am not lazy, but I only work two days a week. I mean, at the grocery store, nicknamed "the office".
The rest of the time, I work at home.

I work on Tuesdays  and Fridays, when the trucks with all the goodies arrive, early in the morning. I get there between six thirty and a quarter to seven, and leave whenever I am done, which is usually around one thirty in the afternoon. No lunch time, but two brakes of ten minutes each, no problem.

When I arrive, the three guys that are also considered "stockers" are already unloading the truck and spreading the merchandise all around the store. Except for what is in my pallets, the ones that go to the Dairy section. That's my job.

The store is not big. It is an old building, and boy, does it need reworked! But, that's not my business.

I have to dismantle my pallets and take everything to the Dairy area. For this, there are some old, rusted and malfunctioning carts that tend to pull to every side, except straight forward, when loaded.

It is a monkey work, no doubt. But it is also heavy. The gallons of milk come in plastic crates of four each. The eggs come in large clumsy boxes of thirty dozen each. These have cuts as handles, but they are quite wide and it gets complicated to lift them, when you have to open your arms that much, and lift the thing above your head, before lowering it down to the cart.

Juices come in boxes of eight half gallons, or six whole gallons. These stupid boxes have no handles and you have to grab them at the bottoms so you don't end up with a mess at your feet.

And there are the cheeses, butters, biscuits, yogurts... oh, you know what I am talking about. A ton of good stuff  which we all love so much.

After I fill up my shelves and store the extras in the cooler, I clean the entire back of the store. The other three guys leave a mess of empty cardboard boxes spread all over the place - isn't that typical?...  There is a container outside, where all the cardboard should go, after the boxes are broken flat. Do they do it? Nah!

So, I take the opportunity to escape from the customers, and stay in there, cleaning. Smart, right? I brake all the boxes and put them away, sweep the floor and make it all look neat.

The up and down, while lifting weight, gets to my back. It does. Sometimes I wear an elastic support belt but it does not always work as it should. 

Once, when I came home in dire pain, Hubby joked:

- See where a College degree gets you in this corner of the world?

I used to work for a multinational company, back in the country I left behind. Our company manufactured these HUGE mining shovels and I was a Technical Translator, besides an Executive Secretary for the directors of the operations.

I was the one that translated the technical  - meaning: mechanical, electrical and hydraulic - material that came from the US, related to the manufacturing, assembly and maintenance of those machines. As well as anything else that needed translation. Cool, it was.

From English to Portuguese, right?

It was a thrill! I could name all the parts and pieces of those monsters and I confess I still have a special love for the looks and the smell of any BIG machine. Oil smell, mixed with welding fumes bring sweet memories to this old broad.  Go figure.

When I arrived here, I applied for an office job downtown. They needed a secretary. I sent them my application, together with my Resumè, or Curriculum Vitae, whichever you prefer. I was called for an interview. The first question the manager of the place asked me was:

- What in the heck is a Technical Translator?

And so, I went to work for the groceries stores... and lived happily ever after.