Greek Salad and Feta Cheese - A Valuable lesson on dignity of labor

All I remember - my feet were killing me. As I crashed into my bed without even taking a shower, I thought 'Man! I will never do that again'.

It was the summer of 2001 and as graduate students in Virginia we had a few extra hours to do extra work. One of Suresh's roommate brought home a flyer that called for 'Volunteers' for the Greek festival. Me and my roomies decided that it would a good way to make a little extra money. We had no idea what we were signing up for! But I remember that it was the best lesson of my life.

We left early morning to the help at the Greek festival. I think the pay was minimum wages i.e. $5.15. We each had different uses for the money. I was planning to pool it toward money for buying a second hand car. I think one of my roommates wanted to buy a ticket to visit her brother in California and she didn't want her brother to pay for it. I cant remember the other reasons. But the primary reason was - it was summer and most everyone worked 40 hours.
So we reached the Greek orthodox church  and were shown to a dark room that was used for salad preparation! Salad preparation!!!! That had got to be the easiest thing ever. What started out as fun and laughter turned out to be a long dragged day. We stood there for several hours. I cannot remember how long! Boring work - as we dumped lettuce leaves, tomatoes and feta cheese into small plastic boxes. I had seen it been done in videos, I had heard about it and in my life I never thought I would be standing in an assembly line of people putting together a salad. We had to make sure each box had just the right amount of ingredients. As the day went by, maybe we got a little clumsier and feta cheese and lettuce leaves fell on our shoes. At the end of the day our only pair of sport shoes (not the fancy kind - just the simple ones) stunk of feta cheese.

About mid day we were each given a coupon to buy something at the stalls set up for the Greek festival. But the coupons could not be used for some of the special stuff like calamari (squid). Options included more Greek salad (!!!) Souvalaki, Moussaka, Spanakopita, Gyro, Triopita, Baklava, and other things that sounded very interesting to the aching feet. We really didn't want to eat as much as we wanted to sit down.

                                                              Taking a Break at the Greek Festival!


That day when we reached home, none of really had the energy for anything. I remember I didn't even want to take a bath. Just the bed and sleep!
The next day and the day after that we made more Greek Salad! I don't know why I didn't just quit it. After all it was extra money and that to not so much. But by this point we had realized the value of this labor and we had promised to work a certain number of hours to the organizer. Not like they would have cared if we left as they had plenty of other graduate student volunteers who wanted the extra money.  I am glad I didn't quit because I value the lesson in dignity of labor and now I get to brag about it. Yes brag!

One day during the festival we were asked to serve lemonade at the lemonade counter. That day we had sticky shoes and sticky hands and the smell of lemonade stuck so deep in our senses, we would never want to drink lemonade again. You would think! In the heat of the summer, the lemonade came as a welcome break to again sit down and relax.

Then on one day we had to work at the 'drive-thru' stall at the festival. We each were given a sheet of paper and had to run to cars, get the order and then run back and call it out, then run back and deliver the food and collect the money. Essentially an on the run 'waitress'. This was one of the biggest Greek festivals in the East coast I think, because the both the walk-in's and the drive-thru lines were very long. But working at the drive-thru was the most fun because I did not have to stand in a dingy room and smell feta cheese or stand in a humid stall and fill glasses of lemonade.

I think I worked at the Greek festival two years and then went back a year later because I actually missed the food and wanted to eat it. When I worked at these Greek salads, I was already into my Ph.D. Or at least I had made my decision to do one. I cannot remember the thought process for taking up this part time job. But it taught me that no job in the world was too small to do. It also funded my air-tickets to India when I had to come home two years back to back (2002 December to get married)

I now see young people around me who are so picky about their jobs. I wonder if any of them would be willing to work like this for the itty-bitty money! I see young folk who complain about their timing and how tiring and boring things at work can get or how mean their bosses are and I think of the mildly evil looking lady who taught us to make the Greek salad and spoke minimal English and so everything sounded scary.

Here are some of the summer jobs Suresh and I took up
1. Greek festival Volunteer
2. University Gymnasium identity card swipe: This is where I realized I was a morning person. I took up the 5:30 am shift. Suresh took up the 9:30 am shift. Job responsibilities included: swiping id card of everyone who walked in, putting dirty and sweaty towels for wash in the washing machine and when they were dry, folding them and stacking them up. In addition, we would have to take rounds about and make sure things were in order.
3. Dog sitter: This was more of Suresh than me! He got to hang out and walk dogs while he made some extra money.
4. Call center person: I would have to call the university Alumini and ask them for money! It was really embarrassing when I called an Alumini who was pissed about not getting a job after graduation.

Last week as we were driving through HSR BDA, I saw a sign at the McDonalds for a part/ full time job. I wondered – If I needed – would I work there. I wondered if I would see any of the young folks I know, work there. I wondered if I would be OK with letting Isaac or Ziva work there. I wonder if Isaac or Ziva would be willing to give any job the DIGNITY DESERVED!

The Rise of the professions – No more is the game Doctor Doctor!

I recently went for a baking course and something struck me hard. It was three hour course at Lavonne at Indiranagar. I love Lavonne! It has become like by de-stresser place. Every time the crazy gets going, I find a course at Lavonne and tell DH I am going. But I will talk more about Lavonne in another blog. This blog is more about what I realized at Lavonne.

Now Lavonne is a very classy place. The folks who work there are dressed well according to their job description. It’s not a casual bakery that also houses an academy. It’s not dark and dingy. It’s beautiful!

The class was with Joonie Tan! If you haven’t heard of her, please go look up her anti-gravity cakes on Facebook. The class was relatively short one compared to most of Lavonne’s classes and it was more about technique than kinds of dessert. But for me anything Lavonne is fun and wonderful! So it was that I decided to spend 9 am to 1 pm on that Friday at Lavonne learning Sharp edge ganache

As we were going about plastering our cakes and smothering it with yummy ganache, my ears caught on to one thing. Every so often someone referred to our teacher as ‘Chef’. I totally loved the sound of it. I thought it was because it was Joonie, therefore the prefix attached. But as I continued through the class, a few ladies referred to other classes they had attended and their teacher in those classes as Chef.

 As I looked through the glass door at the other activities happening in the corridor, Chef Joonie mentioned that the Diploma students were having their exams. The students kept walking into our room with their trays of items to use the refrigerator that was in our class. There was a look of stress and yet professionalism. As I walked out for a shot break, I peeked into one of the other room and I saw all hard at work. They were just not baking for the bakery! They had an exam and they were taking it as seriously as I had taken by lab exams for my PhD qualifiers. I loved it! 

As I looked around everyone wore some kind of uniform! The Chef wore the high collared aprons, the man who stood behind the counter at the baking shop downstairs had his own uniform, and the boys who did the washing and cleaning up also had their own uniform. Then I started noticing that even the Diploma students had their own uniforms and it seemed like specific hats. I wondered whether that had something to do with where they were along their course.

As I drove home with my 6 inch sharp edge ganache cake, I pondered more on the place I had just left. For all practical purpose it had the similarity to a well-run hospital. I say hospital because we still live in a generation where we give the medical professions higher value. But leaving Lavonne and driving home, I realized that things were changing. There was a rise in the professions. Just like there were doctors and nurses and residents and support staff at a hospital each identifiable by their clothing and their strut, this baking academy had moved baking into a professional level. If I had to equalize it a bit, the chefs were the doctors, the nurse were those that supported them (sous chefs), the residents were the Diploma students (still stressed about the learnings and exams).

To top it all there was the constant referral ‘Chef’. Just like we did in the hospital. ‘Doctor’. I felt elated at this parallel and I realized that there were several places that this was coming out.

The rise of the profession. The respect for the occupation. Isaac refers to his football, swim and gymnastic teachers as ‘Coach’. I remember that in someplace in the hospital where I worked, they would refer to the Nurse with the prefix ‘Nurse’ XYZ

While our identity should not be in our profession but in ourselves, I realized that in giving dignity to the labourer by using theirs profession against their names, we had finally broken the norm our generation followed.

Now the enticement toward Doctor and Advocate has been replaced by ‘Chef’ and ‘Coach’.