Monkey business

The heroine of my next story is Monkey lady.

Don’t let the name fool you, the ominous lady is a well respected member of the hungarian ruin pub* society! She is talented, smart, pretty, and blessed with a great sense of humour! She was studying hard in one of Hungary’s most prominent universities to earn pocketmoney for the rest of her life! (Well hopefully not, if her plans succeed, and she can flew the country as her other hungarian immigrant friends-or win the lottery) Monkey lady studied landscape architecture for 5 hard years, and then got a job in the second most famous architect office in Budapest (and in Hungary). As we met a few weeks ago, and were walking towards the drinking fountain on Elisabeth square (just opposite Deák square, with the beautyful Danubius fountain in the middle of it) she just pointed out a few things, which she and her colleagues designed. Impressive! We met, because I din’t see her for quite a while- You know, I spent my erasmus year in Sweden, Västerås- and wanted to catch up. Also she needed some useful friendly shoulder-tapping, because she got fired. She wanted also my help, and useful information, because her plan was, to pack her stuff, and go to London, just like so many of her young and talented hungarian fellows (I also worked there for a while in 2007). As she was telling me her story, turned out, that her teacher from the university, will move to England with her whole family, because they cannot afford a living here(both of the parents university teachers, with high degrees, and 2 kids). She elaborated, that they fired her, because the company didn’t have enough work. She worked for them for 3 years, and won many tenders and competitions. No doubt she is blessed with talent! She didn’t get severance pay (I mean 3 years, that’s so short isn’t it..) but instead after thorough asking and begging, they got their last month off. So she and her other workmates got fired in July, and still got paid for August, but didn’t have to work it off. How lucky!
So her plan B was getting filthy rich by sewing sock monkies by hand. This is a good idea, but Uncle Government doesn’t think so. But this is another story, I will tell you later about hungarian enterprise options, I dont wanna fill you up with too much information at once! You probably need time to digest all this!
The story ended in a fortunate (?) way, because last time we talked, she already got a new job (very fast, within 1 week time), where she gets paid 100.000 Forint, but she isn’t working legally for the new company…(AKA the tax office doesn’t know that she is working, therefore she won’t get a pension, and has no health insurance, but don’t be too greedy! I don’t think you wanna go to an SZTK doctor in Hungary anyway! You have to wait a few hours to hear that you are not even sick (!), unless your eyeballs are hanging out of their place or something;-)). This is very common in Hungary, that your employer does not report you to the tax-office, and if they do, they report you for less salary, so they don’t have to pay that much after you. Her rent cost her 50.000, the travel card is 10.000 and she has to pay back 10.000 Forint per month for her student loan***. At the end she has 25-30.000 Forint left to live (1 trip to the shop, cost you at least a few thousands Forints, if you are stingy, and don’t buy such luxurious things as meat, cream cheese, etc.) She is wondering, why her friends keep asking her, what is the reason why she wants to leave her home country..


*Ruin pub = a speciality of Budapest, creative young lads (mostly university students)arranging great free(!) concerts and events in between houses (no, really, this pubs,or clubs are set up in huge old style few storie houses, in the middle of the city, they tear down the middle part, put chairs and set up a bar in it, etc etc.) They are really fun places, and host exhibitions, quite affordable brew, and zsírosdeszka fröccsel. Check them out here: http://ruinpubs.com/index.php
**Zsírosdeszka fröccsel: zsírosdeszka is-please don’t be disgusted dear vegan friends of mine-bread with fat spread on it, accessorized with onion rings. Yes in the old times our great grandmothers were eating pure animal fat instead of margarine. Fröccs is a wine spritzer, made by mixing cheap wine, and soda water (bubbly mineral water).
***for many young people, who does not get support from their family, the last chance to get education, is to pick a student loan, with horrible pay back conditions, just like 10 % interest rates.

    The Danubius fountain                                  MR. Sock monkey

                                                         Typical ruinpub

The best tourist buses ever!

Yesterday night I spent way 2 much time with writing my ghost stories of the hungarian slave market, and this undermined my "mall-search" for today, so let’s see some out of the archive.

The best tourist buses ever!



They are yellow, green, red, orange..Do you know who I am talking about? The tourist bus hyenas! They are everywhere! You can’t go pass a tourist spot in Budapest without bumping in at least a bunch of them! Watch out, if you look like a stranger, they will capture- and lure you to one of their packed double deckers! Hell knows what hungarian culture has to do with them buses, but hei, at least they are economic. So now, in my desperate seek of a job, which I did in between writing two paragraphs for my diploma work, and chatting, and feeding my virtual pigs on facebook, I came into Deák street. Along with the hords of intoxicated homeless people, and assorted lunatics, this spot is the main gathering place of the rare breed of the tourist bus hyena. The specimen is best known of his/her neon coloured t-shirt, and slightly hectic, suspicious looks. They are wandering around the place in smaller groups. The well prepared own bright coloured umbrellas, and some exceptional ones can even sit down on a chair. Last summer I had a great chance to analyse them, as I was also working on the streets selling audio guides from a bike (but thats another story). The audio guide company went bankrupt meanwhile (I just hope it was not thanks to my precious influence, although I sold out a record(!) of 3 guides within a month).


I approached the orange hyenas slowly..wishing to collect some information from them. For my question, if I can talk to their supervisor, they asked me abruptly, what do I want, how many languages do i speak??? „ÖÖÖ. Sorry, but I just wanted to know, where you office is?”


„ We can’t give out this information, we have been told not to!Anyway, how many languages do you speak!?”


„Is it a secret, where your office is?” Did I let myself smile, but, no they didn’t seem to take it as a joke. Well. I am more cunning than that, I have grown up on fine London mentality (at least part of my adult-self) so I didn’t give up, and went to see another member of the crew, a few meters away. She weirdly enough, kindly answered and told me the location of the camouflaged office. I went round the classicist evangelical church (which is the main building of the square), and looked for the place. It wasn’t easy to find, but they must have good reasons to hide it this much, I thought. I went in the nearby stamp-shop, where a nice old couple directed me to next door. The old, worn out door had no signs of an office. I daringly knocked. A woman’s head sticked out the door. „May I come in” I asked boldly. „What do you want” answered the rigorous head. Hmm, I would like to inquire about the job. „We don’t have any open positions, and anyway, how many languages do you speak?” „Do you see this list?” The „manager” I suppose, showed it up; me, still standing on the street shocked, not being able to move, or do anything. „You see, this many people are on the waiting list for the job..(30-40 names, an A4 size paper full), how many laguages do you speak?” „Well I do speak fluent english, a bit of german, and understand swedish quite well.” „Thats not enough” they said „U must at least speak 3 foreign languages fluently, and have intermediate exams proving your knowledge!”..As I left, paralyzed, I heard the hyena girl (who just came in from the street) swearing, shouting, how I dared to go and ask them. Well, thank you for your cooperation.

The ominous church (built in 1799-1808)

In the mall

I believe it's the "west end" when I see the homeless guy searching through the contents of a bin (in the middle of the city)! I was late although I started my trip to Budapest in time, because I got lost in the mall..It’s like a jungle dotted with strange creatures! The city is only 50 minutes by train from my “village”, followed by 25-30 minutes tram ride (I have to change three times, because of some construction works on the way…well I don’t really know what they are constructing, because I didn’t see any one working on the line, but C’mon people, it’s fun to get on and off buses and trams, especially if you don’t know where the hell they depart from).
But finally I got to the mall, and after about half hour struggle to find out where it is, I found the shop, and a “soon coming back” sign greeted me on the door. The shopkeeper girl soon arrived, let’s call her Gabi, and then my 1,5 hour of fun-tastic “trial” started. Among other things, I got to know, that they earn 60.000 Forint*. If they manage to sell some bags, it can be up to 83.000 Forint (!). As far as a flat to rent near (or far from) the centre is around 80.000 Forint (if you are lucky), which is actually equal to her salary, she lives with her mother, in an outer district (Soroksár). Like so many of us, some with mothers, some with mothers and loudly and constantly burping grandpas, dogs, cats, other relatives..You name it!
She is a typical, what we call here “pláza cica” or mall rat**. She explained that I can take the phone, if they are calling about jobs, because they were examining a few more people in the previous days, and there was one already who looked promising; when I asked, how many positions are available, she said 1(!). So I have to be goddamn lucky! Also she told me that I have a good chance to get a job at the end of the summer, because a lot of shops here at the mall take people with “trial” contracts for the summer (which means you can quit any time without notice, but also they can fire you at any time for no particular reason) and then get rid of them at the end of August. Yeppee! I just have to wait until tons of young Hungarians get fired, and I will have a job!
Fortunately some English speaker customers arrived soon, so I could jump up, and try to encourage them to buy (she said I should be very active in serving the customers..hungarian habit, which I hate the most when I go to a shop, the constant and pushy canihelpyou). So far my English knowledge brought me jobs, a swedish scholarship, and even more jobs…among other more joyful things like friends and etcetera ;-) Great! I’m in the line of some 10 or 20 people waiting for the job. She also mumbled various swear words when a customer didn’t buy but yet was asking a lot about the goods, saying “I hope this asshole will come back, and buy this f**ing shit later”, because as she said, she didn’t get her salary. The boss does not like to take cash out of the cash machine (?!) and therefore she has to take it out of the till at the end of the day, equal to her salary, otherwise, well…she does not get paid! Based on the customers of the shop one could draw a nice map of the society of Hungary (or at least the hungarian malls) but even better, get a ride to Tököl on the domestic train service, that will overdo your worse expectations! Every day you learn something important from various strangers’ family, love, etc. life, and sometimes the tracks stored on the phone are tried out and showed off so loud for half hour, you can’t bear, and rather get off and walk home.
Anyway, back to the point, at the end of the trial (free work for 2 hours) Gabi said, they will call me back, so let’s see, if I will be a “bag-lady” or not ;-)



*1Euro=280 Forint, you do the maths ;-)
** mall rat or mall kitty= acrylic nails, polyethylene clothes, high heels, low IQ; guys almost the same, except without heels and acrylics, more arrogant, and accessorized with a lot of gold/silver necklace (we call it fux)

ingyen munka a westendben!Working for free in the MALL

Juppii!I was a bit puzzled if I should write in english or my mother tongue, but I want all my friends to be able to read the blog!So english won;-)
So!Today, is the day of  my free work!
I went to Budapest for an interview on tuesday, and (I will write it down later what happened there) after it I wanted to spread my CV around a bit, and also met Lucika-THX for the encouragement, Luca-who made me feel better, because I was a bit down...All this job search and rudeness..
Wow,so we went to this big mall-Westend City Centre (funny name, hmm?)
And I printed out, and photo copied my CV, and went in every shop I could find with an advertisement looking for salesman, and after a few, in one of the shops, the boss called me in straight for a trial-day (?!) which, as I asked about it more, turned out to be 1-or 2 hours free (!-yes, we are in Hungary, nothing is impossible here!) job trial. Just to see, how I work (out)
So, lets go, I have 1 more hours to go and travel some 2 hours with train and tram, and tram again!
C u Soon!

1st of all

This blog is inspired to give people a broad and real view of the hungarian job market, and also the adventures of a young and determined girl. 
Nowadays many talented young hungarians flew abroad in the hope that they find better work opportunities and living conditions..
I would like to dedicate my blog to the hungarian immigrants!