A Life of Careers
Gerhard Kress
The German word for work is Arbeit. I can never think of it without remembering the cynical slogan above the entrance to the concentration camp of Auschwitz. ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’. In a different context, the word was used like an ideology or a religion when I was a child. Another nauseous word, regularly used in my extended family in the country is related to Arbeit. It is ‘tuechtig’. It would often be used to sum up the quality of a person by using the adjective ‘tuechtig’ (hard working). It would be seen the equal to stating that this is a ‘good’ person. When my school years were in danger of coming to an end and my friends were thinking about apprenticeships as electricians, plumbers, builders or the automotive industry, I was desperate to prolong my time in school beyond parental expectations. My mother wanted me safely tucked away at the Post Office, like my father. That would’ve been like being run over by a well cushioned sofa and forever staying down.
I managed three more years and obtained the obligatory number of O-level equivalent exam results in a new school. Still not wanting to go into work, I tried two further schools but failed until I hit on Industrial Photography. It would satisfy my need to be involved with the visual arts in some way. Though not a viable future. Upon returning from a life and work in Iran, I enrolled in evening school to obtain entitlement to study history in university. Two languages were compulsory A-level subjects and my English was fairly useless. I travelled to England to look for work as a crash course for English. I found CSV, Community Services Volunteers. I was not looking for payment, just work, a bed and food. But they did offer pocket money for beer and roll-ups. A charity had opened a therapeutic community for people who had learning and physical disabilities and had lived for many decades in institutions behind high walls, segregated from other people. Full-time volunteers like me, would be living, working, enjoying leisure time with them and there would be no locked doors, no high walls. It worked very well. I found that I was no longer in a hurry to get back to Germany and accepted a second placement in Cornwall, working at a Day Centre and eventually, a ‘real’ job as a care assistant.
Never thinking in terms of long term or of a career, I nevertheless decided to obtain qualifications and studied for a Diploma in Social Work. Passing the entrance interview was good, but giving up my job to move to Bristol made me feel vulnerable. I used my own financial resources, saved from five years of care assistant work, to pay for two years’ living expenses and study in a language that I was still getting used to. As far as academia was concerned, I felt like a fraud. Ambivalently I also felt that all this was a bit of a laugh. Which I know in hindsight was my coping mechanism as otherwise my confidence might’ve taken a dive and my instinctive reaction might’ve been to run away. As it turned out I added a BSc (Hons) degree in Health and Community Studies to my CV. After a year working as a professional, full-time busker, I worked in several places in managerial positions. The job that sticks out for me is being in a team of three managers in a Social Services EMI home (elderly mentally infirm). The shifts were the usual 24 hours that I had already worked in most places before that, with a one hour hand-over period to the next manager in the team. I fondly remember the occasions of group interaction with music and memory recall. I remember the first time I smelled a mixture of sweat, urine, bad breath, old age, and perhaps I remember the second and third time. But after that, the smell is no longer registered. And you are among friendly people who live their last years in this place, and friendly staff. And yes, there is also violence, usually confused old men. At least in my experience, never women. There was one very stressful episode of staff abuse which took the arduous procedure until the resulting dismissal. But the staff team of fifty, mostly part-time colleagues, grew stronger subsequently. When I think back, I recall playing the violin, ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’, ‘Roll Up the Barrel’, ‘Daisy, Daisy’ etc., and the endless day-long wandering and of course the signs you begin to recognise when a person is at the end of her or his life and you are sitting next to the bed, sometimes holding hands. One very old and very elegant lady, constantly wandering the corridors, always greeting you anew and always talking incomprehensive gibberish. When I sat by her bed as life ebbed away, she suddenly spoke clear French. And just then a colleague comes into the room, whispering that two of the staff have called in sick and you know that you’re going to spend some time behind a phone trying to find a replacement.
A second marriage, a busy life in music, and developing my business as a musical instrument maker, a luthier. When my son was born and my partner returned to work I gave up my job to concentrate on fatherhood and to fit in my business wherever possible. It was a good combination. I gave up drum making on reaching 65, but still run workshops, have exhibitions and play jazz, blues, folk every week. Oh, and there is the making of dozens of books too.