FREEFORUM

Current one excluded because my boss reads this.

Mine: summer 2006, selling SIM cards at the Talas bus station. People bought one, came back the next day to tell me it doesn't work in their village. I said I know. They said then why did you sell it. I said I needed lunch.

Bread delivery, 2002 to 2006. Alatau Heights route. Up at 4. The Americans tipped in dollars and complained in dollars. I learned all my English from complaints. Every morning: "Is this today's bread?" YES. TODAY IS THE ONLY DAY WE HAVE.

WAKE UP

1992. Carrying water for the street.
Worst job. Best job. Same job.

2008 i fixed computers in a government office. i will not say which. they still had a virus from the year 2000. i removed it. the secretary asked me if the virus was dangerous for the printer. i said no. she said then why remove it

Spring 2007, marking 140 essays titled "My Republic". The children started them under one government and finished them under another. Half the essays change flags in the middle. I gave everybody a 4.

sound guy in a boiler room 2000-2003. paid in kymyz and Neftchi tickets. the worst part was the boiler. the best part was also the boiler.

Mucking out at the Hippodrome, 1997. A horse bit me for being slow. He was right.

Overnight in a Toronto doughnut shop, 2000. Canadians apologise to the coffee machine. I learned to apologise to it too. Still do.

Refinery, first year. I was the man who walks along the pipes with a stick and listens. You listen to a pipe for eight hours, the pipe starts listening back.

In 1999 an American oil services company in Talas hired me as their "cultural liaison". My job was to explain to Houston why nobody would come to a meeting on the Feast of St. Janyl. I explained for three weeks, with charts. They held the meeting on the feast. Nobody came. I was let go for "cultural reasons". I consider it my greatest professional success.

Washing pots at my aunt's stall from age 12 to 19. No salary, paid in laghman. Honestly the best paid job in Talas.

night nurse, so: this one, tonight. ask me in the morning and it's the best job in the world. ask me at 4am and, well. you asked at 4am

selling sunflower seeds at Neftchi home games. I ate the profit. every game. 2 seasons

the meat plant in the export zone, line 3, 2014. I can't look at a burger since. tacos from my tía only. (Ak, don't say it)

I said nothing. The burger said it for me. WAKE UP IRAD

1979, canteen of the oil trust in Kobozev. Five hundred men, one ladle, me. Nobody complained about the soup. They knew who had the ladle.