I have now worked in McDougalls for six days, but in some senses I feel that I know it much better than that. Every work place has its politics and secrets, its personalities and rules. Being the débutant, the ‘new girl’ is about working out all of those rules and politics without offending anyone. But in places like McDougalls survival is complicated and directly proportional to the number of allies you make viz. enemies. As in a totalitarian government or reality TV show, no-one is really safe, and reality can flip at any moment, (this metaphor is especially apt for McDougall’s – a place which is armed to the teeth with CCTV cameras. Rumour has it that the mercurial boss has an application on his smart phone that allows him to access any of the pub’s myriad cameras at any point in time, in any place in the world. So we are never free from the all-seeing corporate eye, and always subject to his gaze.)
As in all places in this world of samsara, the employees of McDougalls exist within an illusion of freedom. This is especially true as the style of service in Belgium is very different from that of England. Rather than, for example, customers coming up to the bar and ordering their food and the staff ringing this through the till, every employee has their own separate float and personal money-bag. This means that you do your own accountancy work and are directly answerable for any fuck-ups that you happen to make. The pressure of getting everything right financially, coupled with the ubiquitous gaze of the cameras, creates an environment that is highly conducive to stress and back-chatting. In fact I have never worked anywhere where I feel that my footing is so conditional, where so many employees claim a privileged ‘relationship’ with the boss, and where informants arrive in many different shapes both within (as staff), or without (as customers). The merest hint of an Irish accent is enough to put me on guard, and sure enough after I have elicited enough conversation from a punter to draw out his story and relationship to the pub, perhaps a little intimacy too, I will typically hear something like: ‘Oh, I’ll tell Carney that you’re alright’ or ‘don’t worry you seem to know what you’re doing, Carney has nothing to worry about.’
The sense of powerlessness and sectarianism is also exacerbated by the dubious legal standing that employees of McDougalls enjoy. In fact, it was only after my third shift there, were I, exhausted, has been intensely looking forward to the end of my shift at eleven, was informed matter-of-factly by other members of staff, that in general I should have no expectation to finish according to the times on the rota, and that the roster was ‘fake’. The contract of employment which I subsequently received, stating my hourly income (Belgian minimum wage) was also a front for the government officials. I should expect no more than nine euros an hour and ten when I became ‘good’.
This experience has given me something of an insight into the highly precarious world that most immigrants to new countries must face. Typically an immigrant does not have the native language of the country to which they travel, yet they must find work to survive. So they are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and employers of this highly vulnerable section of society know this, and exploit it.
But I know that in reality, I should count my blessings. My experience in Belgium is nothing like as difficult as the experiences that millions of refugees and immigrants face all around the world. To begin with I am white and middle-class. This already an advantage in a country where there is still a lot of intolerance and conservatism. I was told, for example, by a female sous chef in the kitchen, Beya, that when she sought accommodation in Ghent for herself, her Nigerian husband and their daughter, she found it almost impossible. Apparently when she went to flat-viewings alone, everything was fine – with him, no chance. I am only reporting what she said to me. As her husband’s legal documents are not being accepted by the government here they cannot be legally married. At the moment Beya is saving up money from working in the kitchen, in the hope that they can immigrate back to Nigeria, where she hopes they will be able to live in a way that their love is respected. Beya is an exceptional human-being, but I will perhaps relate a little more about her and her life at another point.
The other incalculable advantage I enjoy as an immigrant to Belgium is that I am a European citizen and speak fluent English, a language which has been the lingua franca of the world, and which enables me to speak to almost everyone. I am not linguistically isolated, as many immigrants must be when they move to another country, and I do not have complicated legal documentation issues to resolve. Lastly, I have money. This makes all the difference: with money my passage is eased as I can immediately find somewhere to live and establish myself independently. As I have no family to care for, I do not have to resort to desperate measures to keep myself afloat. So, in many ways I do not face anything like the challenges that others do when they move abroad, to a country where they have no connections or ties, my language, my nationality and education has rendered me an immediate passport to freedom.
Though I might have seemed a little derogatory about Belgian society, I did not mean any real criticism. In fact, moving to this country, has made me realise how easy it is for Europeans to make the jump and live abroad. In Belgium, I have been pleasantly surprised at how little legal bureaucracy stands in the way of becoming a Belgian citizen, or at least gaining an ID card. First you must have an address, then you must register with a local authority and book an interview with the Inspector of the Police. Once this process has begun and you have received your proof of address, you may set up a bank account and within a few months you can receive an ID card. There is a slight grey area, before you have been registered, a grey area in which you are temporarily nameless, faceless and anonymous. I am lucky enough to be able to draw myself out of this dangerously legally anonymous position, but for many around the world, I imagine, they grey area is one in which they continue to exist for many months or even years, unsure of their legal status, unable to find work that does not exploit their friendlessness and lack of footing.
But let’s return to the world of the pub, from the world of officialdom. I have been told by others that work at McDougalls, that I arrived at a highly opportune moment. The chef is friendly, nay almost obscenely chatty, the manager Sasha, is as sweet as honey and honest and good as you can imagine. Many of the staff members are decent, hard-working sorts and the clientele appreciate the hostelry’s jovial atmosphere. In general, I have enjoyed my work there. There were times, and are always times, in the restaurant and bar trade (especially in the beginning), when you feel that everyone is giving you a difficult time and you cannot get anything right. But often the criticism and complaints subside as soon as you get to know the place, and ‘the way of working’. As soon as you become a valuable employee, someone who can coolly control 10-20 ‘covers’ or table, plus customers at the bar, then you begin to gradually build up respect from your peers. In fact there is something quite refreshing about this meritocracy. Nothing in anybody’s previous life matters: your education, your personality, even. Things start happening for you when you become good at your job and can really participate usefully in the game of work. It is a brand of popularity that is directly equivalent to strength and utility.
And the work at McDougalls can be very tiring. Indeed I see it as the apogee of my career in the hospitalities industry. Here, all my skills are called upon: as a barmaid, barista, waitress and raconteur. I must pull pints behind the bar, wait tables, clear dishes, courier plates of food and all across a vast premises of two floors with two outdoor terraces, which boats a capacity of over two hundred people. Seasoned waitresses that I work with complain of the weight of the plates, many say that they can carry five or six plates in other restaurants but in McDougalls, where the food portions are profanely large, they can only carry three.
Yet, there is something exhilarating about the active nature of the work there. After only a week my arms feel strong and my body lithe. I have become masterful at twisting and dancing around tables and balancing up to ten heavy drinks on one hand upon a waiting tray, while remembering three separate requests or orders from different customers. It is very different from working as a teacher or in other middle-class professions, but I am quite happy to not be working at a desk. My flatmate was delighted to hear me comparing my dynamic work at McDougalls to yoga, but in many ways it is like a kind of yoga, it requires extreme alignment and control over the body, and equilibrium between body and mind. Now, after only a week of working there, I already have completed quiet shifts on my own, during the day. On these shifts I have been given responsibility for the running of the whole pub and restaurant, and actually I have come to have quite a bit of affection for my customers and the place as a whole, which is, after all, by my beautiful Leie and receives plenty of sun.
833 words a day 