Tag: capitalism

Good job!

May 13, 2019. Monday

Three days of giving and taking the audios, of saying same words and phrases thousands times, of gathering and lifting up the guides on our shoulders from here to there, up and down, far and closer, of cleaning and putting the machines into the chargers.

Three days of waking up at 6 a.m. and coming back home after 8 p.m.

Hoarse voice, anger, but also some jokes, and also good jokes. Jokes and laughter save us. The sameness of the routine physical work varies when we laugh.

People are all the same, and we’re so always ready to create stereotypes. People are all so different, and we pay attention to these differences, we like them or we hate them, we play with them and make fun.

The 4th day is my day off. And, strangely, I do not feel as if my flesh and bones were thouroughly chewed and split out by the crowds of people visiting the fabulous château de Versailles.

I have a good feeling of my body, it is sound, ready to escape – finally! – into the fields. Val d’Oise is calling. It’s a perfect day with lucid air.

Acacias are in bloom.

One day of the sun and silence.

The next day we were told we didn’t work hard enough: instead of 50%, we distributed the audios to the 48% of the visitors during Easter and april. That’s why we won’t be paid our salary bonus which is about 200 euros. Bloody capitalism. It’s like bloody communism. Achieve the impossible with as less facilities as possible. Some colleagues think though that other colleagues are to blame: they did not try thaaat hard.

Versailles. Easter

It’s stunning to see crowds of people waiting patiently in a long line for the audioguides in Versailles. The guides are “free of charge” or, rather, included in price of the Billet Château. Some know that, others don’t but follow those who know, yet others are informed by us on the spot and then stand in line. This is not the desire of knowledge but the power of money and of what is seemingly free.

One of the last days, our team distributed around 100 000 guides. The price of the ticket is 18 euros. Now count how much money gets the Château de Versailles during holidays. Don’t forget that the audioguides are distributed only to the 50% of the visitors or even less.

I worked there yesterday from 8.45 to 18.30. It was Easter, and all of us were dead by the end of the day. I think that before I was not really tired. Everything is relative.

The Chinese people want the guides especially bad – for the third reason: because their human Guide told them to take the guides, and they obey.

Seems like the Chinese suffer most of all from the cultural shock. After them the Russians come: the representatives of both nations look really disoriented and… wild. But they express the shock in different ways: the Chinese are afraid of getting lost, so they move around in big cohesive groups menacing to smash everything and everyone who is on their way. It’s a collective body with no individuals. The Russians are not that “collective”, but an overt astonishment and failure to communicate is often drawn on their faces.

chateau vers

Here are some of the less FAL (frequently asked languages): Dutch and Deutsch, Arabic, Romanian, Swedish, Breton, British, Hindi, Farsi, Hebrew (asked once only), cantonal Chinese…

  • In which language?
  • Breton.
  • British.
  • Dutch.
  • Deutsch.