> WORK POST #1: All the Jobs I’ve Seen in Shanghai (jobs 1-10)
This begins a series of posts of undetermined number on the subject WORK. Last week I posted some definitions to get me thinking more about the topic as I go through my days. (Please add your thoughts there or below. I’d love to hear what comes to your mind.)
Today I begin to attempt to list the jobs I’ve seen in Shanghai. I’ll start by thinking about leaving my door, my building, and walking through the neighborhood and see where that takes us.
Here goes. More to come.
Enjoy!
1. I have not seen him/her, but someone empties the large garbage can in the stairwell that we all empty our trash into.
2. The guys who sit in the little room just inside the building, reading, snoozing, occasionally dancing just outside the little room or running outside to direct a car.
3. Our mail carrier/s
4. More dudes directing cars or snoozing in the booths at the entrance to our building complex
5. Sherpas delivery guys (I’ve only seen guys). On some of the expat forums there has been talk that people can now make more money as a Sherpas guy, as opposed to, say, a school teacher–especially with foreigner tips–and so they worry expats are skewing the work market in a detrimental way.
6. The guy on Saturdays, with the woman who assists him, who parks his portable cast iron giant popcorn-making-contraption that sometimes makes a noise like a canon ball blast.
7. The guy in the magazine stand.
8. The guys who sometimes doze in reclining lawn chairs on the sidewalk, waiting to tend to the small trash building (where people from area buildings bring their trash). The lawn chair is set up opposite the trash building, probably a good idea as the air thickens and gets stinkier. Sometimes they play cards or are sorting through electronics, or recyclables or torn apart office cubicles.
9. The hairdressers in the barbershop who work long hours–’til at least 10 at night
10. The many fruit sellers on “fruit street”, selling fruit, cutting the skins of pineapple with a special tool, arranging berries into pretty basket displays
the magazine stand
keeping the streets clean
