Jobs

My job search here in Munich has been a haphazard process. I showed up six weeks ago with a degree, little to no money and roughly zero knowledge of how one writes a resume. I spent days lolling around in my at-the-time tiny bed and bemoaning fate while perusing the Internet.

Slowly, a month and a half later, I have made progress. I have still been in bed on the Internet all day, but the bed is much larger -- thanks to Nader's ebay abilities -- and now, sitting in my inbox, are two messages from people who want to have me as their employee. Hurray!... sort of!

The first is from a woman I met yesterday. She was of a type one meets here; she had crinkly skin and white hair, she was wearing metallic blue eyeliner and a wool coat woven in many colors, like Joseph's. She slightly resembled Meryl Streep, which instantly frightened me in a sort of visceral, Devil-Wears-Prada way.

We sat down in a room covered in flower appliques and toys and green paint. You see, the job she was offering is at a child jail.

Not really, but sort of.

It's a "Kinderbetreuung", which translates to "place to shove your kids for the day". The school's website explains that many mothers nowadays would really prefer to work, and so why not place your children at our wonderfully-colored nest of rooms, where they will learn about snow and leaves and telephones and music and all sorts of different languages?

Intrigued by the web site, I applied as one of the people who would be teaching them all these different languages. I thought the job would be more that of an English teacher -- as in, I'd have formal lesson time and song time and stuff -- but it turns out, my job would more be to yell at the children in English all day. "It's surprising what they pick up!" she said in her elegant Germanic accent, eyes crinkling.

With me, it might be mostly swear words, I thought.

After she spoke with me, and decided my lack of a teaching license wouldn't really be a problem, we toured the facilities. They're cute -- there's a mini baby rock-climbing wall, a room full of beanbag chairs, and a bunch of rice on the floor. I met all eighty-five children ranging in age from zero to six; they were almost creepily intrigued by me, would move happily towards the doors as soon as Angelika opened them. I liked the five-year-olds best, and hoped, as Angelika steered me towards what would be my classroom, that the children inside were equally pleasant.

"I wasn't sure at first, since we need someone with a teaching degree, but I think actually that we need someone like you," she said. "All happy and cheerful! And so smart! And you must be smart, to deal with children," she said, and smiled, and I got all puffed up with pride. And then she opened the door.

The room seemed darker, more bare than other rooms. It smelled of cooked food and something stale. The babies inside drooled up at me, twelve of them, rice falling from their mouths. The teachers sat next to them on tiny stools, their eyes dead.

One girl with thick, dark-brown hair cut into a bob rose from her stool. "Hello," she said dully.

"Oh, this is the Maria!" Angelika said fondly. "She is the English teacher here, and she will be leaving us, unfortunately. You would be her protege!"

"Yes," Maria said. I couldn't place her accent. "I will be going to Sweden!" and her eyes glowed, imagining Sweden.

There wasn't much else to say, so I shook the other teachers' hands and moved on.

In the office, I made an appointment to come back next week for a second interview -- an interview at which they would give me a letter of employment, the first step to a work visa. I was excited, because I've been waiting for that letter for so long -- I can only legally stay in the country for six more weeks without it -- but I walked away entirely uncertain, thinking of the falling rice, the babies. For this, I won the sonnet contest?

The second job offer is from a family twenty miles outside of Munich. They live in a beautiful oak-floored slopy-roofed building just a few blocks from this massive gorgeous lake. I would be their after-school nanny, their snack-maker, their homework-doer.

Their children, whom I met last week, are precious -- they are native French speakers but, having spent years in the US, sound like they're from Iowa. They enjoy all sorts of hobbies and have wonderful toys; their bedrooms are Child Paradise, with lofted beds and wood ceilings and a massive dollhouse and a guitar set and beanbag chairs and wow.

I imagine they're a little lonely -- they moved to Munich six months ago and their German is not quite up there yet, since they go to the International School and speak English all day. Still, they have many friends. Did I mention how charming they are? And the girl in particular enjoys me; she is nine, and likes books, and made me listen to her read three picture books out loud, and asked repeatedly when I could come back. I, not knowing much about the nanny visa situation, said "I don't know."

My original plan, in moving here, was to have exactly this sort of mind-numbing job -- a job at which my brain could wander and do other things, a job full of scooping rice and changing diapers and watching two well-mannered children play peacefully upstairs. And then, on the train and at nights, I would work on a book, some sort of book, just to say that I'd have written a book.

But maybe it wouldn't be mind-numbing at all. Maybe I'm being silly and it would be exhausting.

Maybe my resume would have a huge vacant year in it, a year in which I did nothing but change diapers and assist with addition homework. And maybe this would be a problem for any sort of lucrative brain-absorbing job in the future.

And I don't know if I'd be saying yes just to say yes -- saying yes just because it's the easy option, because both of these people want me so much.

And could my ego take it? On the train ride back, phrases kept thundering repeatedly in my head, phrases like "This is why you took Grammar and Language?" But maybe that'd be a good thing...

I don't know, maybe they're both too far away -- what if there's something better closer? The kindergarten is in Pasing, which is 45 minutes away; the nanny job is in Starnberg, which is an hour and a half. I don't know if I can ride that much train each day.

I don't know if I'm supposed to be initially very excited about a job or not.

I don't know.

Does anyone else?