Your first working day

[Conchita]

It’s not so much the actual first day as my first (summer) job that I remember with happy feelings. Those were the insouciant days of my sweet sixteen – days of school, motorbikes, occasional Saturday dances (minors were not allowed in discos), utterly hopeless infatuations with actors like G?rard Philipe, Oliver Reed or Tony Curtis, the very first cigarettes... Our heads were full of dreams and fantasies, our hearts filled to overflowing, either with joy or with complete (irreversible and irremediable) misery. Ah, those unexplainable, indescribable feelings that can only be the result of teenage hormones!

My first job was working in a Swiss bricelet factory during part of the summer holidays. Bricelets are very thin, crisp wafers of different shapes – from simple round biscuits to rolls, cones or triangles we called ‘?ventails’ (fans). I remember enjoying the sheer simplicity of the rhythmical, repeated movements, which enabled my endless dreams and thoughts to roam freely. Whether I was sitting at the wafer iron machines or packing the bricelets, my body was mostly working on autopilot. It was a small, family business with a friendly atmosphere and the mechanical work allowed us to sing, chat or tell jokes.

All in all, it was a good experience that pushed me a little forward on life's pathway and helped me shape my perspective on that big, unknown place we call world.