I met a new immigrant Korean lady recently who complained about how difficult it is to find a job in Canada. She was a successful florist in Korea and used to teach “Flower Arrangement 101” in a variety of institutions and she had her own flower shop.
One afternoon, she found a sign “Hiring” on the window of a big flower shop in her neighborhood in Toronto. She walked into the store and talked to the owner of the shop. While the owner was reading her resume, she said, “Can I work here?” The owner said, “Ow, you have such good experience!” She replied to the owner, “Actually the reason I am trying to find work is not for money but for experience in Canada. I have enough money to survive here for a while” Then the owner told her, “Sorry, your qualifications are too high to be hired here.”
She was very disappointed and her pride was hurt.
It reminded me of my first job in Canada. There is a grocery store named Rabba next to my previous apartment. My money was getting less and less. I needed money! One day I walked into Rabba. “Who is the manger?” A salesclerk pointed to an aisle in the back of the store. I found the manager of the store. His name is Frank, a descendant of an Italian immigrant.
“I’m living next door, I would like to find work here if you have a position.” and gave him my resume and added, “eh… is there anything for me to do such as computerizing records etc? I’m good at word processing and basic skills.” Frank smiled while looking at my resume, “We need a strong person who can load and unload boxes of our stock” His remark shrank my braveness. “Ok, but if you find any work that I can do, let me know, I need money now.”
A few days after, I received a call from Frank, “we need a cashier now. Can you work?”
The first day of my work was terrible. I had to memorize all kinds of product’s PLU number. Bananas is 22, Mangos is 23, lettuce is… I made a note to memorize all the numbers. For a while I carried wherever I went to, sometimes, I fell asleep with holding it in my hand at home.
I told the lady, “next time you should say you need money, don’t say you work only for experience.”
Haha that’s cute. Falling asleep with a price list. That flower lady sounds like she could have her own shop. she could probably have even found a way to teach within the korean community.
:)
Z