Every day one encounters so many kinds of individuals on the tide of humanity! For example, an honest person who for some reason avoids work, or one who works like a dog but lies through his teeth. In this case you have no idea which of the two is to be preferred. Perhaps the latter. But sometimes you are lucky enough to meet someone who is honest and works as hard as he can. I mean Andriy N, one of those who were in their early teens in the early 1990s.
His life story is quite simple. His parents are a factory worker and a nurse. Andriy has a higher education: he is a military mechanical engineer. But, having received his degree, he quickly saw he was not cut out for a military career, when it takes decades for one to be promoted, when one has to wait for an apartment to live in, be stationed in a far-off garrison, and earn a miserable 250 (or is it 500 now?) hryvnias in spite of having a diploma. Meanwhile, the burgeoning life around you gives everybody, at least in theory, a chance to carve out a career to his/her liking. So Andriy resigned his commission (not without difficulties), pushed his diploma deep into a drawer, and “began searching for his own niche.”
To start with, he did a six-month full-time management course, in spite of financial difficulties, and thus earned a second degree. Yet, it failed to do him any good, for, wherever the young man applied, he was told he lacked experience and seniority. A vicious circle indeed: you must work to gain seniority, but you are denied the work to get it. Even a former army buddy refused to employ him in his own firm. “You know, friend, you’d better get trained somewhere else and then come here,” said he.
Unlike some of his comrades, Andriy did not buckle under the pressure of difficulties — perhaps thanks to years of boxing exercises. He decided to launch a small business of his own. Today, several years later, Andriy is a person well known in certain service sectors: he is a skilled and even artful master in renovating window and door sashes after a window or a door is replaced. The market for such services is rising steeply because more and more Kyivans have their Soviet-period wooden window frames replaced with Western-style plastic ones. Andriy has a wealth of opportunities to apply his skills. “Just look,” he says, “at the myriad of horrible windows that surround us! Windows you can neither open, nor close, nor keep clean!” As customers kept showering him with requests, he had to hire assistants and buy a minibus, which his earnings by then allowed him to afford. For, unless you have a vehicle, you cannot do a quality job for all your customers and get to them on time, and the customers will have to go out of their way to buy materials themselves.
The extended business created problems. Andriy says it is very difficult to find a really honest and qualified worker. “Quite often I come across people willing to do any kind of slipshod work behind the customer’s back. I think that I myself must be the harshest critic: I must also see mistakes that the customer will never notice. I don’t like having my nose rubbed in it,” he says.
Andriy is sure only a lazybones cannot find a job and earn a living in Kyiv today. “Whoever wants and can do something will find work. Still, there are different people. The lazy ones would rather remain hungry than lift a finger in search of a job. Others either want nothing but to boss around (especially the retired military) or try to find a cushy job. I’ve come across one more type of worker — people who have rather a narrow margin of ambitions. For example, a guy began to earn $250 a month, and this is all he wants. He refuses to work overtime or take in additional orders. All he thinks about is how to spend his $250. Meanwhile, Kyiv has not only a large market but also bitter competition: as soon as you let up a little you’ll be pushed off the track,” he says.
As to Andriy, he is ready to do any work in order to live decently. His current goal is to gather enough money to buy an apartment. He has to rent a place today because his parents and younger brother live in a one-room efficiency. So he has no decent place to live in and to bring his fianc О e whom he has been dating for three years. He is going to buy an apartment in an old building. “I’ve seen enough of the new buildings. They look so fine — with towers, columns and all that — but the new owners have to change everything, from floor to ceiling. That’s their quality. What one really gets are the walls; all the rest, including the windows, have to be replaced. I know this only too well because there are many new residents among my customers. I’ve seen enough — in those buildings even the floor is crooked,” he notes.
Andriy does not earn money just for money’s sake. After putting things in order, he wants to go back to school: “I look with envy at today’s students who can get a good education, master modern professions, and seriously learn foreign languages. On the other hand, although I myself am young, I don’t approve the lifestyle of today’s young people — their vogues, entertainment, relationships between boys and girls. They smoke, drink, and snort without an ounce of shame. Maybe I think this because I have practiced boxing since childhood and know very well what a healthy way of life is. I’ve always valued health and being in good shape.”
Our hero, like most Ukrainians, is interested in politics. Asked who he would like to see as president of Ukraine, he said firmly, “Leonid Kuchma.”
“Why?” I asked.
He replied, “Because I don’t know who else can do the job — one is no better than the other.”
Andriy almost does not remember, does not know very well and still less is interested in Soviet times. He lives in one world, not in two different worlds, as do many older people. Andriy sees life as it is and tries to adapt to it as well as he can, without indulging in the never-ending comparison of yesterday and today. It is absolutely normal for this young man that his life fully depends on himself and his work. It also noteworthy that he runs his small business according to the principles of punctuality and trust: the customer and he trust each other. As a Karpenko-Kary character once said, “Your word is above all receipts and promissory notes.” Does this mean, ladies and gentlemen, that something is changing in our domain?
