update: Friday, August 27
exercise suggestions for intermediate and advanced learners:
Part one: Professions -

1) Find all the words related to profession, workplace, tools and workers in those texts.
2) Chose any text and analyse the function of the words in the sentences. (see revisions for more details)
3) You can make your own pictures and find your own texts about professions.
4) Make a short summary (2 lines) about the text of your choice. (We need information about who wrote the text, who is in the text, what, where, which, when)


La esclavitud del siglo XXI
Una exposición por Instituto de la Mujer : Plan de Lucha Contra la Trata de Seres Humanos con fine de explotación sexual -

Las mujeres dicen en las fotos: "Buscaba mi futuro. Sonaba con un trabajo, una familia, una casa.  Viaje, creí, confié - Todo parecía legal, familiares, amigos, vecinos, agencia de viajes, oficina de empleo.
ilusiones rotas: Todo era mentira.

Estoy atrapada. Me captaron. Me quitan el pasaporte, me cambian de ciudad cada 21 días. Me maltratan. Amenazan a mi familia.
No quiero estar aquí. No soy nadie en medio de la nada.
No se cuando es de día. No se cuando dura una noche. No se quien soy. Por que vivir así?

La esclavitud del siglo XXI. Las víctimas vienen de la Republicana Dominicana, Colombia, Paraguay, Brasil, Nigeria y Rumania.

Quien era yo?
Quería salir la pobreza. Quería trabajar. Quería estudiar. Quería mantener una familia. Quería ser libre. Quería tener una vida.

Si denuncias, por que me anuncias? La demanda: músicos, despedidos de soltero, periodistas, reuniones de empresa, artistas, intelectuales, ejecutivos, viudos, comidos de negocios, solteros, congresos, separados, deportistas, estudiantes, eventos deportivos, padres de familia, abogados, arquitectos, casados, electricistas, fontaneros, camareros, pintores...

Tengo derechos, yo so una persona. soy una mujer. Mirame. Se mi cómplice. 

Barbara Ehrenreich – Nickel and Dimed

Now to find a job. I know from my Key West experience to apply for as many as possible  since a help-wanted ad may not mean that any help is wanted just now. Waitressing jobs aren't plentiful with the tourist season ending, and I'm looking for fresh challenges anyway. Clerical work is ruled out by wardrobe limitations. I don't have any in my suitcase – or even in my closet back at home – enough office-type outfits to get me through a week. So I call about cleaning (both office and homes), warehousing and nursing home work, manufacturing, and a position called “general helper”, which sounds friendly and altruistic. It's humbling, this business of applying for low-wage jobs, consisting as it does of offering yourself – your energy, your smile, your real or faked lifetime of experience – to a series of people for whom this is just not a very interesting package. At a tortilla factory, where my job would be to load dough balls onto a conveyor belt, the “interview” is completed by a bored secretary without so much as a “hi, how are you?”. I go to Goodwill, which I am curious about since I know from past research it has been positioning itself nationwide as the ideal employer for the postwelfare poor as well as the handicapped. I fill out the application and am told that the pay is $7 an hour and that someone will get back to me in about two weeks. During the entire transaction, which takes place in a warehouse where perhaps thirty people of both sexes are sorting through bins of used clothing, none makes eye contact with me. Well, actually one person does. As I search for the exit, I notice a skinny, misshapen fellow standing on one foot with the other tucked behind his knee, starring at me balefully, his hands making swimming motions above his head, either for balance or to ward me off.

The Craftsman Handbook by Cennini

It is not without the impulse of a lofty spirit that some are moved to enter this profession, attractive to them though natural enthusiasm. Their intellect will take delight in drawing, provided their nature attracts them to it of themselves, without any master's guidance, out of loftiness of spirit. And then, through his delight, they come in want to find a master; and they bind themselves to him with respect for authority, undergoing an apprenticeship in order to achieve perfection in all this. There are those who pursue it, because of poverty and domestic need, for profit and enthusiasm for the profession too; but above all these are to be extolled the ones who enter the profession through a sense of enthusiasm and exaltation.

The basis of the profession, the very beginning of all these manual operations, is drawing and painting. The two sections call for a knowledge of the following: how to work up and grind, how to apply size, to put on cloth, to gesso, to scrape the gessos and smooth them down, to model with gesso, to lay bole, to gild, to burnish; to temper, to lay in; to pounce, to scrape through, to stamp or punch; to mark out, to paint, to embellish, and to varnish, on panel or ancona (a compound panel). To work on a wall you have to wet down, to plaster, to true up, to smooth off, to draw, to paint in fresco. To carry a completion in secco; to temper, to embelish, to finish on the wall. And let this be the schedule of the aforesaid stages which I, with what little knowledge I have acquired, will expound, section by section.

Whatever by Michel Houellebecq

The receptionist at the Ministry of Agriculture always wears a leather miniskirt; but this time I don't need her to find room 6017. From the start Catherine Lechardoy confirms my worst fears. She's twenty-five, with a higher certificate in data processing, and prominent teeth; her aggressiveness is astonishing. 'Let's hope it's going to work, your software! If it's like the last one we bought from you... a real bastard. In the end, of course, it's not me who decides what we buy. Me, I'm just the bimbo, I'm here to clean up the shit the others leave behind...', etc.

I explain to her that it's not me, either, who decides what is sold. Nor what is produced. In fact, I decide nothing. Neither of us decides anything. I'm just here to help her, give her some copies of the instruction manual, try and set up a teaching programme with her... But none of this satisfies her. Her anger is intense, her anger is deep. Now she's talking about methodology. According to her everyone in the business should conform to rigorous methodology based on structured programming; and instead of that there is anarchy, programmes are written any old way, each person does as he likes in his little corner without considering the others, there's no agreement, there's no project, there's no harmony. Paris is a horrible city, people don't meet, they are not even interested in their work, it's all so superficial, they all go home at six, work done or not, nobody gives a damn.

Bläschke Verlag, A-St. Michael Austria 1980.

Aus Heriberts Tagebuch.

Am Montag bin ich in das Personalbüro der Städtischen Verwaltung vorgeladen, zwecks Registrierung meiner Personalien. Acht Tage später, am übernachsten Montag beginnt meine Tätigkeit als Straßenkehrer. Und morgen, Freitag mittags, erbringe ich gleichsam meinen Befähigungsnachweis, weil ich bei der Reinigung des Viktualienmarktes aushelfen muss. Durch Krankheitsfälle ist akuter Personalmangel eingetreten.

Freitag abend -  Meine Tätigkeit als Straßenkehrer am Viktualienmarkt war ein voller Erfolg. Die vorteilhafte Besenführung habe ich gleich erfasst. Auch habe ich mich alsobald in die Arbeitsgewohnheiten meiner Kollegen ohne Schwierigkeiten eingefügt, wie etwa die Haüfelung des Unrates in handlicher Größenordnung behufs bequemer Einhüllung in die vorhergesehenen Abfallkübel. Angesehen von der handwerklichen Perfektion konnte ich meine Ansichten als Pädagoge vollauf durchsetzen. Beispielsweise habe ich gleich zu beginn meiner Tätigkeit einen Mann mit dicker Brille, anscheinend einen Sehbehinderten, darauf hingewiesen, als er das eben benützte Papiertaschentuch neben den vor ihm befindlichen Abfallkorb auf dem Boden fallen ließ, dass er etwas verloren habe, und die Ordnung es gebiete, dergleichen Dinge in den von der Behörde vorgesehenen Abfallkorb abzugeben. Das Gesicht des Mannes wird rot, einschliesslich der Augen und der schwammigen Nase. Die Lippen öffnen sich kaum als er krächzt: “Der Wind hat mir das Taschentuch aus der Hand geblasen. Im Übrigen ist das Ihre Aufgabe, für Sauberkeit zu sorgen. Dafür werden Sie ja bezahlt.”

The archaeologist's story

by Ivan Klima

The sun had already warmed the caravan. I opened the metal locker where the workers usually put their clothes, and took out two paintbrushes, a scraper and a bundle of paper bags... I stepped out of the caravan with my small load. I hid the key behind one of the rear wheels – exactly the same place they hide the key from potential burglars in every caravan I've ever known – then I followed the path that wound among piles of excavated earth and puddles from recent rains. From here you could see a spruce wood on the opposite hillside and practically all the construction site, but you couldn't see the burial grounds. The metal shells of future buildings were radiating heat, and I was suddenly aware that the construction site, where at least a hundred people were supposed to be working, was silent, more silent than the burial grounds, where there are never more than five of us at any one time.

I had no particular feelings one way or the other about archaeology; it certainly wasn't one of my hobbies. In high school, one of my classmates had longed to be an archaeologist. We were close friends for a while, and he would drag me around the old Celtic settlements near Prague. He even persuaded me to carry a small pick and trowel in my rucksack, Every so often we would dig a scrap of baked clay out of the ground, and my friend would lecture me excitedly on the people who had made it. Thanks to his enthusiasm, I knew something, at least, about the funnel-shaped-cup culture, the globular-amphorae culture and the scroll culture, the Rivna and Unetice cultures, and the people who made braided ceramics. But my friend was not allowed to study archaeology.

En Décembre 1970, les ouvriers de chantiers navals en Pologne furent les premiers à manifester leur mécontentement. Ils exigèrent l'annulation de la hausse des prix ou l'augmentation de leurs salaires. On leur répondit qu'ils bafouent les principes du “Socialisme”. Courroies de transmission silencieuses du parti, les syndicats ne bronchèrent pas. Du coup, des métallos et des dockers se mirent en grève le 12 décembre au soir. C'était un avertissement dont le pouvoir central ne tint pas compte. Dans ses éditions du 13 décembre, 'Trybuna Ludu' (quotidien du Comité central du parti) n'annonça pas de hausses mais, en page intérieure, des “changements de prix de détail de plusieurs marchandises”: la presse employait depuis longtemps de tels subterfuges qui ne trompaient plus personne.

Le lundi 14 décembre, quelques milliers d'ouvriers des chantiers navals de Gdansk se rassemblèrent devant le bâtiment de la direction pour rédiger un cahier de revendications. Une délégation fut chargée de le porter au comité régional du parti. Mal lui en prit: on la retint prisonnière à l'intérieur de l'édifice. Quand les ouvriers l'apprirent, ils se constituèrent en cortège, sortirent des chantiers et se dirigèrent vers le siège du comité du parti.

C'est alors que la police reçut l'ordre de tirer.

Une puissante révolte ouvrière secoua les villes de la Baltique: Gdansk, Gdynia, Szczecin, Sopot... les morts se comptèrent par centaines et les blesses par milliers. Un moment, on eut le sentiment que la grève menaçait de gagner l'intérieur du pays. Ce fut pour conjurer ce danger que le parti communiste décida de changer de premier secrétaire. Discrédité par quatorze années de règne, Gomulka fut sacrifié au profit de Gierek, l'homme fort de Silésie. Et il fallut que ce dernier aille négocier avec les insurgés, qu'il multiplie concessions et promesses et que, après de longues hésitations, il annule la hausse des prix pour que l'orage s'appaise peu a peu.

Am Morgen hatte Akim Nikititsch Karpuchin ein Telegramm nach Moskau abgesandt: “Ganze Lieferung unterwegs. Rest absende heute nachts.”  In Moskau werden Frau und Tochter es lesen: “Macht Euch reisefertig. Eintreffe heute nachts.”

Am Nachmittag machte er einen Rundgang durch seine Fabrik.

Wie alltäglich dröhnten die dreistöckigen Ziegelgebäude im Lärm der Arbeit; Maschinen, Werkbänke, Ventilatoren sangen im Chor. In der Schleiferei standen wie gewöhnlich der Direktor und die Aufseher vor dem Fabrikanten habtacht und begegneten dienstfertig und ehrerbietig seinem Blick. In den weiten Werkstätten trocknete auf hohen Galerien die rohe Porzellanware. Mit dem Blick des Herrn überflog Akim Nikititsch die grauen, noch nicht gebrannten und glasierten Teller, Tassen und Teekannen; er fragte den Direktor, ob der Auftrag auf die Tafelservice im Rokokostil bald ausgeführt sein würde, reichte dem Mann, der sich respektvoll verneigte, die volle, gepflegte Hand und sagte:

“Lassen Sie sich nicht stören, ich gehe allein weiter.”

Vorbei und den langen Reihe der Schleifmaschinen, wo die Schleifer, wie gewöhnlich beim Erscheinen des Herrn, besonders fleißig arbeiten, schritt der Fabrikant schwerfällig dem Ausgang zu. Alles war wie sonst, und doch bemerkte er in den gebeugten Gestalten der Arbeiter, in den dienstfertigen Mienen der Aufseher, ja sogar in den Mauern des Gebäudes etwas Unbekanntes und rätselhaft Beängstigendes. Aus den ehrerbietigen Antworten des Direktors hörte Akim Nikititsch eine nur schlecht verhehlte Verlegenheit. Die Direktoren und Aufseher schienen ihm wie Leute in Booten mit abgebrochenen Rudern – sie wollen ihre Unruhe nicht verraten, rudern eifrig mit den Stümpfen weiter und bemühen sich, die Boote im gleichen Kurs zu halten. Die grauen Gesichter der Arbeiter, die an den Maschinen die Ware mit schmiergelscheiben putzten, erschienen ihm wie fest verschlossenen Türen. Als ein Schleifer ihn mit dem Blick streifte, sah der Fabrikant in seinen Augen wie durch ein Schlüsselloch ein unheimliches Licht aufleuchten. Er zwang sich, ruhig und würdevoll aufzutreten, blieb an der letzten Maschine stehen und fragte:

“Warum ist hier so viel Staub?”

Der Schleifer arbeitete weiter und antwortete:
“Die Ventilation ist schlecht – daher kommt der Staub. Bald werden wir alle an der Schwindsucht krepiert sein.”

Hätte der Fabrikant früher eine solche Antwort gehört, er hätte aufgestampft und zornig: “hinaus!” geschrien. Die Aufseher wären erschrocken herbeigeeilt und hätten den Arbeiter an die Luft befördert. Aber heute wurde Akim Nikititsch sichtlich verlegen, sagte kein Wort und ging eilig dem Ausgang zu. Aus den hohen grauen Schloten über den Dächern der Brennerei schlugen riesige Fackeln zum Himmel empor. Schwarzer Rauch zog sich in langen Fahnen über die Fabrik hin.


At Michaelmas, just after harvest, the yearly account of the were made up by the estatebailiff – who is a minor local official – and reeve and the visiting officials. The account for the year that ended in 1287 can still be seen at the Public Record Office. It is a long roll of yellowish parchment about twelve inches wide covered in Latin writing and two faded red-brown ink. On one side were entered the income and the expenses through the year. £ 46 had been made by the sale of corn, probably in Chichester market; some had also been given away to the friars who lived there. £ 5 came from the sale of wool. The income was £72 and the expenses only £25, so the estate worked profitably.

The only goods bought were those which could not be grown on the manor itself, such as salt for curing meat and fish, iron, linen tablecloths for the manor-house kitchen, and tar to rub on diseased sheep. The smith was paid 6 shillings for mending the ploughs, the thatcher and the tiler got about 2d a day with their dinners, for repairing the roof.... There were two ploughmen, a carter, a swineherd, a shepherd, and some other farmhands, but their got most of their pay in food and only a few shilling in money every year. Most of the work was done without pay by the villeins, as rent for their cottages and land. William the reeve, who was himself a villein, saw that each man did his share without shirking or scamping it. He took care that the dairymaid had clean hands and that the cowherd, who slept in the byre with his beasts did not set the straw on fire by using an open lantern. The names of the villeins of Appledram and kind of work that each did are known from a book called a 'Custumal', written at Battle.

Work in the conventional view, is pleasant and rewarding; it is something in which all favoured by occupation rejoice to a varying degree. A normal person is proud of his or her work.

In practical fact, much work is repetitive, tedious, painfully fatiguing, mentally boring or socially demeaning. This is true of diverse consumer and household services and the harvesting of farm crops, and is equally true in those industries that deploy workers on assembly lines, where labour cost is a major factor in the price of what is finally produced. Only, or in case primarily, when this nexus between labour cost and price is broken or partly disassociated, invariably at higher income levels, does work become pleasant and, in fact, enjoyed. It is a basic but rarely articulated feature of the modern economic system that the highest pay is given for the work that is most prestigious and most agreeable. This is at the opposite extreme from those occupations that are inherently invidious, those that place the individual directly under the command of one another, as in the case of the doorman or the household servant, and those involving a vast range of tasks – street cleaning, garbage collection, janitorial services, elevator operation – that have an obtrusive connotation of social inferiority.

There is no greater modern illusion, even fraud than the use of the single term “work” to cover what for some is, as noted, dreary, painful or socially demeaning and what for others is enjoyable, socially reputable and economically rewarding. Those who spend pleasant, well-compensated days say with emphasis that they have been “hard at work”, thereby suppressing the notion that they are a favored class. They are of course, allowed to say that they enjoy their work, but it is presumed that such enjoyment is shared by any “good” worker. In a brief moment of truth, we speak when sentencing criminals, of years of “hard labour”. Otherwise we place a common gloss over what is agreeable and what, to a greater or lesser extent, is endured or suffered.

From the foregoing comes one of the basic facts of modern economic society: the poor in our economy are needed to do the work that the more fortunate do not do and would find manifestly distasteful, even distressing.

Text in French -

Sir Willis Jackson – l'Homme devant ou derrière le progrès

published in: Caractère et Culture de l'Europe Revue Fondation Européenne de la Culture – Novembre 1962 

Un des effets du progrès technique dans l'industrie a été d'augmenter l'importance du technicien – de celui qui contrôle la production, place et surveille les installations et les machines, inspecte, effectue les essais, les dessins du technicien, assistant de recherches, des bureaux de création et de recherche. Dans le passé, cette catégorie de travailleurs industriels était formée par la promotion d'ouvriers qualifiés, dont les connaissances techniques étaient souvent bien insuffisantes pour le travail qui leur était confié. Le technicien moderne doit recevoir une éducation et une formation mieux pensées.
Autre conséquence des transformations techniques dans l'industrie: les taches confiées jadis à l'ouvrier qualifié passent a la machine, tandis qu'augmente le nombre des ouvriers dont on n'exige qu'un effort intellectuel limité, mais qui jouissent de loisirs plus grands. D'où le grave problème de développer la culture générale des jeunes pendant les premières années de leur vie professionnelle et d'augmenter la possibilité d'éducation des adultes, afin que cet accroissement profite à la communauté dans son ensemble.

Unison : The Public Sector
write on their website (2010): 

We are Britain's biggest public sector trade union with more than 1.3 million members. Professions in the public sector: Paramedic, lollipop lady, library assistant, fingerprint expert, teaching assistant, probation worker, nurses, hospital porter, crime scene investigator, occupational health worker, police community support officer, child protection workers, emergency services operators, graffiti removal teams, hospital cleaners, health visitors, IT support staff, youth workers, nursery nurses, learning mentors, home care workers, refuse collectors, ambulance drivers, physiotherapists, social workers, outreach workers, anti-pollution officers....
Don't believe anyone who tells you that the public sector is overflowing with faceless bureaucrats. Take a closer look and you'll find caring, committed people dedicated to helping every single one of us go about our daily lives.
But with pressure on all political parties to cut public spending, there is a very real possibility many local services you rely on will vanish.
Cuts will affect every region in the UK, making life harder for us all. They could harm the well-being of children and vulnerable people or the safety of your neighbourhood at risk. They may well affect the cleanliness of your local school, hospital or street. That's why now is the time to defend the people who provide the public services we all rely on, speak up before public service cuts hit families and community in the UK.

Text in Czech

Franz Kafka - Nový advokát (the New advocate)

The narrator realizes that times have changed, but hopes people will hold forth any judgement, and accept this new associate for who he is, and what he is capable of.

Máme nového advokáta, doktora Bucefala. Zevnějškem málo připomíná dobu, kdy ještě býval válečným ořem Alexandra Makedonského. Ovšem kdo se dobře vyzná v poměrech, leccos postřehne. Však jsem onehdy sám viděl na venkovských schodech jednoho docela prostoduchého soudního sluhu, jak odborným pohledem stálého návštěvníka dostihů obdivuje advokáta, který vysoko zvedaje stehna stoupal ze schodu na schod a jeho krok zvonil o mramor.

Vcelku soudní dvůr schvaluje Bucefalovo přijetí. Všichni s nevídaným porozuměním říkají, že za dnešního společenského pořádku je Bucefalus v obtížné situaci a že si proto, jakož i pro svůj světodějný význam rozhodně zaslouží, aby se mu vycházelo vstříc. Dnes - to se nedá popřít neexistuje žádný veliký Alexandr. Vraždit dokáže sice leckdo; nechybí ani obratnost, jíž je zapotřebí, aby člověk při hostině kopím zasáhl přes stůl přítele; a mnohým je Makedonie příliš těsná, takže proklínají otce Filipa - ale nikdo, nikdo nedovede vést do Indie. Už tehdy byly brány Indie nedosažitelné, avšak králův meč vyznačil směr. Dnes jsou ty brány přeneseny docela jinam, dál a výš; nikdo neukáže směr; mnozí třímají meče; ale jen proto, aby se jimi oháněli; a pohled, který je chce sledovat, zbloudí.

Je proto možná opravdu nejlepší ponořit se do zákoníků, jako to učinil Bucefalus. Volný, nesvírán v bocích kyčlemi jezdce, při tiché lampě, vzdálen vřavě Alexandrovy bitvy, čte si a obrací stránky našich starých knih.