A job at the zoo: sadness with a cute gecko

My work colleague is a little gecko. When I complete my three hours on the treetop walk in Gondwanaland, I watch him climb around the small branches and trunks. It has bright green scales and a few red spots on its back. I call him George. “Hello, Georg,” I say at the start of my shift, before I block off part of the path for visitors with a rope.

Then I stand in the Leipzig Zoo for three hours, watching the mimosa and the Madagascar weavers and looking down at the jungle river where the boats float.

"Please don't rock the rocker! Make your cell phone a little brighter, otherwise I won't be able to scan the ticket. Please don't touch the macaws. Exactly, you still have to exchange the voucher at the checkout. You don't have one enough child on the family ticket - unfortunately the handcarts are out today!"

My mini-job at the zoo is causing my biggest cognitive dissonance to date: animal exploitation goes against my veganism, I wear work clothes that I find ugly (they're beige!), and after a few hours I feel my hips. Ouch. When I have to push boats downstairs, I see that some work colleagues have injuries on their hands because some of them have done nothing other than push and stop boats for 10 years. That doesn't bother her - it makes me angry. When I listen to them, I wish there was more resistance to the boring job. Then I remember that they have different life stories and have probably done much worse jobs.

However, it scares the hell out of me when I imagine what the rest of my life would look like. During the dull ticket scanning and the tiring hours on the boat, I observe the families around me. The zoo is the perfect place for field research and socio-psychological questions about attachment dynamics. Even though I spend a maximum of 30 seconds with most people, I can very well imagine what topics will arise with children in therapy in 10 years.

This text first appeared in wochentaz, our weekly newspaper from the left!

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Stressed parents yell at their children for dawdling, dreaming or crumbling. "Franz, will you come please! Yes, just run away, three hours without you are the best three hours of my life." Or they don't pick up their children for a few hours even when an announcement is made to teach them a lesson. Whatever kind.

The children often annoy me, but at least I can have a real conversation with them instead of just repeating the phrases I've learned by heart. For example, a child asks me why I cordon off a certain part of Gondwanaland because it doesn't make sense because you can get there from the other side. The child is right and I have no answer. Touché, I could have answered.

Georg and I are standing by the tree, right next to a suspension bridge. I appreciate a lot about this break out of my comfort zone, but certainly not the work itself. Some days I look forward to my shift and meeting people. At others I fear the long hours in which I feel not quite with myself and alienated. This is also a bit of a paradox, as I think about myself a lot at the zoo.

And you have to admit, the communication within the team and with superiors is pretty great. So I remind myself why I'm doing this. I'm starting training in September and I want to save money for that. So, goodbye, little gecko Georg, until the next shift.