The scumbag had deceived me and now he also wanted pay for six weeks!
At the trial, I stated the full truth, just as it had been. But exactly that was wrong. The matter was quite simple for the judge. I had to pay Peter the salary for six weeks extra, further I had to register him in retrospect and also at the health insurance.
The outstanding salary had to be paid at the court, since Peter was in default with regard to maintenance payments.
The proof had to be provided that the other obligations had been met with, within a month. I was told that the agreement to settle the wage against the amount of bottle caps of Peter’s consumption of alcohol was my problem; I had to prove the accusation that he had misappropriated money and make a complaint against him.
With a lawyer, this whole thing cost me over 8000 marks!
I had to realize that I was still not mature enough for Germany. Every sixteen-year-old Turk, who was born here, knew better than I did regarding our system.
Almost two years had passed, since I was managing the "Bürgerkrug", as my restaurant was called, and I was not getting ahead. Debts had accumulated. But I could not reduce the number of staff any more. I needed a waitress in the morning, one till two in the evening, since when the two bowling alleys were used and then also when there were two hundred guests in the room, which was rare of course, there had to be staff available there. Also, I had an assistant in the kitchen as well as a cleaning lady in the morning.
Five full-time employees who were of course registered properly. In addition, I had to register Renate also with a statutory health insurance since I could not pay the private insurance anymore.
I was not insured and I also did not pay any voluntary pension contributions.
It was important to me that the staff got their money.
The brewery did not want to hear anything about the reducing the rent and thus rent arrears started accumulating and I was supplied only against cash payment. The tax office came and wanted its share, but there was not enough available any more. Somehow, I let myself also persuaded into advertising stuff, because I thought that the restaurant would run somewhat better with the advertisement. It was an up and down.
But I came to realize that I had worked almost for two years for nothing!
Stock could be taken of the debts but I realized that there was a tendency of it continuing to go upwards. The day arrived, when I told the brewery that they could have the restaurant back. But they did not want me to let me out of the contract so quickly. Once again I told them that the rent was too high. Instead of 7000 only 6000 on rent and I would be able to make ends meet. I would have nothing or very little for myself remaining but I would be able to pay all my bills. They did not permit anything. As a result, I did not have any money when the debt collectors came from the brewery to collect the rent. This in turn meant that the brewery was no longer supplying any beer. I bought beer from various free dealers against hard cash, which was however not permitted as per the contract. In my opinion, the contract had long since ceased to be in force. All this tugged at Renate's heart-strings so much that she only wanted to get away from the pub.
Since it was again a contract with the apartment, we looked for a new place to stay and paid the deposit as well as the first two months’ rent in advance. I had learned my lesson well! Now come what may, I was only a guest in my own restaurant, which did not belong to me anyway. The hammer and death blow came from the Inland Revenue Office.
The end of a new beginning
The gentleman at the customs office in Duisburg was already a regular visitor.
I had settled everything with the tax office up to as much as 2000 Euros, which was already the new currency. But because of the little games with the brewery, I could not give the nice customs official any money during his last two visits. His patience had run out.
He told me if I was not able to pay in a week, they would officially close the restaurant. He advised me that it would be better for my future if I were to close down the restaurant because I would not have a chance to open another shop, if I wanted to do so later, due to an officially ordered closure.
If I just consider that our State had to pay 100 Million in interest alone, due to the over-indebtedness, it would only be correct that this "shop" also should be closed.
I thanked him for the nice advice and delivered the entire house keys at the brewery.
However, my employees had to do without their remaining salaries due to the hurried closure. They could get their money from the State. By and large, it certainly did not depend on the six people receiving social security under Hartz IV. I did not care anyway what would happen to me.
Now the brewery had a restaurant and an apartment for rent.
Renate and I moved to another part of the city but we stayed in Krefeld.
The day came when I had to lift my fingers. It did not matter to me, since with that I had got rid of my problems. Quickly I found a job as a cook in a restaurant and Renate's health had improved to such an extent that she could work for a few hours during the week. I must admit, I had not been so relaxed for a long time, as at this time, when I was not self-employed any more.
My job as a kitchen chef in a "one-man business" was not exactly what I imagined as a conclusion of my working career. In two years I would be able to retire, which I did not look forward to, and which made me very thoughtful. But the time had not yet come. My new employer told me that he could not hire me because no health insurance would take me and there was no employment without health insurance.
I trotted to AOK and wanted to know why they did not want to insure me. The response that I got was that it was only possible if I could produce proof that I had been insured at least for one day in the last five years.
I was told that the foreign and private insurance companies concluded abroad did not count, since no obligations of nursing care insurance was apparent from there. The private medical insurance companies would not be able to do anything anyway, I was told. Since I could not pay, they terminated me understandably. What was I to do?
Only now did I go to the employment office, which was now called "Job Center". I did not want a job, I wanted proper work. But even here no one wanted to or could help me. The last trip was to the social welfare office and I found a solution there.
I was classified as a "new German citizen", just like the Russians, who could prove that they once had a German Shepherd dog and thus had a right to naturalization.
Only there was the difference that these people got a "starter package" in the form of Euros, but I did not get that.
I was very happy that I could go back and start my "job" as a chef. But on the very first day of my work I received the news that my mother had passed away. Of course I had to go to the funeral.
There I met my daughters and we emulated one another in crying. My daughters had a greater bond to their grandmother than I did to my mother. My crying was due to different sentiment. I was ashamed to have done so little for her. Many thoughts came up, many self-reproaches. Total strangers had taken care of my mother. Even now they were there and I had to endure their looks. They were glances of contempt, which were directed to me. As sorry as I am even today, I was glad when I was able to flee from this village.
I just wanted to go back to Krefeld to my new work.
I was now a normal German again with a health insurance and social security contributions. I also did not forget that I had a number at the tax office, which made me feel a bit nervous now and then. It was clear to me that they would still come and collect their money. But for a whole year I was able to work as a cook until my employer suffered the same fate, which had happened to me as well: He was broke and had to close the restaurant.
I didn't quite understand why he had bought a brand new Jaguar two months earlier, which was sure to be removed from him, or was it not so? I knew that the man was a megalomaniac and had no idea about gastronomy. It was I who kept the restaurant running for him to some ext
ent until it was no longer possible.
Since I had learned that one was insured even without work, I immediately registered myself as a job seeker. I had to fill out all sorts of forms and got a check at the end of the month, which I was able to encash. There were problems because I did not have an account in a bank. During the last renovation it had been canceled.
My last employer always paid me my salary in cash. But because of the many problems without a bank account, I opened one, but in a bank other than the one that I had, when I had been a pub owner earlier. I had also stated to my consultant at the job center, that I had the truck driver's license.
This was probably a mistake because he did not even try to offer me a job as a kitchen chef or a business director in a hotel, since that was equal to the English F & B.
I did not want a circus, I wanted a job. But I did not get a job as a chef in a five-star hotel, nor did I get a job as a business director or as a simple cook, but he sent me to a trucking company to drive a truck.
The kitchen chef struggling with a 40-ton semitrailer truck
He was not interested in the fact that I had been driving German truck for the last time in 1980, that is, twenty years ago.
The freight forwarder was astonished when I presented him with my work documents, which made a great impression on him. Of course, I did not gave him any testimonials from the Hilton or other star hotels. I presented the "self-concocted" testimonies of various haulage companies, including the papers from the MAN and then I handed out pictures of the 400 trucks. I just I did not tell him that I was a cook.
The transport of oil in Iraq had impressed the haulage contractor.
He wanted to hire me immediately, but I had to get the hazardous goods license. That would be valid for four weekends and cost about 200 Euros, which the employment agency paid. And this is precisely what happened. I got the certificate for transport of hazardous goods by road (ADR) and had a job as a driver.
On Sunday evening at 9 pm, I was told to meet my new employer and drive along as a front-seat passenger. I found it very exciting, because truck driving had always been my hobby.
I was not worried that Renate was alone again with her two small dogs because she was doing very well and she also had some girlfriends and belonged to a "cancer group", where she could go. Among other things, she also had a girlfriend, whom she had got to know in the hospital, when she had been when she had been fighting with the chemotherapy.
So I went to my new employer to the place where the trucks were parked, with fifty Euro and a thermos flask with coffee and sandwiches for the next day.
I was surprised, amazed and was filled with horror, when I heard my new boss tell me that the driver of this semitrailer was sick and he had to send me alone on the trip.
The scheduled goods were in the truck and had to be delivered on time. He ignored the information I had given him that I had not driven a truck for many years with the remark that you could not forget driving, just as much as swimming or cycling.
The good man explained to me very quickly how to fill out a bill of consignment and gave me two fuel cards for cashless refueling, but only from certain contract partners.
There were two different oil companies. One was a cooperative society and the other was a free gas station, both names of which I had never heard of.
In the meantime it was already midnight and after the vehicle's key was handed over, the disaster began. He wished me a safe journey and disappeared in his car to his wife in his warm bed. Thank goodness that he had already disappeared, when I was looking for the first gear, course, put the vehicle into gear and fought with the howling beast. I recognized that my opponent was a Renault, through the different logos. I had never sat in a Renault truck or driven one. I got a little glimpse of what I had to do with my 40-ton monster, from the yard to the highway, so that he could react to my actions.
I had not been driving a truck for twenty years and in those years the vehicles had changed a lot. I had seen such a modern vehicle already but not driven it. I stopped at the next motorway station and checked my new friend or rather, my enemy. After this internal inspection of the fine piece, I felt a little more clarified. Of course, I had not forgotten how to drive a semitrailer.
But what I had last driven in the Jordanian-Iraqi desert was no comparison to what I had been given this night. Imagine you have been driving a tractor on a farm for years, which
the grandfather had already driven and now you are supposed to use a computer-operated, fully automatic agricultural vehicle, without any explanation or instructions. This is exactly how I felt.
Just these several buttons and switches, then switching from the lower gears to the higher ones. There was no indication of any appropriate document or book for it. So I had to cope without "operating instructions". According to the digital tachograph, the vehicle had covered just 3000 kilometers on the road, so it was a brand new vehicle. And it even smelt new.
With the help of the loading documents, I had four unloading points. Afterwards, I was to report to a forwarding company in Memmingen to get a new load. The first time that I would drive to the former East Zone, that is, to the new federal states. There was still a lot of snow in the Erz Mountains, but the roads were cleared; however there was a wall of snow piled up on the right and left side.
And so the inevitable happened and there was another truck, which did not stay on its side and I had to dodge into the snow wall.
But under the new snow, there was a deeply frozen layer and this broke the entrance on the passenger side. The brand new car now was damaged. It was the lowest piece of plastic, which belonged to the first step of the passenger entrance.
Of course the person responsible for the accident had been over all the mountains and it was my fault anyway. I should have stopped, theoretically, but in practice this seemed different.
Anyway, I did my rounds and got a new load in Memmingen. From Memmingen I drove to Munich and back to the new federal states. I found this description very funny, because for me it was still the former GDR. I had to think about my IFA shipping friends in Aqaba. Where were they? How excited they had been about their system. Whether they could live in this imperialist country-in the slave country of the Americans?
Or the political officer from the "Red Salon" of the ship with the good Radeberger beer - what might these people doing right now? I would like to see them again.
May be they will read this book.
I stopped dreaming and drank my Radeberger. Then I cleaned the driver's cabin and settled down to have a good sleep. This was the third night in my new home. In the morning I was in Munich and had to refuel. That meant precisely that I wanted to refuel but I could not find these shitty fuel cards.
I felt quite hot and dizzy, without money, without cards, without diesel and without a clue as to how I should proceed.
Calling my new employer was not very encouraging since he told me that he could not help me. I was told I should see how I could cope with the problem. In such a situation you go through all possibilities, where or when or with what these cards might have been lost. I had searched the driver's cabin at least twenty times but without success.
I remembered having put the cards on the storage space, where I used to put my cup of coffee while I was driving. But before I lay down to sleep, I cleaned the floor of some dried clods of earth and the cigarette ash. It occurred to me that I had opened the driver's door in the darkness and had swept the dirt out. Probably the cards had fallen down while I had been driving, which I had not noticed and I had swept them out along with the ashes and the mud. Then I finally gave up looking and wondered how I could get further.
There were some possibilities, among other things, to ask the haulage contractor in Memmingen or the one here in Munich for a loan of money.
Munich!
How could I forget that Renate's mother lived here?
Immediately I called, and after the general platitudes, I shed some light on my situation
and asked her if she had eight hundred Euros. She said yes but she had to go to the bank for this. I gave her my explanations and convinced her that she should be on her way.
I was saved for now.
I uncoupled the trailer and drove from part of the city to the other. I had to drive through Munich and back again. But thanks to the dear woman, I could refuel and continue to drive.
But my tour was not over yet. My entrepreneur had blocked the cards and told me that I should be in Berlin on the day after next day, that is, on Friday.
I could pick up a new fuel card there at a certain petrol station, deposited by another colleague, otherwise I would not have enough diesel, to return back to the Lower Rhine.
I finished the trip but returned back to the yard of my employer's forwarding company only on Saturday afternoon.
Shrieks of joy did not await me, but instead a thunderstorm at wind force ten.
The first thing my boss saw and also brought up immediately, was the damage to the passenger entrance. I tried to explain but he only replied that I would be charged about three hundred Euros for steps for the bus entrance. Furthermore, I had missed a complete loading point because of my sloppiness with the cards. In addition, refueling without the card had increase the expenses by 64.00 Euros. In addition, the cost of blocking the fuel cards and issuing the new card had cost 30.00 Euros. Then there had been all the trouble and the problem of the new card. He said he was fed up with me and according to him, I had worked for that week in vain! He told me to come to his office on Monday regarding the billing. That was all he had to say.
He did not give me a chance to even say a word to my defense. I did not have a cent in my pocket.
I had spent the 50 Euro that I had with me already on Friday. Ever since I had not eaten anything. I kept only some money for coffee and cigarettes. I had invested all the money that Renate's mother had given me on Diesel.
While it might be argued that my haulage contractor was angry rightly, he could have at least listened to what I wanted to say in my defense.
My Dream to Be Free Page 54