Delicious ice cream: When the ice cream man rings the bell twice

Nobody is born for the world of work, you first have to be trained and educated in order to be able to function in the wheel when it comes to it – and it will soon enough. Already somewhat trained through school, I also wanted to earn a few thalers in my tender youth and was prepared to take my skin to the open market to do so.

First, I was hired to spend a weekend at the small town Christmas market: in the so-called fairytale forest, I was supposed to help entertain the children in a full-body bear costume. In fact, older, mulled wine-loving ladies showed interest in me and tugged at my bear’s tail in a less than ladylike manner. Work, I quickly realized, meant humility. My reward for two days in the fur was a voucher for the local cinema. I had obviously negotiated badly – if that was even possible.

Things couldn’t go on like this for me. I needed a new job, right next summer, during the holidays. And so I hired myself as a traveling ice cream man on the Baltic Sea beach. Could there have been a better job for me? Hanging out on the beach all day, selling a few ice creams – it couldn’t be that hard – and licking one yourself in between and making money at the same time? At least, that much can be said, I learned something about the real conditions in the service proletariat.

The couple who, like a mafia, monitored the ice cream sales on the beach that was supposed to be my workplace, first explained to me how they had started their unprecedented career shortly after the fall of communism: the two of them went out in the summer with cooler bags and had ice cream after ice cream with their own Sold hands, they spent the night at the campsite. And now? Their empire included a refrigerated truck, perhaps a dozen motorized ice cream trucks, just as many precarious workers, and they no longer had to crawl into a tent, instead they stayed in a nice beach house. Was such a rise perhaps waiting for me too? Hardly likely. But at least this illusion was given space.

My ice cream truck was expertly loaded, I was given change and off we went to the section of beach assigned to me. All I had to do was ring the bell twice and the ice-hungry mouths came in droves. Disappointment spread among the children when they, already experienced in brand consumption, asked for the flavors “Flutschfinger”, “Bum Bum” or “Ed von Schleck”, but I could only come up with nameless cheap ice cream.

I first led my sluggish vehicle elegantly past the sand castles. But I soon got the hang of it: it was all about bringing down the castles, making it seem unintentional, and then waiting for the parents to comfort the crying children with ice cream. Nobody should know that my car was powered by a motor. The more I saw the effort that pushing seemed to cause, the more generous the tip was.

Not only did I quickly learn the little tricks, but I also became acquainted with the downsides: If it rained, I didn’t even have to compete. This made everyday working life quite unpredictable. I was paid based on performance, and I was allowed to take ten percent of my daily sales home with me. It wasn’t particularly lavish. It wasn’t until later that I realized that the Popsicle Don Corleone probably didn’t file a tax return. My earnings were well below any imaginable allowance anyway.

If I took a break after a few hours in the sun and chatted with a fellow sufferer, a schoolboy who offered sausages and coffee on the beach, I could be sure of a warning from my employer. He drove around the beach all day and watched his charges through binoculars, supplying them with ice cream supplies. He wanted to know whether the competition had sounded me out again, although we were just two teenagers who were interested in a lot of things, but not in the sales strategy considerations and monopolistic efforts of the paranoid Mister Eiskalt.

By the end of the season I had shed a lot of sweat, but my wallet had barely filled up noticeably. My employers let me know that I could do it again next year. They would call me next year. When my phone actually rang and I recognized the number, I knew what to do: Don’t pick it up – the work hell would come soon enough.