Story 3: About tearful cream, mooing, and other secrets of career growth

There is nothing harder than returning to Russia and getting back to your usual routine after spending 3 and a half months making ice cream on the ocean shore.

Let's be honest, my brain atrophied a little during that wonderful time.

But on the bright side, I've become a real homemaker and can now promote my culinary creations on Instagram with hashtags like #moretocome, #cakesonorderchelyabinsk, and all that. And if you come over to visit, I might treat you to waffle cookies, brownies, and 50s-style milkshakes. A mediocre evening, I agree. But you have to put your skills to use somewhere.

Chap.1 It’s a small world

Life hack: for most Americans, there is Moscow and then the rest of Russia, so if you aren't from the capital, but, for example, from Chelyabinsk, the best answer to the question: “Where do you live in Russia?” is the phrase: “Close to Siberia.” In principle, it works for any city.

And so, at the very beginning of my career as an “ice-cream lady,” Dan, my boss, asked me that very question. I said:

– Not far from Siberia.

– Aaa, we adopted kids from there... A city like... What was it... Nizhny Tagil...

Four of them. In '93. From Tagil.

Surprise.

That’s how I found my “almost fellow countrymen”: Mike and Nick (Sergey and Stepan in the distant past). It’s just a pity that a conversation in Russian never happened.

Chap.2 Live and learn

In short, I had no one to speak my native language with there. I had to adapt to the team.

Life hack: even if you know what LOL means, how Present Perfect is formed, and have heard a thing or two about irregular verbs... It won't help you.)) Just kidding. I really had to learn a lot.

For some reason, in school, I never wrote down “ladle,” “walnut,” the translation of “replenish,” “sample,” “grasshopper,” or the meaning of the phrase “take care” in my English vocabulary notebook.

God bless Dan for his patience!!! Just...

• When a customer asks for a “Lid,” and you, like a one-year-old child, ask: “What is that?”
• When a pyramid of whipped cream falls in a massive blob onto the marble floor
• When you write “whipped cream” as “weeped cream”
• When you need to make a “Cow” milkshake and instead of “cow” you say “coo”... Naturally, no one understands you... And you moo “Mooooooo” across the whole shop

I would have fired myself. Deported myself and banned my re-entry.

Chap3. Love people

Working with people is interesting, of course, but there are always some, to put it mildly, peculiar ones among them.

Story about my “favorite.” Customer.

In short:

• First, for some reason, he gave me the book “How to Marry for Money” (“Olga is just doing the wrong thing,” he thought).
• Then he decided to draw an ice cream cone and bring his masterpiece as a gift to our establishment.
• They took a photo of me with it.
• Result: photo in the newspaper.

This is it – fame!!!

#usatoday #tobecontinued