EXB-205_Web

BERLIN AT WORK
It was pretty easy to get
the job here... It’s fun and
I’m outside. I have my
schedule so it gets me out
of the house.
Paula Ragucci
March this year of free rapid testing for all,
with subsidies available for savvy businesses
looking to profit. Today, there are test
facilities all across town, from repurposed
sport stadiums to restaurants whose menu
boards have been wiped clean to make way
for Abstand rules and QR-code registration.
The operators require no prior experience
or medical training to register. By simply
filling out an online form, any business can
request to be added to the ministry’s list of
test spots; if it gets the go-ahead, staff just
need to complete a short training course
before they can begin poking cotton swabs
up strangers’ noses.
Even with these new opportunities,
looking for a job midpandemic
is rough: there are
about a third fewer vacancies
listed on job centre websites in
Berlin than there were a year
ago. The rate of unemployment
in the city has climbed from
7.9 percent in March 2020 –
before the pandemic prompted
struggling employers to start
firing people – to 10.5 percent
this April. Of course, being out
of work doesn’t necessarily mean being out
of a job entirely: ask anyone in the Berlin club
scene, where almost everybody is currently
on Kurzarbeit, the state-funded furlough
scheme covering their wages so their broke
employers don’t have to.
Inside the Arena
Janosch Marder and Christian Kahl, two
of the DJs now working as vaccination
helpers, both lost their bookings basically
overnight when the pandemic hit last year.
After submitting a CV to Quade’s Red Cross
2,100
BERLINERS
staff the city’s
six vaccination
centers
branch and taking part in a brief telephone
interview, they were each hired to start at
the Arena centre in January. “There was a
seminar to give you an introduction and
then it’s a case of learning by doing,” says
38-year-old Marder, once a regular fixture in
some of Berlin’s most popular clubs (Sisyphos,
Mensch Meier, Kater Blau) under the
artist name Janoma. “Of course you have to
do everything correctly, not make mistakes,
but it’s nothing particularly complicated.”
Roughly speaking, the work can be divided
into three areas: registration, not unlike
check-in at an airport; guiding visitors
through the system; and supporting
people who are less
able-bodied.
“You work your eight hours
and get a one-hour lunch break
in the middle,” says Kahl, who
is one part of downtempo
duo Kahl & Kæmena and also
used to arrange bookings for
festival stages including the
FKK floor at Fusion. He says
he likes the vaccination centre
work, before correcting himself.
“I appreciate the work,”
he clarifies, “because the team is so nice. If
the chemistry wasn’t right, I don’t think I’d
stick with the job for as long, because at the
end of the day it’s pretty much like being in
a hamster wheel.” He found out about the
gig through Booking United, an initiative of
over 150 Berlin agencies that was launched
to support musicians and artists through
the pandemic. Now, rather than getting his
social interactions on the dancefloor, at the
bar or in the queues for the club toilet, Kahl
finds himself making small talk at different
stops throughout the Arena’s labyrinth of
registration points, marked walkways and
vaccination booths. “You have lots of these
short conversations – with an elderly gent or
an older lady, then someone else around the
corner – which all tend to be pretty positive,”
he says. “So I guess that’s similar to the club
feeling, because you have those feel-good
vibes at least.”
The Red Cross is still hiring: as vaccination
capacity increases, Quade says he
needs more people, plus replacements for
the 30 to 40 members of staff each month
who find other gigs and leave. Some might
consider the chance of scoring a quick jab a
good enough reason to apply, since such a
job catapults you into the top priority group
for vaccination. But Quade bristles at the
suggestion that this is a perk, pointing to the
infection risk that his staff expose themselves
to – and adding that not all of them
get vaccinated immediately, since they have
to wait for leftover doses in the evenings.
Kahl lucked out and got his first shot during
his first week on the job, while Marder had to
wait two months.
Minijob swabs
While members of Berlin’s club scene were
welcomed with open arms, not everyone
has been able to walk into a job at a Berlin
vaccination centre. Maria, 27, sent numerous
applications for Impfzentrum positions in late
December and early January as a furloughed
flight attendant looking to top up her Kurzarbeit
money. “I never heard back from them,”
she says. “So I thought, well, might as well
try a test centre.” That turned out to be “way
easier”. She found a test facility provider
website with a link to listed jobs, and sent
them a two-line email briefly introducing
herself. “And that was it. They invited me
to an interview and afterwards I worked a
trial shift, which was paid. Then I got the
job.” Maria, who did not want to give her
full name, worked the registration booth on
a Minijob contract for €12 an hour – but she
didn’t last long there. “I ended up at a completely
disorganised company where the shift
planning was a disaster,” she says, without
wanting to give the name of the company.
“We had no rota for the week, so you would
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EXBERLINER 205