System of survival

The last bastion has fallen. The last bastion of hope. Something I didn't believe would ever happen, but you know, with time things change, so do people.
I have mentioned several times so far that I have an acquaintance who is unemployed like me. Many things connect me with her, mainly that we have spent several years abroad, in different countries, but we are both aware of many things, especially the bad practices in our own country. However, she, unlike me, decided to move to the capital after returning from abroad during the pandemic, and I just then moved out of this city, vowing once again that I would never set foot in it again.

Do you know what it's like to be in this situation: I personally know, and already from my own experience in recent years, that I can only find a job in the capital. Even yesterday I got a call from a recruitment agency, they offered me a rather strange position with a relatively good salary, if I was in the capital I would probably have accepted immediately. But I'm not in the capital and I don't want to be there. A long time ago I was done with this city, where basically all people of more or less ambition or worth went to in order to survive. At the same time, the locals, as befits such a situation, hate us for taking over their town, and covering the huge costs of high rents, super expensive heating and electricity, there is often nothing left of the salary afterwards, and honestly, when I lived there years ago, I often ended up with zero at the end of the month, and when I decided it couldn't go on like this anymore and decided to emigrate, I didn't have any savings to do it with.

Now, however, my acquaintance decided to move to this city for the first time from her hometown and is super happy there, maybe because she missed all those criminal years that I went through, living in the capital from my university years onwards, when, as I told you before, dangers and scammers lurked at every turn.
As it turns out from her stories, it continues like this, just not to the same extent as before. The smallest example is under what conditions she started work.
Bearing in mind that she does not have much work experience in the country, in the capital at all, I have already told her what happened to me, what to be careful about, what to look for and take into account when applying for a job, what is absolute red flag and should avoid such job postings at all cost… I think that she has already deliberately passed up several job offers that met her personal requirements, thinking that "there is something about them that is not ok". And last month she surprised me when she told me that she had started a job, found with connections of course, as things generally happen in Bulgaria. The terms meet her requirements for her to be part-time at 5 hours of work so she can take care of her child and such, but... she will not be insured on the full amount of the salary, but on a smaller amount, and the rest she will be paid in cash.

Let me tell you that this practice, so typical of all settlements outside the capital, is something that has even stopped me from communicating with the people I know in the neighboring town. Because this practice has dramatic consequences for people in the future, when/if they even live to retirement age (as I told you already, Bulgaria is the country with the lowest life expectancy in the EU). Because this leads to minimum pensions that are not even enough for the survival of pensioners. And this, for me, is a vicious circle in which a person enters even at a young age, puts up with it, because it is accepted as a standard, as something normal, although it is not, and it even leads to self-destruction, because by voluntarily participating in this process, you become complicit in robbing your own funds and your own future.

So I decided that people who do this and consider it normal cannot teach me anything useful in life.
But that this could happen in the capital is something new and even more shocking to me. And for an intelligent person with capabilities to accept it is even more unacceptable.
So what happened to my acquaintance, why did she also fall into this trap, I wondered for a while. Then I saw something in the profile of another acquaintance, a classmate from my hometown - outside the capital. She speaks Spanish, probably also English, has a college degree, but works as a social worker at a center for people with disabilities, probably for minimum wage. Quite by chance, I found out from one of her posts that she actually deals with some private things, probably makes and sells crafts, just like my friend in Sofia deals with such things.

And then I realized this - people in Bulgaria have always made and are making this calculation - "I make this money from side hustle, I get that money from something else. If I can find a job that gives me that salary and some insurance, to accumulate years of service to get some kind of pension, I'll make ends meet and that'll be fine."

That's it. It was that simple. Pure math. I do this and that, it doesn't matter what and how many different activities these are, the important thing is that when I put them together I get some amount with which I can survive.

The moment I realized this, I thought that I am wrong again, that my demands are completely unreasonable - that I want to be insured on the whole salary, and I also have claims on the salary too - not to be the minimum, to meet of the invested skills, knowledge and efforts, of the volume of work, etc. That people just take whatever is available and match it to their other sources of income to get something.

But then I thought - what are my other sources of income? And is it possible that we all have such talents as making things with our hands or offering side services?

At the beginning of the year, I really fell into this trap as well - because there are people, even entire academies in Bulgaria, who proclaim how easy it is, even obligatory, to make at least a YouTube channel in order to earn something from it, on the side, as if this is really an easy thing.
Well, it's not. Just like it's not for everyone.

And I remain with the reasoning about survival in Bulgaria and the conviction that I do not understand the system of survival here 😔

Thank you for your time! Copyright:	@soulsdetour
	Soul's Detour is a project started by me years ago when I had a blog about historical and not so popular tourist destinations in Eastern Belgium, West Germany and Luxembourg. Nowadays, this blog no longer exists, but I'm still here - passionate about architecture, art and mysteries and eager to share my discoveries and point of view with you.

Personally, I am a sensitive soul with a strong sense of justice.
Traveling and photography are my greatest passions.
Sounds trivial to you?
No, it's not trivial. Because I still love to travel to not so famous destinations.🗺️
Of course, the current situation does not allow me to do this, but I still find a way to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, new places, beauty and art.
Sometimes you can find the most amazing things even in the backyard of your house.😊🧐🧭|