Creative writing on "Diving for Money" (by Aym)

        The part played by money in our everyday life is very important indeed. We need money to buy food and to pay our bills. In this modern world, most of the things that we want, material or otherwise, can be obtained in exchange for money. Without money, one's life can become a misery. I started to understand it seriously when I entered University.  Because at tuniversity I saw a lot of people with expensive phones and with expensive cars. And I wanted to buy expensive things too. But unfortunately, I did not have much money. I was a freshwoman. And one day I found out about the international program called “Work and travel”. I was very happy, because according to this program students could choose a workplace themselves and be employed temporarily. They were able to earn the same wages and enjoy the same working conditions as Americans do at the same jobs. And of course, all of these really impressed me.

       So, I decided to go to America. In late May, I was issued the U.S. visa, bought tickets and flew to the America. I thought, “ America, meet me, I’ve come to make money”.

       But it was not so simple. It was a completely new environment. Everything was different: the language, the food, the plumbing, the people. I didn’t know what to do and how to do things in a new environment. I was upset. And after 3 days there, I realized that I was sad, lonely, everything was going wrong. Lack of confidence, inability to solve simple problems, feelings of being lost, overlooked and exploited filled me with the urgeto go back home.

     But then, I thought , if I get back home, I'm a weak person and I bring shame on my family. Then I said to myself, as the Americans say, “Everything will be AWESOME”. Then I came to my employer. It was a set of fast – food restaurants “Dunkin’ donuts” . The manager gave me a working form and said : “You can start right now ”.

There were a lot of donuts , coffee, tea and burgers . I didn’t know about the existence of so many types of coffee . Such as ice coffee, frozen coffee, coffee-coolato, decaf, a lot of coffee flavors. 25 different types of donuts , with 25 different names. At that moment, it seemed to me that I didn’t know English. I could not explain and understand anything.  At the end of the first working day, I made 23 wrong coffees, and dropped 4 donuts. After all this, the manager gave me a huge folder with names of coffees, donuts and tea. She said that I had to learn this until the next morning. I hadn’t slept all night. In the morning I came to work and I started to sell donuts good.  But with coffee I had problems. Because in my country there was no real coffee, we have only soluble coffee powders. I had never felt such a pungent smell of coffee. This smell made my  head ache . But I had to get used to the smell because I had to earn money. Two weeks passed. It was time for my first salary. But the  manager paid me only half of my salary. I indignantly asked: "where is the rest of my salary?". She looked at me and said:" This amountis what the company pays you, and the restyou receive each day as a TIP. "TIP? I'd never heard about tip”.  And then I realized that the past two weeks I had left my tips to my colleagues. I felt myself as a loser. The next day I began to fight for the tip . My coffee became better . I knew all kinds of donuts . And I received my tips. A month later, the manager said that I should know how to make  burgers . My colleagues had started to teach me to make Cheeseburgers and Vega-burgers. But I could not makepork burgers. Because I am a Muslim . And I couldn’t work with pork. So, it was really hard to work. But I had to work to earn money.

I was very hard-working. And I amabsolutely sure that I was obsessed with money. But it was America. And I realized that fartoo many people were more interested in their bank balance than in their quality of life. Richer peoplethan I can possibly imagine, who are depressed. More money seems to be the only way they understand of solving problems. They don’t travel because they think they need tens of thousands of dollars, and they don’t enjoy their day because they may miss out on a business opportunity. They have a big motto “Time is money”. So, in comparison with them I felt myself not so obsessed with money. 

          So, in the end of the program, thanks to my perseverance andhardworking spirit, I made enough money, to buy a camera for myself, a warm jacket for my mother, good shoes for my father.  Also, I traveled some.