IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 7 ENGLISH | Page 26

Disillusionment, Despair, Illness
Natividad Soto Kessel
Chemical engineer and ceramicist
Havana, Cuba

could start as with a children’s story, or as with the title of one the
books I most remember from my
childhood. I could say: Once upon a
time, but we run the risk of having people think that the story was purely fictional once they start to read it. This is
why I’m telling you that whatever I narrate has been part of the reality with
which I’ve had to live. I’m still not sure
if I am a worker, proletarian, or salaried
employee. Despite the fact I’ve always
faced life’s challenges and projects with
joy and optimism, always wanting to
learn and go forward, I have not been
able to progress and find myself in a
material situation that belittles all my
efforts. Yes. I believe I have been a salaried employee since I’ve had to sell my
tireless work at a low price: the money
I’ve received in exchange for it has never allowed me to be able to improve my
lot.

I

Labor tribulations
I joined the massive labor force at only
23 years of age. I have offered my services at work centers that ignore the fact
that one of the rights workers have is to
receive the materials necessary for him
or her to be able to do the job, and that
this includes having adequate working
conditions on the job. The motto was
always “Do more with less” and I’ve had

to work with inadequate lighting, limited
ventilation, and a limited amount of furniture, always in desperate need of repair
or upkeep. I won’t even mention food.
One could create benchmark holidays
from the number of days of the year we
received acceptable food at the different
work centers where I’ve been. Workers’
transportation is OK to bad because even
when it was available, it wasn’t good,
nor was there enough. Trips taking and
hour or more are in packed, dark and
poorly ventilated buses. It may seem
unbelievable, but those who have to
travel that way have an advantage over
the great mass of workers who must
travel at all hours of the night on urban
buses in inhumane conditions. This reflects part of the motto: “with less.” But,
what does it mean to “do more”? It
means, among other things, to work
well, achieve noteworthy results at your
job, and increasingly prove that you are
a rank professional. The job you have
does not require intellectual ability or
skills, even though you still don’t have
what you need to do the job. Yet, one
must be willing and able to work outside
the regular work schedule, sometimes
for stretches of 10 to 12 hours, even on
weekends, to complete the work of two
professional people without receiving
additional pay. One must come up with
satisfactory results to all the work de-

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