It was my final year at university. I was writing articles for clients through a freelance platform and publishing content on my own website, which wasn’t generating any income yet. I had to start thinking about my future. I didn’t want to work as a teacher in my field because I understood that there weren’t many prospects.
Somewhere, I read that I could go to Poland for work, save a decent amount of money to get started, and then look for an easier job. I knew immediately that it wouldn’t be easy, as most of the available jobs were at factories and similar places.
After discussing it with one of my former classmates, who was studying biology at the same university, we decided to go to Poland after completing our fifth year. We started looking for a company that could handle all the paperwork. We paid them, and they arranged six-month work visas for us.
Then we simply waited for vacancies and chose from the available options. The choices were certainly interesting, ranging from roofing jobs to working at a meat processing plant. My visa was approved first, while my classmate and his girlfriend were still waiting for theirs. That meant I had to go first, and they would join me later. So I bought my tickets, packed my things, and set off 🙂
The journey took three days and involved trains, buses, and minibuses.
Along the way, I met two other guys. The employees of the company that had arranged my job introduced us, and the three of us arrived at our destination together. Oh, I almost forgot: I had come to work at a meat processing plant 🙂 Why did I choose that job? The vacancy offered the highest hourly rate and plenty of working hours. It was as simple as that 🙂
We arrived in a small village, or perhaps what we would call an urban-type settlement. The meat processing plant stood on its outskirts, with a three-storey building located around 700–800 metres away, where we were accommodated. The smell there was unbelievable! It’s impossible to describe it in words. That was when I suddenly realised what I had gotten myself into 🙂
We were placed in a large room with wooden beds. They showed us the kitchen and said that the factory would provide us with free sausages and anything else produced there, including various types of offal — or whatever the correct term is.
The shift started at 7:00 a.m. I woke up at 5:30 so I would have enough time to get ready, walk to the factory, and at least have a cup of tea. It was October, so it was still dark outside at that hour. I walked to the factory in complete darkness. Each shift lasted 12 hours. I returned home at around 7:30 p.m., when it was already dark again. There were no windows inside the factory.
That meant I barely saw the sun or daylight on working days — and most days were working days. We technically had days off, but they were rare because our schedule depended on how many pigs were delivered. However many arrived, they all had to be processed 🙂
There were two types of working days: days when the pigs were slaughtered and prepared for butchering, and days when the carcasses were actually butchered.
These days alternated. On slaughter days, my job was to stand beside the conveyor belt with a knife and quickly clean the skin of the pig carcasses that passed by, suspended by their legs 🙂
As it turned out, that was one of the better positions. Some of my colleagues were much less fortunate. One guy had to remove most of the internal organs while the carcasses were moving, hold everything in one hand, and throw it into a container. In short, everything was covered in blood, the floor was constantly wet, the smell was awful, and your arms, back, and entire body hurt from the physical work and standing all day.
To be continued…
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