Chapter 7
Making a New Trade by Training
As I made my third profession ever more developed and was already able to translate two pages in an hour – my greatest difficulty was spreading originals and adopt my eyes several times in a minute first to the printed paper then to the screen – I could supply T. with enough material for his textbooks at the basic level. From that time both of us had to shift activity. He started to organize training courses and presenting there. First these groups were small, about half a dozen women sent there by the employment agency. Also their fee was paid by the same agency. But later parallel groups were launched and T. became a star for them.
As for me, I began to translate texts for the codex that was to serve as the textbook for the masters. T. wanted to launch a two-step course for managers of cleaning companies. The first phase was called KonfirMATISZ, it was an updating course for professionals who knew everything about cleaning, but who profited from seeing through all topics and putting them into order. The second part of the name comes from the association, the first part from confirmation (of the old knowledge). Almost no managers declined making this first step. All of them passed the exam under the same name and got certificates – designed by Leslie and printed with the new colour laser printer.
The second phase of the course was the true masters’ course. It was designed by T. to have about a dozen levels and each one of them was to be entered by finishing the previous one with an exam. Every level had a certain number of hours for theoretical presentation and also a certain volume of practical work to be done. It was to last about six months – the basic first phase consisted about 40 hours – and cost a lot of money. At the first time the second phase had about twenty participants. A few of them were left behind, but about fifteen of them finished it and got the proper diploma. It happened in the autumn of that year. What is very interesting is that the same people that established MATISZ and were paying their annual fees in it were deciding about how to form a masters’ course that never existed before and were forcing themselves to go through all the hardness to get a certificate that was worth nothing at that time – cleaning was no profession officially yet.
That year transformed T. completely. At the beginning he was a small entrepreneur with a lot of ‘castles in the air’ ideas to be realized. As the events were pushing each other as a hard braking train does, with each carriage pushing the previous one almost out of rail, so did they overwhelm T. who could have collapsed under the load had he not been so tough. By autumn he was a senior manager with a very wide view and a mentality that always looked for means and almost never for excuses. He was rarely seen in the office, but always available on his mobile phone. He did so much that would be half a dozen persons’ job in the so called socialist era.
During that time there was still a very close cooperation between him and S. The latter managed his firm – that was T’s property according to their arrangement – and was one of the main pillars for MATISZ as well as the training process. He also took part in the first masters’ course and became one of the certified Masters of Cleaning.
As T. was a phantom only in the office and tasks multiplied exponentially two more persons joined the company. One of them was Kinga, another young woman from Transylvania. She tried to get a proper occupation in more than one European countries, but somehow she didn’t manage to make roots. T. accepted her in the office, she learned quickly and did a lot of the slave work needed to edit my translated texts in a form that was fit for the codex. She spoke English rather well. She wanted to get Hungarian citizenship that was a hard task then, but at present it is no problem. However, I lost any trace of hers later.
The other one Maria, who left her overseer job in a big hotel for some reason and did a very efficient work with us. She was actually the deputy of T. when he was away. She spoke some English and German and was very intelligent. She was especially in accord with S. who had done cleaning service with his firm SERI for some years already. With the hotel his contract went on as before, only his partner became M’s successor.
The final part of the first masters’ course preceding the exam was the big practice examination, i.e. the restoring cleaning of a theatre both on the inside and the outside. It was the Vigszinhaz (Comedy Theatre) that had been closed for years and was to be opened. It was a very big job and the participants did an excellent work. The theatre would stage a performance exclusively for the cleaners, where even the European federation’s new general manager would take part.
The day of the masters’ examination was a very memorable one. After the exam came to an end – all of the remaining members in the group passed it – the group went to one of the new masters’ premises and celebrated the moment. I was present at that event and I was touched by the fine atmosphere there. It was worth the enormous hardship and later, when the trade of cleaning would become officially accepted, even their certificates would have a great value.