Tag #153250 - Interview #90525 (Sonia Leiderman)

I thought I had to go work and make my own contribution into the family budget. I had only finished 3 forms at school, and I was 14 years old.  Nobody wanted to hire me until I finally convinced director of a trade office to hire me.  I started selling milk. It was hard work: I got very little money for this work while I had to work all day carrying heavy milk cans. I asked director to give me some different work and he sent me to sell fish. So, I worked as a fish vendor in a kiosk at the central market for the rest of my life. I retired from there. It was hard work. There were no loaders and I had to carry heavy boxes with frozen fish and cut heavy briquettes into pieces. I never had a chance to sit down during the day: there were always customers lining up; I had no breaks. There was no heating in the kiosk: it was freezing in winter, and it was hot in summer. I didn’t go on vacation trying to earn more. My customers liked me: I joked and was cheerful and tried to serve them as best as I could. There were 3 fish kiosks one next to another, but there were always people lining to my kiosk. It’s a small town where people know each other, and I knew all of my customers.