Can’t retired people just grab a stack of A4 paper whenever they need?

All Swedish words vanish as I frantically gesture — like a monkey desperate for its last banana.

Photo by Ansi

It’s an ordinary weekday morning at the warehouse-style building supply store that could never possibly be spotless. There’s always new sawdust, scrap timber, or worst of all, fragments of plastic falling onto the floor. As an unpaid intern studying construction at a vocational high school, part of my job is to pick up all visible dirt and properly dispose of anything that shouldn’t be where it is. My other duty is to help customers as much as possible.

But Swedes don’t need help.

Especially not the strong construction workers who arrive in trucks branded with company logos. They don’t need an “I-don’t-know-why-she’s-even-here” Asian woman.

Help with what anyway?

I don’t understand the material names they mention, I can’t lift what they need to move, and I’m not authorized to fill out their registration cards and release forms.

This is my fourth day interning here. I actually like this job, despite customers constantly rejecting me, despite my colleagues carefully driving their forklifts in wide arcs around me, probably afraid I’ll hurt…