Arbeit macht fry!

>> As the pavilions crumble and the souvenir shops go bankrupt, a Canadian restaurant scandal rocks Hannover. The conclusion of our behind-the-scenes report from Germany's disastrous EXPO 2000

By CODY CARLSBAD

What follows is the second installment in a two-part series of e-mail correspondences, sent by a Montrealer working at a Canadian restaurant at the failed German World EXPO 2000. The event has been widely criticized by the German media as a total disaster; poorly planned and sparsely attended, the total deficit is already estimated to be over $2.4-billion (U.S.). But perhaps the worst criticism has been levelled at the Montreal poutine barons running the Canadian-themed diners. Here's why.
 
 July 13: My loser boss is getting very frustrated as the restaurant he is managing is quickly spiralling out of control. He yelled at me in front of customers for no reason, which made me VERY mad. So how do I turn this situation around? Make sure all Germans hate him of course! You see, he cannot speak a word of German (although he still pretends to by nodding and saying "Ja," trying not to look like an idiot but, of course, not succeeding). So when called upon (every five minutes) to act as translator, I always mention to the Germans that my boss next to me is a complete idiot and they all laugh at him. He knows I'm talking about him, but won't admit he doesn't understand. Anyways, the Romanians are now doing no work, therefore I have to do the work of four Romanians, and am now indispensable.
 
 July 15: The manager--whom we call Shish Taouk behind his back on account of his running a falafel place on St-Denis before this--got drunk last night and crashed his EXPO golf-cart into a tree in a huge fiasco that involved the cops! I haven't been too impressed with this eighth-grade-educated guy being a high-ranking manager. But his "sausage Nazi" work ethic ("The Romanians cannot eat anything") is a big hit with the owners. The unofficial motto of this place could be ARBEIT MACHT FRY!
 
 July 19: Spent a fun hour at the chic souvenir boutique at the France pavilion. Cool futuristic stewardesses, but they could stand to lose the mimes and cheesy accordion baguette music!
 It is official, I work for total scumbags. In addition to not paying the Romanians, they are forcing us to sell rotten food to the public. I learned this first-hand the other day, when I fell violently ill quite suddenly and mysteriously 15 minutes after eating a sausage, which I cooked and took out of the wrapper myself after checking the date. My co-worker later told me how, while selling sausages, he noticed the stickers are affixed over a completely different (earlier) best-before date underneath. Obviously, someone is trying to avoid massive health inspector fines. Many of the Romanians have now left. For some reason they didn't enjoy working for a crooked-rotten, food-serving Canadian restaurant that refuses to pay them. Poor Romania! I would not be surprised if the reason their pavilion walls are made out of plants is because they cannot afford walls! But I refuse to associate Romania with nature. Didn't they destroy all the wildlife along the Danube? Inside it's EMPTY, except for these bizarre, grimy, contorted wood sculptures of people looking scared and frightened. I really hope this concentration-camp imagery is accidental.
 
 July 21: Yesterday, I was again yelled at on the bus for speaking English. My co-workers and I are taking out our frustrations on the xenophobic Germans by serving them crepes filled with dead bugs. Mmmmm, now don't that taste better than sauerkraut? Eat up, Liebchen! The United Arab Emirates' pavilion camels have left Hannover and returned home. Maybe they know something I don't. And the once-vaguely-charming Belarus pavilion, which was surrounded by verdant grass and daisies, now makes Belarus look like the country of pestilence: the daisies have all withered and died and the grass has turned brown and fungusy. Hey, when is the next donkey to Belarus anyways?
 Meanwhile, I visited the Magic Eye of Slovakia pavilion and was in for quite the shock. Inside they showed the most disturbing movie I have ever seen in my life, with horrific scenes of megabombings, pollution, destitute old people with no teeth crying and my personal favourite, dead children lying in ditches?!?! I felt a little out of place laughing my head off at all this misery (it was either that or be overcome by the devastating imagery and slit my wrists). Then, as a grand finale, the movie ends with an ominous, "Welcome to our country!!" as everyone is ushered into a history room/death chambre with twistoid wooden inventions and bizarro statues of cheese in varying stages of decay (quel homage au fromage!). Among the tourists were two shocked American women, who started popping pills when the dead children appeared on screen. The whole experience was more surreal than a Dali. Way to go Bratislava!
 On a lighter note, a man named Moritz, who works at the Deutsche Post pavilion, sidled up to me and told me about the joy he experiences by calling people anonymously and pretending he is a little girl in Belgium being molested. He also told me that the artisans at the Indian pavilion are apparently being slave-laboured for almost no money or shelter! Apparently, to give Germans an authentic insight into their culture, India has shipped over these poverty-stricken-looking, straight-outta-Calcutta stone cutters and has stolen their passports so they can't return home. They sit outside, freezing in their little saris and saw away at bones and rocks with instruments as powerful as dental floss for about four marks an hour. Moritz found this out because they all come to use the Deutsche Post e-mail terminals and plot to get German citizenship and escape. I miss North America!
 
 July 24: Turkey's big attraction is a big, dumb, silver ball housing a rock with red lights coming out of it and roaring sounds. Upon leaving, I saw this Turkish guy screaming at some kids because they walked in through the exit door. Not exactly a Turkish delight! I think Turkish officials are still upset about the Hannoverian Prince urinating on their pavilion.
 
 July 27: A second Canadian employee has now returned to Canada to get an abortion (I'm not sure if it's illegal here or just impossible to get). Meanwhile, the Romanian ex-employees have scored a Page-3 story in Hannoversche Allgemeine about how their Montreal boss has exploited them at EXPO.
 It was also announced in the German media that it would now be cheaper for EVERY German citizen to visit the EXPO, compared to what they will have to pay through their taxes to fund this disaster for years to come.
 
 Aug 5: Today we saw a mini scum lobster in the alley, nowhere near water, but suspiciously close to the fetid-smelling sewer. Germany's got dank, mutant sea urchins festering under its World EXPO.
 
 Aug. 6: The other Canadian restaurant, along with six other restaurant companies that couldn't afford to pay their electricity (two of which were burned in mysterious fires) have gone bankrupt. So when I read in the local newspaper about "that horrible slave-trading Canadian restaurant company..." I wasn't sure if it was necessarily us. The other one just closed without paying ANYBODY. Then, I learned that the other company was run by the brother of the main investor for our restaurant! Now class, with these unethical Montreal companies wreaking havoc on poor defenseless Europeans, what kind of a reputation do you think Canada is getting?
 
 Aug. 11: The EXPO souvenir store has everything on crazy sale prices and still no one buys anything! The official EXPO mascot, Twipsy, which looks like some trannie crack-head parrot, looms over all the merchandise like a bankruptcy vulture. Their sales slogan is "Neu Tiefst-Preis!!" or, new low prices. (I'll show them tief prices, gimme that!) Meanwhile the Sri Lankan and Mughal Pakistanische B.B.Q. are struggling to stay alive as NO ONE goes and buys their weird spices. But the most infamous story of the whole EXPO remains the fall of that other Canadian resto. A former employee told me that the EXPO authorities came down to talk about past-due bills and the Montreal owners made appointment dates, but then once the Commissioners left, they pulled a midnight move, barred up the place, and took off. Supposedly, Interpol is looking for the shareholders in Switzerland. Only seven Canadian employees--including myself--are left out of an original envoy of 160.
 
 Aug. 20: So I'm drinking after work at the Australian pavilion as usual and I meet this guy who works at the Monaco pavilion. When I admitted, "I work at a Canadian restaurant here," his reaction was to cringe back in horror and turn and shake his head to this girl next to him saying, "We don't want to hang with this one." One of the Romanians just told me that Canadians are worse than Germans. We all have the lovely people I worked for at the EXPO to thank, for a reputation that will last long after this summer.