I told him not to lie to my face

Author: Jan Horvath, Jr.
Location: Kolin
Tomás Slanina is twenty-two and lives in Kolín.
"I’m a graduate of hotel school, and one day I decided to go look for a job.
I called about ten restaurants. Only two of them were looking for new employees, but both said that they would take me immediately. So I shaved, dressed up and went to the first restaurant.
I spoke to the owner who had promised to take me on right away, and told him that I was the Mr. Slanina who had called him about a job.
But when he saw that I was a Rom he said with no hesitation that someone else had been there just a minute before and that the job was taken.
I asked him to tell me the real reason and not lie to my face. I guess I told him twice that I wanted to know the real reason.
He answered that he wasn’t going to employ Gypsies, that he would never give them any work. On top of that. he told me that if I tried elsewhere I would find the same response.
So there was nothing left to do but turn around and go home with a sour expression on my face.
It’s hard to find work these days, especially if you’re Rom.
Before, I’d always had my doubts when people told me they’d looked for work and the same thing had happened. I wanted to go get a normal job, but it didn’t work out. So all I could do was go and dig ditches for my brother-in-law.”