Yuriy’s Notebook: Finding Work in Dark Alleys

Here’s a tip for anyone who is urgently forced to move to a new country. When looking for a job you very likely will need to forget all your previous achievements, degrees, awards and titles. You will have to start your work biography from scratch.

You may say: "Maybe for most, but not for me!" You may think, "My experience is special, my skills and abilities are unique, my personal investment in education is deep. Canadian employers will hurry to hire an employee like me!"

That’s what I told myself when I arrived in Vancouver after fleeing Ukraine. I felt sure I would be in demand because I hold two master's degrees and a PhD in public administration. Surely I’d land a well-paid position in a comfortable office putting my knowledge to work by helping to move some organization in a good direction.

Instead, I ended up being paid to pick up trash.

And I learned to appreciate the new perspective that gave me. Starting near the bottom again is a common experience for thousands of Ukrainians who, like me, arrived in Canada under special visas that, over a period of three years, grant us the right to pursue any job while our homeland is gripped by fighting. Pursue, yes, but with no guarantees.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here a little.

Even before I landed in B.C. in November of 2022, I’d spent a few months hunting jobs there online while living in Crimea. I aimed high, but as time wore on and no one granted me an interview, I made a shorter and simpler CV, cutting six pages to one, and cast a wider net.

Once in the Lower Mainland, I kept applying for jobs that did not require any special education or local work experience. The federal government says that many employers are posting jobs specifically for Ukrainian newcomers on its Job Bank site. I went there and anywhere else I could find on the internet that might offer opportunities. I must have filed hundreds of applications for everything from vacuuming carpets at Vancouver airport to cleaning train cars at Central Station.

I kept remembering the words of my teachers at school. If you do not study well, you will have to sweep the city streets, they said.

Finally, I was invited by the City of Vancouver to my first interview. And landed the position: Operations Worker II in the city’s Sanitation Services department.

I was now a street sweeper. It was time to put aside the stigma my schoolteachers tried to attach to such work when they delivered their warnings.

In the Soviet Union and to this day in post-Soviet countries, locals look down on street cleaners. City administrations usually hire workers from other poorer countries who will agree to a very small salary – as little as 300 dollars (Canadian) per month in my home city of Simferopol.

My new job in Vancouver, by contrast, paid much better.

And to my surprise I soon learned that I was quite lucky to have it. Many of my friends, neighbours, and new colleagues told me that they had been trying to get this job for many years. They could not believe that I won the position with the city just six weeks after arriving in Canada and after my very first job interview in this country.

Trust me, though. Street cleaners earn their pay.

The last time I worked physically was at age 17, when I bought grapes at the farmers market, washed them, packed them in one-pound amounts and sold them to tourists on the beaches of the Black Sea. After that, for several decades, I only had office jobs managing others.

Now I started my duties outside and after sundown, rain or shine, warm or freezing.

Most nights, I found myself not only collecting garbage but also communicating with some of the people who had tossed it. Some of them acted erratically, evidently under the influence of drugs. As I and my fellow workers would clean the sidewalks of East Hastings Street, we’d be escorted by police officers for our safety. As we moved down alleys we’d wear helmets because sometimes sanitation workers have glass bottles or other objects thrown at them by inhabitants.

It began to wear down my own mental health to roam the night encountering people living tragic lives.

What you see in downtown Vancouver’s alleys after dark is different from what is on display on its busy sidewalks during the day. You see leftover evidence of desperate acts – dozens of wallets, women's bags and tourists' suitcases gutted in search of valuables and abandoned, scattered along alleys and parks.

The worst thing is that over time you get used to it. What seemed jarring becomes normal. The psyche protects by numbing.

And then things changed for me. Still within the city’s sanitation services department, I moved to the leaf removal program. My shifts and duties flipped, showing me a completely different Vancouver. Night turned into day, the rough edges of the Downtown Eastside transformed into magnificent views of Kitsilano and Point Grey.

I received real pleasure from this work and daily words of gratitude from people.

I was placed on a dozen-member team, led by Superintendent Peter Chi, deployed to battle leaves across the city. Of course, the fight reaches its fever pitch in late fall when tons of leaves blanket the streets and other public spaces. We announce our impending attack with signs stuck in the ground warning locals to not park on the street in coming days. It may seem ruthless of us to call a tow truck when people forget, but here’s a video to give you a sense of our mission and why we rely on citizens’ support.

In addition to the regular street cleaning and leaf program, Vancouver’s sanitation department handles special requests by citizens who call 311. You never know what you’ll be asked to do. One day an 86-year-old lady pleaded for help moving her car, which was stuck in a mass of leaves in front of her house. Another night a conscientious citizen complained about a plastic "man's toy" that was lying behind the toilet in Balaclava Park and sent a photo to help in our search. Apparently, its owner had grown bored with the rump-shaped device. But by the time we arrived, it was gone.

This kind of work can offer stretches of time to reflect on where you’ve arrived, and where you’ve been. Oddly, as I performed my duties in Kitsilano, certain street signs would seem to speak to me, stirring thoughts of home.

Most residents of the neighbourhood know the street names Balaclava and Alma, but few realize they refer to places in my homeland of Crimea.

Yes, a balaclava is a form of cloth headgear, but first it was the name of a settlement on the Crimean Peninsula. The town became famous for the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War (1854-56), immortalized in Lord Alfred Tennyson’s poem Charge of the Light Brigade, which praised the bravery of a doomed British cavalry beaten back by Russian artillery.

The balaclava, a tight knitted garment covering the whole head and neck with holes for the eyes and mouth, takes its name from this settlement, where soldiers first wore them.

More musings. Do you know the song "Cardigan” by Taylor Swift? The cardigan also came from Balaklava. It was named after James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, a British Army major general who led the Charge of the Light Brigade. It is modelled after the knitted wool waistcoat that British officers wore during the war.

And more wanderings of the mind as I aim my city-issued, high-powered blower at drifts of leaves along Alma Street. The Alma is a small river in Crimea that flows from the Crimean Mountains to the Black Sea. Alma is the Crimean Tatar word for an "apple.” The Battle of the Alma River also took place during the Crimean War.

Never mind what my teachers back home used to threaten about being stuck sweeping streets. I now understand I was lucky to pretty quickly find a job that was difficult at first, but which I now like. Unfortunately, most recent Ukrainian newcomers to Vancouver have not been as fortunate.

I sensed this working on the streets downtown, where I ran into dozens of couriers and fast-food workers who complained to each other in Russian and Ukrainian about their hard lives and barriers to good work in Vancouver.

They face a harsh truth. If you have to pay rent or a mortgage, it is impossible to survive here without a stable, decent-paying job.

Next week I will pull back the curtain on what it’s like to arrive from Ukraine and try and to settle in one of the most expensive cities in the world for housing.

This series is supported by funding from the Hummingbird Foundation.