◉ 025 | Bosses Who Break Spines

End of first year of uni.

Summer holidays.

Next year,

I’ll be first year again.

Damn it.

I spent the summer

working in the greenhouses.

The boss—

Božo Kuzmanić.

Tomo and me—

moving planting beds

from one greenhouse

to another.

Not wooden benches.

Not steel frames.

Heavy-duty,

precast concrete elements.

Each one disassembled,

hauled,

and assembled back

into a long planting bed.

From Donji Žnjan,

a path just as wide as a wheelbarrow.

On one side—glass greenhouses,

one after another.

On the other—steep downhill.

Load it into the van

parked by the church.

Up to Gornji Žnjan—Dorićevo.

Then the soil.

Sack after sack.

Same rhythm—

for eight hours.

You could wheel a barrow

through the gate,

but not between the beds.

Narrow aisles—

barely enough for a man to walk.

From the centre—

two wings,

25–30 metres each way.

One sack on your back—

20 kilos at least.

Back and forth.

By lunchtime

I couldn’t feel

my arms.

So I found a way.

A black crate.

A big steel hook.

Load two sacks

and drag it through the aisle.

No need to carry them.

Tomo nodded.

The longer we pulled,

the slicker it got—

concrete, plastic, sweat.

It worked.

Then Božo showed up.

“What the fuck are you doing?

Each crate is 25 euros.

From Holland.

Stop this engineering bullshit.

Just carry them.”

My daily pay

was just a bit higher than that.

My spine was priced

lower than his plastic box.

So we stopped dragging.

Kept doing it his way.

No wonder

we called him Hićo—

after Adolf.

And by the way,

Tomo was his son.

Božo was a sadist,

in a way.

And I had many

bosses like him.

Many times

I worked against common sense,

against myself.

Until I didn’t.

Sometimes being your own boss

means less money.

Sometimes no money at all.

Sometimes you stare at the ceiling at 3 a.m.

But no one tells you

your back is worth less

than a 25-euro crate.

Freedom is the raise.