[robert, interviewing a man working at the shipyard in Gdansk]

I have been working here for 37 years. I am used to this work.
I am not from Gdansk but from central Poland. I came to Gdansk to see the sea, so I ended up at the shipyard. Before I came here I could not imagine how it looks like. I went to sea on fishing boats, I went to Iceland, where I worked on a fishing boat.
I worked in Germany for a while, at the Papenburg shipyard. We built a passenger ship there, for England.
Now the shipyard has become like a family to me.
There have been changes since the 60's, when I started to work here. We were used to do things more manually, there has been some mechanisation. But it remains very complicated work, just work. In a factory the machines are delivered as a whole, here everything has to be assembled. Sometimes we build series of ships, that makes it easier, but mostly we build individual designs. Working means to me to make exactly what is asked of you, and doing it good, no matter how long it takes. Filmmaking, writing, I consider more as something you do in your spare time.

I am a quite funny person, I like to make jokes. My colleagues like it.
I am building my own house now, I just moved there. There is still a lot to do, so I am working on my house after work. It is going to be a family house, my kids, which are grown up now, are going to live there as well. They help me building it. I am listening to music from the 60s and 70s, mostly Polish bands. It is the music I grew up with. We go to concerts of these bands, we call them "concerts of dinosaurs" and we sing along. I mean, I don't have a good musicality. Working here damaged my hearing. There is a lot of noise here.

I feel very attached to the shipyard.
We did not get paid for quite a while because the shipyard was bankrupt. But now there is some future to it. I would like to go on until my retirement. I lived through all the history and I took part in the demonstrations. I did not play an active role in the uprising. People were really afraid, there was not much space to dream, it was very existential. There was no food, nothing in the shops. Those who were more active inspired the movement. Then there was nothing to buy in the shops but we had some money. Now you can buy everything but there is no money.
I would like the shipyard to continue building ships. In the disused parts, it would be nice to have some tourist attractions there. It would be nice if it would stay like it is, but somebody would have to take care of it.
I'd like to be optimistic, actually I like to be better. There is a lot of disappointment in Poland. When the market economy came to Poland everybody thought things will be better. some things are better but many people are really disappointed.