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A casa assombrada / The haunted house

Tenho tentado perceber o site das Finanças. É desconcertante. Há tantos pormenores e a organização é tão difícil de adivinhar.

Enquanto estou a desenvolver o meu trabalho de edição e revisão, tenho alguns trabalhos precários e mal pagos. Mais recentemente, comecei a trabalhar numa empresa de aluguer de bicicletas.

A minha chefe na loja de bicicletas lembrou-me que na Finanças tem listas aprovadas de profissões e actividades. Disse-me que ‘operador de loja’ está na lista e que seria o mais adequado para o que estou a fazer.

Olhei pelo início de uma lista no website das Finanças: agricultor, apicultor, bibliotecário, biólogo, bancário, barista, chefe de cozinha, contabilista, cunicultor.

A pessoa ou as pessoas que creiam nestas listas parecem ter tentado preencher o alfabeto: nenhuma letra deve estar isenta de pelo menos uma profissão ou atividade.

Com esta teoria para avaliar, a procura na lista por operador de loja ou qualquer primo dele, tornou-se mais divertida. Fui direto à letra O, mas fiquei a pensar o que encontraria na letra Q ou J ou X.

Pós-escrito: o website das Finanças é uma casa assombrada. Pode entrar-se em qualquer sala uma vez, mas é muito difícil visitá-la uma segunda vez. Não consegui encontrar o caminho de volta para as listas de profissões excessivamente alfabetizadas. Em vez disso, inclui uma lista de profissões pretendidas num estaleiro de construção local. Os nomes de profissões têm um som sólido e saudável. Fazem lembrar madeira aplainada: suave e forte e com um bocadinho de elasticidade.

A poster on a lamp post. The poster has vacant positions at a building site.

I’ve been navigating the Portuguese revenue and tax website. It’s bewildering. There’s so much detail and the underlying organisation is so hard to divine.

While I build up my editing and proofreading work I have a few subsidiary sources of income from precarious and poorly paid activities, most recently, working for a bike hire business.
My boss at the bike place reminded me that the revenue and tax service system has approved lists of professions and employments. She said that operador de loja (shop worker) was on the list and would be the best fit for what I’m doing.

I skimmed through the start of one list on the website: agricultor, apicultor, bibliotecário, biólogo, bancário, barista, chefe de cozinha, contabilista, cunicultor (which translate as farmer, bee keeper, librarian, biologist, banker, barista, head chef, accountant, rabbit farmer).

The person or people compiling these lists seem to have tried to fill the alphabet: maybe their rule was no letter should be without at least one profession or activity.

With this theory to test, searching for operador de loja or some close cousin became more fun, but still ultimately unsuccessful.

Post-script: the tax website is a haunted house. You may enter any room once but it is very hard to visit that room a second time. And so I couldn’t find my way back to those excessively alphabetised lists of jobs. Instead I’ve included an image of a less formal word hoard: a list of positions vacant at a local building site. My English-programmed brain hears manobrador as the warning shout when a sailor falls into the sea but the accepted and general meaning in Portuguese is someone who operates heavy machinery including excavators and earth rollers.

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Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 6, 2025 at 6:28 PM

    manobrador! What a fine warning exclamation. Useful not only to announce an overboard sailor, but to warn trespassers on worksites that they are in danger from approaching heavy machinery.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Living Not At HomeMay 7, 2025 at 9:42 AM

    And it has the word ‘obra’ as its kernel - reminding us it’s about work.

    ReplyDelete

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