food
Early in the morning I had breakfast, went to Woolworths and bought a hell lot more stuff then I usually do. At the hostel I extended my stay with another week so I could invest in bigger quantities and a bit of extras. I got muesli, milk, chocolate cookies, fruits, and lots of ingredients to make a good Thai curry dish. Yummy! Oh and I finally bought a food container. People keep laughing when I get my food out of the fridge. I cut the top of my used water bottles to use it as a food container. Don't know what the fuss is about, it's the same plastic thing just another shape, but it seems to be hilarious.
So after being about 40 dollars poorer I dropped of my stuff at the hostel, loaded my food from the cylinder shaped food container into the cubic shape food container and walked 30min towards the Adelaide Show Grounds together with some other people that found a job there.
I expected 2 very grumpy bosses and so it was. I was the cheerful fella and greeted everyone openly. Won, the male boss, couldn't get a goodmorning over his lips. Oww hurts... I asked verification about my pay and got a very agitated and stressed out answer back from Andrea. So the deal is get 3percent commission on the stuff I sell. Enough jibber jabber (:p) and I got right to it. I sold Naruto figurines, Mario merchandise, lighters, baby ac-dc shirt and a hell lot more for the next 12 and a half hours. During the day the others and me had to endure corrections of our bosses every freaking minute. You have to be a chameleon if you want to do the job as they want you to do it. You have to sort the clothes out with one eye, talk to a customer with another and then try to see trough your back if no one is steeling the merchandise behind you... cause if something is missing you get Won's furry upon you. So in the heat of battle things got out of hand with Jo. Won approached her and give her a ungrounded verbal beating on why she did what she was doing and why she didn't do what she must do. She started crying and was totally shook up. She is a good girl, works hard, and has only good intentions. Unlike our 2 bosses we didn't had anything to eat for dinner so it's normal you have a moment you loose focus for a second. Toilet breaks where easier to get today, that was a plus xD Anyway Jo was all in tears so I tried to comfort her, telling it all would be over soon, don't let it get to you. She went away for 30min and came back selling stuff with red and watery eyes.
Talking is not allowed, seriously. You just can't say "Hey how is it going, not to tired?' to one of your colleagues. If you do, you trigger Won's spidersense, he will spawn next to you in a matter of milliseconds and tell you to stfu and work. It is true that you must not rant on for hours with your colleagues when the shop is being roamed by a mass all day long. But 5 seconds cheerup quote must be tolerated right?
So I think I sketched the working environment a bit with todays and yesterdays post. I could rant on for hours and tell you about the cardboard that points towards me all day saying 'exeptional staff wanted'. I could told my bosses it's offensive towards us and that exceptional is written with xc instead of just an x. But hey I couldn't be bothered... I shall 'take a spoon of cement and toughen up'.
So at the end of the day we closed down the shop and had a closure talk. I was dead, really, I was tired and sick to begin with and this job asks alot from me. You have to be alert for the whole day, putting up a smiley face, running her to there, helping clients out while paying attention to the whole shop. Because the clothes and other merchandise is displayed so well it's easy to steal it. I was mentally and physically drained. My back and knees where hurting cause I only sat down for 15 minutes for the whole day. We registered our hours on a paper and Andrea began her sweet fake plastic talk. I let her rant on, I knew what she was doing and even Won jumped in and told us we did a good job. They need us, they pay is about 10 dollars an hour flat. We get commission but that's like 3percent on 8-20 dollar items. That's not going to get your hourly pay up to 20 dollars an hour like she told me. So if I work for 10hours straight that is about 100 dollars. If 2 shirts get stolen, that is 110 dollars... So how I see it is that whe are just cheap ass security for their merchandise. If we are not there they don't have enough eyes to cover the shop and a lot of items would get stolen.
So after the 2 had done talking us into feel good mode again, and she is really good at it, I told them it was my last day. The faces of my bosses chanced instantly after they realised what I just told them. Won's head dropped into his hands and Andrea shifted personality instantly. She changed her talk and tone of voice into poor-pitty-help-us-out. I must say she is a very good, no wonder she is in sales. Playing people like that. I let her do the talk, I didn't care for a minute what she had to say. I know she needs us and I know she knows she is going to have a hard job finding someone better then me. Maybe it's wrong to say but it felt kinda good to see her change tactics to get me back. They where cracking realising they are in troubles for tomorrow. But what did they expect, treating your people like dirt, paying badly, having high expectations form your staff. How retarded must you be to not see that coming...
So after that Jo told the same thing as me, which made me smile inside. She wanted to quit to. And she is darn right she quits. Her boss made her go crying in the middle of the shop. So Fake Plastic Andrea and her game kicked in again and asked me to leave and come back tomorrow to collect my pay. I knew she was going to work Jo.
So I waited at the gate and once we met up again Jo told me she worked tomorrow... Andrea worked her well. On the way back to the hostel I talked to her and she realised it was wrong. She is still working tomorrow but it's going to be her last.
So the last 2 days I have learned new things. I got to know more about myself and others. It was a 'good' experience and will make me love other jobs even more.
Anyway I'm out of a job and I can sleep in! Hope I get my money tomorrow!
gnite
