Come and laugh at me with me.
“HAVE YOU GOT A CHILD UNDER 8 YEARS OF AGE??”
This was the desperate phrase I repeated to crowds of rugby fans as they entered the stadium.
Everyone poured through the gates while I faced upstream like the panic-stricken woman in a movie who has lost her child. Or, in this case, wanted to barter for someone else’s.
One particular agency insisted I always wore a pencil skirt, tight blazer and high-heels to my shift.
Wherever that shift was.
And one of the places you really don’t need to be dressed like a budget sexy secretary, is Boots.
The louder you shouted “WIN YOURSELF A TASTY LITTLE HANDBAG”, the less they would bother you with the request to be more vocal please.
The phrase didn’t sit naturally with my persona.
So I had to adopt a weird cheeky-cockney-market-trader character. Which still didn’t sit naturally with my face or my voice. (My natural aura is Colin Firth).
With the lofty title of Team Leader I took this job far too seriously.
I was ‘supervising’ a group of very young people giving out cheese samples on the South Bank.
The central location made it a risky shift: people I’ve worked with might see me in a branded T-shirt and yellow hat, cheerily wielding a plate of cheese. (Doesn’t shout, “Made It”.)
It was a very real fear.
And so was the prospect of under-delivering as Team Leader…
I’d arrive at the shopping centre before 9am to locate my stand, a roll out banner and a branded wheelie bin with the clipboards inside.
It’s where I could put away my handbag and dignity too.
‘V’ was my trainer for the day. That’s the name she went by, I’m not trying to preserve her anonymity here. She had a strong Liverpool accent and a voice that carried. She also wore a puffa jacket and Ugg boots for the shift, despite the strict instructions that I was to turn up inContinue reading “Blow Your Nose – Aggressive Training”
I neglected to check the railfare before this job. 7-10am giving out breakfast biscuits in Woking station for £30.00 seemed tolerable. It seemed significantly less tolerable when I’d hauled myself out of bed at 5.45am to then pay £14.00 to get there. After a quick calculation of tax deductions my wage was near non-existent. AndContinue reading “A Fibrous Mistake”
I’d exaggerated my ability to style hair.
But the pay was good because the shifts were 14 hours long, so I was determined to Have A Good Go…
WHY AM I DOING THIS? Starting a blog in 2020 is the equivalent of hanging out on MSM Messenger. Nobody does it now. I know. But I wanted to wang some words out there and it turns out there is unlimited space on the internet. Raising a smile (or a least a cry-laugh emoji) makesContinue reading “Why Am I Doing This?”
This job was not only tedious, but painfully cold. There was snow on the ground, it was -12C and the public did not want to engage with me, the abominable snowman with a confusing offer.
Average Brunette