The Lounge - Worst Jobs In History

Hello everyone!

I couldn't let a Thursday roll by without joining up with my fellow Lounge Lizards for our weekly linkup.

This week the delightful Kim Frost from Falling Face First  is our host this week, and the topic is Work Woes, Crap Jobs, Career Blips, and so forth.

Kim has written amusingly about her forays into customer service jobs in her youth. I'm taking a leaf out of her book and retracing my steps through my various pocket money jobs back in the day.

In what is undoubtedly a fairly gutting admission for someone like me who basically likes to whinge and complain about everything, I am sorry to say that my youthful part time jobs  were actually mostly quite good.  Didn't stop me feeling bitter and resentful that I had to work over my Christmas holidays while my cousins could loll about and do whatever they pleased. You'd think I had been forced down a coal mine by my parents the way I carried on sometimes.

Anyway I am doing a hardcore last minute post due to bad time management and vomiting kid, so I will briefly run through the highs and lows of my early working life.

The Local Shop for Local People

My first job was as a 15 year old, working Saturday afternoons at our local corner shop. This job was randomly offered to me by the owner, we shall call him Len, for that was indeed his name, and his wife..um...Mrs Len. Maybe Judy? Can't remember. I have my suspicions that he gave me this job because he had secret designs on my grandmother's beautiful old Ford Fairlane car. Once he had weaseled his way into our lives he did indeed purchase said classic vehicle from Nana so my thesis is sound.


Pros: I got paid for the first time, even if I did funnel most of my $5/hour wage back into the business with my regular purchases of bags of mixed lollies.
Cons: Regularly being harangued by well heeled elderly people for not knowing my sums when they said confusing things like "I've got the 25 cents, will that help you?". No it won't fucking help WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT YOU OLD GITS I'VE ALREADY RUNG IT UP ON THE CASH REGISTER HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REVERSE THAT SHIT? It took me a good year to realize how to give change correctly.

The Clean Team

I left the local shop job when my school friends encouraged me to apply for a job on the Clean Team at the local cinema, where they were already lucky enough to be working. I was so excited at the prospect I could barely contain myself. I aced the interview and got the job, and was entitled to don the noble uniform aka a huge white tshirt emblazoned with "CLEAN TEAM", sneakers and black shorts. So hot right now.

Pros: SO many. Working with all me mates. 50c movies. Seeing the last 10 minutes of all the films showing at the cinema. Actually that was a con. Having money.
Cons: Um..the actual job. IT WAS CLEANING MAN! I am not built for that shit. One time I was called into a cinema during a movie. Some kid had spewed on the floor. I had to clean it up while her whole family sat there and watched me.

Sugar Sugar

I was promoted at one point on account of being so freaking hardworking and motherfucking diligent. I became part of the coveted Candy Bar team, and got to wore a much hotter uniform. A lime green pencil skirt, court shoes and a stripey blouse with a little tie. Cute right? It was the best job ever. I used to complain bitterly about it. UNGRATEFUL WRETCH! We used to make choc top ice creams, bag lollies, make popcorn. It was like working in bloody Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory.

Pros: Friends, money, cute uniform, 50c movies, access to lollies to nibble on.
Cons: Being yelled at by mental customers because it cost $20 for three popcorn kernels. Not my fault dudes, I was but a gormless youth who had only recently worked out how to give change properly. ALso, smelling of popcorn. Actually not a good thing. As well as my general resentment that I had to WORK to earn money. I've basically never shaken this feeling. NOT FAIR. I just want to LIE AROUND AND READ.

Library bitch - beginner level

I kept doing the candy bar job for a bit after I moved to Brisbane for uni, but got tired of going back home every weekend to work, so my auntie helped me get a job as a book shelving person at the uni library. In this glamorous position I got to wear black pants or skirt and a voluminous red polo shirt. Sex-ay. My job was to put ALL OF THE BOOKS away. Over and over again. Bloody science students and their bloody huge textbooks. Always USING THEM. It never ended.

Pros: Location, having money, peaceful nature of workplace. I did some extra work over Christmas once in the Engineering library. Turns out engineers don't use books. So I spent my shifts hiding in a corner of the library reading. Gave me a rather unrealistic impression of librarianship I have to say.
Cons: Heavy books. Working with librarians who are a bit...um..something. I am a librarian now so I can say that. Also being regularly berated by one of the fulltime shelvers who thought I was really boring. He was a middle aged man whose main passion was playing in a folk music band. He interpreted my eye rollingness at all his tales from the 70s as "wowserism". As if. *rolls eyes*.

Cirque du Slapdash

At one point I got an extra job on top of the library work to save money for an overseas trip. It was with the...wait for it...Cirque du Soleil. NOT, I hasten to add, as a performer. More's the pity. No, I was hired by some Class A Bitchface Employment Agency Bitches to work the bar. They hated me from the word go because I had another job as well and was constantly turning down their offers of extra shifts. Also I burnt the popcorn once. And was a bit up myself and also a bit gloomy and depressed.

Pros: Money. Kind of interesting I guess working out at a circus site. I had to sell popcorn in the Grande Chapiteau (aka Tent). This started out as a negative, but I decided to pretend I was part of the act and so walked around the stands yelling "POPCORN GET YOUR POPCORN" in a sort of DRAMATIC and ARTISTIC way and it became quite fun. I developed an excellent champagne bottle opening technique. I even had a callous! Cool.
Cons: Bitchface employment HR agency bitches. Weird hospitality industry co worker types who didn't like me and were always PARTYING ON afterwards when I was slinking home to be sad and depressed. General vibe of being disliked. Poo heads.

So there you have it, that's a brief wrap up of my youthful working life.  From it I think you can surmise that I am a lazy, ungrateful, fairly unlikeable snobbish wretch. I needed a smack on the bottom.