What a week!
So last Thursday following a couple of days trawling the Internet for recruitment/temping agencies and "SEEK" like websites, Stew and I decided to start our official look for work campaign. With our goal of finding meaningless and low responsibility jobs in mind, we pounded the pavement all day, walking all around the city pimping ourselves out to every clothing store, bar, gift shop, pub, cafe and restaurant we could see. Naturally, that afternoon we were surprised to get a call from one of the souvenir shops we had visited earlier that day, asking us to come back that hour for an interview.
Our interview consisted of spending 5 minutes with the manager of the store and literally being told that the hours would be very long, the work very hard and the job very intense. All this for the pleasure of being paid 5 pounds 73 per hour. ($11.50) Award wage here. Obviously it was such a good sell that we took it.
The shop has every kind of cheesy, crappy, over priced piece of tourist crap that you could ever imagine, and some that never should have been. From kids kilts to adults kilts, kilt mugs and kilt egg cups, kilt towels - with kilts and sporrans printed on them so when you wrap them around your waist it looks like you are wearing a kilt. Clan scarves, hats and t-shirts. Caps, postcards and magnetic mini bagpipes that play "Scotland the brave" and sound like a slowly dying mosquito that needs to be put out of it's misery. This store has it all.
We were told that we would be called in the next day or so with our hours and that while we could expect lots of hours, we wouldn't be on the roster until we had been working there a month. Hmm... Don't bother with staff until they have been working at the store for a month... We should have seen the signs... Oh and the other joy was that while you were given a start time to your shift - you were not given any indication of your finish time.
The extreme drilling on our doorstep (thanks to the 2012 Edinburgh City Tram project) woke us up very early the next morning so naturally we stayed in bed until about midday to show those workmen that we weren't going to be part of their evil plans to deprive us of sleep (or something like that) Unfortunately this meant that Stew missed the call from Kasu (our new manager) letting us know that he was to start at 9am that day and I at 3pm.
Thus last Friday the 7th of August began the longest week of my life...
The shop is owned by a family of Sikhs who actually own just about every souvenir and Cashmere shop in Edinburgh (maybe about 25 -30) The brothers that mostly work in our store are friendly - but I am told by Kasu that they are the "Princes" and basically if they say "jump" my response should be, "how high?" I later met the "King" their Ferrari driving father. Or due to his fetching turban, the man I liked to think of as "Papa Smurf." (Un-PC I know but very amusing for me) So my first day. I was told to stay in one of the areas, serve customers and tidy shelves but above all LOOK BUSY. Seriously, the direction was above all to LOOK BUSY. Even to the point were over the next couple of days while helping customers with their purchases and helping to make 200 pound sales I was told to leave those customers I was serving to do some ridiculous task like restock one size of a 10 pound t-shirt or label a snow globe with a 2 pound price tag! I worked 7 hours that first day and had to ask for my only break. 15 minutes without pay.
The next day was a little easier, given I was now armed with a little more knowledge required for the position... Little things that seemed to have been over looked by my manager on my first day like hmm... were the toilet & cash register was, who the other staff members were, what the process for restocking was etc. The small insignificant things that you really don't have to know I guess. I worked 9 1/2 hours. But it was ok, i got a 15 minute break.
So turns out breaks aren't compulsory for workers in Scotland. In fact, as I learnt, there were many staff members who regularly worked 12 hour shifts without a break at the store. Slave labour much? In a mad effort to give staff some sort of concession to the intensity of the working conditions, Kasu (the manager) mixed up the start times so everyone got a share of late and early starts. Unfortunately she hadn't thought this out too well. I would have a midnight finish then a 9am start. Stew was given the reverse starting times to me. I worked 6 days straight of these stupid hours until finally I had yesterday off.
Walking around a main festival area yesterday, I correctly identified a Macleod tartan.
Oh God. What have I become?
So many painful things also went on all week - like being told by one brother to do something than by Kasu to do another, then by a different brother to change what the first brother told you to do. Far too many cooks. luckily the other staff were really friendly. I was even invited to a party after work on my second shift... But was then told to start at 9 am the next morning after finishing at 11:30 and having worked over a nine hour day. No Party for us. I am never one to shy away from long hours and hard work (Memories of all those Christmas's at Gowings) but I have to say that this last week nearly killed me.
Oh and one major detail I have forgotten. All this went on to the sound track of "The Red hot Chilli Pipers." CHILLI PIPERS. OH MY GOD! They are a couple of Pipers who do versions of famous pop & rock songs on the bagpipes. So we had "
We will rock you," "
You're the voice," (check out the link for "The Voice," it's a clip from their "Live in Calcutta" show. Bahahahahaha!) and the cover that made me want to slit my wrists "
Clocks" by Cold play. The brothers insisted we play the same Cd - all 10 tracks, all day, everyday at maximum volume. The sound was soo loud that you couldn't actually hear what the customer standing 30cms away from you was saying. The kind of loud that breaches OH&S regulations and is so intense it actually burns miniature scale images of bagpipes into each ear drum. Strangely enough we sold heaps of albums. Although, I swear to god i had the same conversation about 20 times with different random customers. So much so that even having to write about it makes me want to stab myself with a bagpipe, bludgeon myself with a Haggis or paper cut myself to death with one of our many over priced postcards. It went a little like this...
(Customer approaches me with a look of confusion on their face. I am up a ladder with a pricing gun under my arm and a hand full of stock. I am wearing black pants and a black top just like the people behind the cash register and people dotted around the floor helping customers and re-merchandising)
Customer:"Excuse me do you work here?"
Me: "Yes - how can I help you?"
Customer: "Do you sell this CD that is playing?"
Me: "Yes we do, here it is." (Handing the customer the CD) "It is by a group called the Red Hot Chilli
PIPERS."
Customer: "Oh the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Really? Oh... I wouldn't think this is them. Are they Scottish?"
Me: "PIPERS. Red Hot Chilli PIPERS."
Customer: "Oh. Pipers." (Laughs) "Isn't that clever. I'll take it."
Me: "Thank you, please take all of them."
Customer: "Haha, oh you."
Me: (Grimace and walk away)
Stew quit yesterday...
I quit this afternoon...
No joke - this is not a set up! We walked past this sign standing outside a newsagency on our second day in town.
Bahahaha!
Dog pimping agency?
Who was it? Who asked for it?
Retail Limbo
Ok - so this one was actually taken at the Tower of London not in Edinburgh...