4am restaurant breakfast shifts when, on my way to work I would pass revellers still out from the night before. I worked in one of Wellington's nicest Malaysian restaurants under a manager who was so rude that I was just about the longest serving staff after only three months. And in Sydney, with chefs that would harass you so much, I vividly remember staring at the wall by the coffee machine willing the pools of tears not to overflow.
For about three hours whilst at university, I tried to sell Sky TV packages over the phone in a souless building with a bunch of other drones, and the echoes of 'offering free installation tonight only' bouncing around the room.
I spent two days counting voting papers in six different ways for the Electoral Commission. Cleaned hotel rooms. Counted traffic on the roadside at 6am in the middle of winter. Made more milkshakes, coffees and vodka cocktails than I can ever hope to consume in my lifetime.
But for every toilet cleaned, every beverage served, every incident where I had to clean up some kid's sick, there were just as many good / interesting bits.
How anyone had the faith to let me and Kate loose in the newsagents on Sunday mornings, I don't know. We'd regularly cover ourselves in lime milkshakes due to lack of concentration. We perfected our air guitar behind that counter.
I served Liv Tyler tea and made small talk with Christopher Lee on a regular basis. Had two years of free films, and now have a fantastic array of hiking equipment bought at excellent discount.
I once stood a metre behind a 'television match official' at the very top of a NZ stadium as he awarded the All Blacks a try in a Bledisloe Cup match. Nothing like seeing 55,000 people all jump en masse.
Speaking of that cup, I got the chance for a great picture of my niece sitting in it.
And I may have drunk out of it on yet another crazy Friday evening at headquarters.
And now? Now I get to try and make, and keep, some really great people happy in their work. I can certainly think of worse ways to spend the day.
1 comment:
Yep, I hear you Emma about the odd/yucky/fantastic jobs!
I once dressed up in a penguin suit at a NZ/Indian one day cricket match at the Basin. Four penguins bouncing around the field, with 'Kelvinator' sashes adorning our furry black and white bodies. Advertising fridges for the Indian market. Weird. Prior to that, wondering around selling programmes and being pelted with lollies. They sting when they hit you :-(
Eight weeks telemarketing mortgages for Mortgage Eliminators. As you say, Soulless.
Landscape gardening for a man in Island Bay for a day or two (I don't know a thing about landscape gardening, but he didn't know that).
Being lured into a web hosting pyramid scheme...which I didn't join in the end (too good to be true...and it was).
Demolition work of a plumbers shed that was blown over by severe winds in '98. I didn't know how much I would love swinging a crowbar :-)
Sigh, those were the days.
Now, all I need, is a job!
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