“Dance Monkey Dance… I’ll Give you a Dollar!”
Woken at the break of a drizzley morning by my chirpy alarm clock, I knew my Monday would be special…
My first interview took me to a marketing company for a “customer service” position on the third floor of a crumbling building in the back streets of the Valley (known in Brisbane for its creative industries, a bit like a very grim shadow of the custard factory). I walked up to the third floor “reception area” which adorned a dead fish in a bowl and framed posters of huge Australian companies. The highlights and anything near relevant questions of the interview went something like this “So, it says here you’re from Birmingham? I went to Birmingham once. Do you like football?… I remember an advert there about a boy that wanted to be a tree… Do you want a job? Come back tommorrow for a training day and I’ll explain what we do here… Goodbye”.
Today I returned with a spring in my step and a glint in my eye, filled out a form that clarified in many defifinitive paragraphs that today I would not be paid under any circumstances and waited for my training. Eventually a sharp suited man and his four clones told me I’d be with them and to watch what they do there. Sounded easy enough I thought.
During the cramped car journey to the middle of nowhere its all explained what the job is; visit what turns out to be mostly old ladies and try to sell them stuff door to door. The best thing is the money for the glorious 40 hour standard week at $10 an hour. For those without a calculator, thats roughly £4!!! You make it all back on commision I’m told (after the two weeks with zero commision that is), yet during my half day with them no-one sold anything!
In a nutshell, job interview number one sounds like the dream job I’ve always wanted, perhaps so good I may have to turn them down. Hopefully, job interview number two at a real employment agency went quite well. I completed several skill tests and scored exceptionally high with my whizzbang computer skills, I might even get one of those luxury data-entry careers I’ve always dreamed of.
All I have to do now is wait and with a bit of voodoo or shamanic dancing I may get a phone call on the bat phone and have to change into my working man costume before sliding down the pole of employment into the salary-mobile!
Incidentally, I just read Factotum by Charles Burkowski. It’s a great book, kinda shares my work ethics and plight of employment… its got grot in there too! The guy just wants to write stories, get drunk, enjoy the more carnal aspects of life and exist. Best bit went something like “It was a menial job… Its not enough that I’m doing the job to the best of my ability, I have to be passionate about it too“
The Countdown…
Alrighty you sexy people, I gots me a plan and that plan is homeward bound!!!
Stevie’s in the midst of selling up and packing junk into boxes and when that junk is stored and the remainder is flogged in one exciting garage sale explosion we’re swooping straight over to Birmingham! We’re aiming for the end of July (could be more, could be less. Only a magic 8-ball REALLY knows the answers… maybe Derren Brown too but I’m still skeptical about his gypsy ways). Within a week or two we’ll have tickets in our hands and dates in our yuppy file-o-faxes!
All I gotta do now is put on that same broken record and get some work so I’ll have money to set-up again in Brum. I was offered a job the other day by some crooked company who’s office was in a rented wearhouse! It wasn’t a complete waste of time though, I got taught how to ride one of them fancy gyro bikes like the fella in curb your enthusiasm. Anyway, two more interviews on Monday. Until then its back to the plate scraping poverty 🙂
New photos here too from housemate Morgan’s birthday. Went to a very shouty Japanese resteraunt where they bring out raw food and you grill it to death on a BBQ… fun place for the veggies.
All in all, very exciting thinking about roaming around home turf again. Its been a very strange year indeed… I’ve gotten used to the Ausy host of Deal or No Deal and can hardly remember what Noel Edmunds looks like now!
Al\'s Travelling Adventures... 