9 to 5, January 17th
In preparation for today, I took some time yesterday morning to make little sculptures from Blu Tack and put them on the wall next to my desk. I put little post-it notes next to them with the titles. This morning, five past nine, I opened the door to my room to find that - even though I had put up a sign saying "Please don't remove anything. Thanks!" - the post-it notes had been moved to the trash, and I found a big lump of Blu Tack in one of the plastic bags on my desk.
When I worked at Birthdays, we used Blu Tack a lot to put up signs and posters. On a quiet day, I would stand behind the counter and make little Blu Tack sculptures.
Costume III: Birthdays
I worked as a sales assistant at Birthdays for almost a year. I got paid minimum wage, had a contract for 16 hours a week but as there was usually a lack of staff I would often work twice as much. When I finally quit I was - apart from the manager - the person who had worked there longest.
Thinking about Birthdays now, what comes to mind are a number of anecdotes: about the blind man coming into the store now and again asking me to read poems from Anniversary cards to him till I got the suspicion he actually just liked being read love poetry to; about the woman who tried to steal the big Winnie-the-Pooh soft toy every now and then, but then was happy to just carry it around the store for a while; about having to wear a grave digger costume to work for Halloween. But that's not what it was about: when I was asked what had happened at work after a day at Birthdays, I would usually just say: nothing much.
When I worked at Birthdays, I usually started at nine but had to be there at quarter to to count up the tills. I wasn't getting paid for counting the money, though.
Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentine's Day ... the working year structured according to the holidays. Christmas music from end of November. Michael Jackson singing about seeing his mummy kissing Santa Clause. The regular music selection: there should be an investigation what listening to sad love songs all day does with your mind. When I hear certain songs being played somewhere today, my reaction is a mixture of panic and relief.
Some days I just didn't want to sell helium balloons anymore.
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