Vinylrichie’s Weblog

 It wasn’t long before my past caught me up again and clamped its slavering jaws around my posterior. I’d made the mistake of  trying to appear eager in my interview, which was a grave error. In desperation to get the job in the first place I’d made two mistakes; the first was to look like I wanted the job so I went dressed in a suit. I have since discovered, through the stream of youngsters that appeared for interviews over Christmas, that I could have got the job dressed in a T-Shirt, shorts and flip-flops. Mind you, with my legs that is one for (a short) debate. The second mistake was that I’d not lied on my C.V about my previous job. If only I’d totally obliterated the last thirteen years of record retail and said I’d been on a gap decade-and-a-bit around Malaysia or somewhere, because, before I knew it I was thrown into the ‘entertainments’ department to assist in a big cycle change because I knew something about it. (A cycle change is when we move the DVDs from one wall to another, put them in a different order and then reduce the price by a pound or increase the price by fourteen pounds depending on what some bastard at head office decides by rolling dice, then a month later do it all again and still not sell any.)

 I use inverted commas around the word ‘entertainments’ as it is at best a tenuous description. If you are entertained by ‘The Nutty Professor 3′, last year’s ‘FIFA’ Xbox 360 title (still at forty quid) or ANYTHING by Neil Diamond then it is named correctly. I wasn’t happy. I spent my time going through boxes heaving with different DVD titles and marking them off against the delivery sheet. Then it was time to tag them just in case someone with severe movie taste deficiency felt like shoplifting, which is probably the only way we would shift most of it. Next up was taking delivery of the CDs. Middle England had been told it liked the nasal warblings of Duffy and the chorus free snore-fest noodlings of Coldplay so that was what they bought. They bought it so our suppliers sent more of it and the days were taken up with counting and filing the bloody things while the bitter pill of irony sat rancid in my mouth. To make it worse, most of the counting and tagging production line slavery had to be done in the airless, fetid stench of the ‘ents’ stock room. For security reasons the windows are firmly screwed shut so if you fart in there be prepared to live with it for about four hours. The only near advantage was that there was a little portable radio in there which I could listen to on the quiet. However, day time radio caters to the masses so I was treated to whole mornings of Duffy and Coldplay or, if the young ‘uns got control of the radio first, lots of urban black people going ‘uh, yea’ and singing ditties about guns and money and er, bitches. I tried Radio Four but it made me want to sleep, with its languid, comforting soporofic murmer and I was having enough trouble staying awake anyway. I even tried Radio Three but all that high brow classical made me feel like one of our upper middle class Surrey customers who buy ‘Country Life’ and ‘Killing Small Animals’ magazines.

 I was dragging myself around trying to convince myself that my new working life was working out just fine, but failing. My colleague didn’t help by taking every opportunity to remind me that life was shit and that the job would destroy my soul, like it had hers. The manager used to come into the department once or twice a day to ask, ‘So, how’s it going then?’ and I would scowl. I took to complaining and asking when I was going to be doing the job I was hired for and was met with unashamed brushings off. Deal with it.

The final straw was, when on one of these intrusive managerial visits, I was questioned about my contract. I had applied to this leading-high-street-retailer by responding to a window placed advert asking for : Full-time Bookseller, Mon-Fri 10-6. In the interview I had expressed my delight at being allowed weekends off. I actually asked her whether this was true as retailers usually expect you to work at least some weekends. I was assured that the weekends were covered on this tightly run ship and I was free to spend Saturday afternoons on the terraces getting mildly bored by my football team as we played Darlington or someone…

 ’What’s this I hear about you not working Saturdays?’ asks the boss. A slight rise of anxiety in me rises, replaced by irritation. I then proceed to repeat our interview.

‘I don’t remember this’, she says, ‘I wouldn’t have said that you could have Saturdays off and you’re supposed to turn up at nine, not ten.’ The smell of bullshit assailed my nostrils.

 I refused to back down stating that I’d only had one interview in thirteen years and was rather unlikely to forget it that quickly. She refused to believe me and I refused to back down, I wasn’t the nervous sixteen year old quaking at authority. But it was put up or get out, and having debts up to my eyeballs the choice wasn’t really difficult. I was loving it after all. Loving being on £5.92 an hour with one unpaid break, a day in a farty cupboard surrounded by ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ boxsets, being shoved on the till to sell lottery tickets to inept shoppers and management that lied through their teeth as well as a colleague that was doing her best to convince me to commit suicide which, if I farted again in the stockroom, was rather likely albeit accidently. Happy days.