Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer
My first job was at Myer Melbourne.
For four months of the year, from September to January, we listened to Christmas carols sung by floundering pop stars. For four months, we heard the same battery operated train choo choo choo and Lemax miniature village Ferris wheel play the same four bars of jingle bells with tacky cheeriness.
From early September we would set up the department, emptying contents of boxes onto the sales floor. There would be six colour themes each year for those of us who are anal about colour-matching to choose from. ‘Regal’ was red, gold and purple. ‘North Pole’ was red and silver. There was also ‘Traditional’ (red, green and gold), ‘Cool Christmas’ (blue and silver) and one year we had ‘Manhattan’, which was bright pink, silver and black. The black offended some conservative-types. There was a handwritten complaint letter in the suggestions box. And because Bernie Brooks hated us, we needed to learn the difference between Regal red, North Pole red and Traditional red. If you couldn’t pick the subtlety between the three, you were demoted to working in the docks, lining boxed Christmas trees according to their height until someone in middle management changed their mind and wanted them arranged by colour.
People like seeing their names on shit. Which meant that, coupled with a steady hand, I had the job of part-time bauble writer. I wrote people’s names and personalised messages on baubles using a glue pen before sprinkling superfine glitter on top of the masterpiece. At $4.95 a pop, Myer has made a tradition out of losing money on this frustratingly popular service for over a decade. Many endless hours were spent sniffing craft glue and snorting glitter in an unventilated storage room filled with dust and quite possibly asbestos.
One customer thought it would be delightful to give personalised baubles as bonbonniere at her upcoming wedding. For two days, I sat in a sea of pink and gold writing 200 names on 200 baubles. I like to think they’re divorced now.
An order came in one day while I was away. ‘Daisy: 2003-2005’. We wondered if it was a child or a beloved pet. I never found out.
For a first job, I could’ve done much worse. Sure, the Christmas magic was somewhat lost when on the 24th December, all the trees and decorations were wheeled out in a frenzy to make way for the red and white stock take sale signs. Or when it was just you and a trestle table of faulty goods and a 75% off sign in the final week of January, waiting for someone to take the singing Santa with a bung eye and soiled clothes to a good home. Someone always did.
My favourite customer was a man and his six-year-old son. The father approached me asking for bright coloured Christmas tree hangings that didn’t reference baby Jesus. They were Hindu and didn’t celebrate Christmas. But he didn’t want his son to feel left out among his friends and wanted him to embrace this time of the year, just like everyone around him in Australia. I walked them past the glitter-coated Three Wise Men and recommended a set of colourful personalised baubles.
Read Biheng’s piece Am I Not Chinese Enough? that she wrote at her first Gunnas that was picked up and published on Mamamia.
Check out her other stuff here!
Twitter @biheng
http://biheng.blogspot.com.au/