28 May 2008

Vector Marketing

If you live in Victoria, chances are you've seen ads, posters and business cards advertising: "Work for Students!!! 16.85/hr!!!". The thing is, the ads don't tell you exactly what the work is, and you know there's going to be a catch, cause I mean, come on. Businesses are hiring in this city, but only for the kinds of jobs that pay 10 bucks an hour or less. So if they're offering 17 per hour and not giving information, you have to think, "do I get to keep my clothes on for this job?"

Well, purely out of curiosity, I applied for the job and was accepted. Only then did they tell me what the hell I was suppose to do. Here's the deal:

-The company is called Cutco
-They make cutlery
-The marketing branch of the company is called Vector, and they're the ones who are so desperate to hire anyone
-You're expected to sell the product via something like a Tupperware party, giving presentations to people you know and then getting phone numbers for people they know for your next presentation
-It does indeed pay 16.85/hr, but only when you're actually doing presentations, and you're supposed to find your own customers.

If this sounds like it would appeal to you, by all means, sign up. I didn't go back for the training. They just seemed too desperate to hire me- there's no way this kind of job is going to be fun.

20 May 2008

Not A Shit Job, Actually

Right now I'm doing Kabuki Kabs. Like every job, it has it's bad points, but on the whole it's one if the best ways to spend a summer vacation, aside from actually being on a yacht with the millionaire kids club.

The cabbies hang out in a huge old warehouse way out past the edge of downtown Victoria. Like, you go past Chinatown, then past Streetlink where the heroin addicts are, then you come to Kabuki. When not working, lounge about on couches, drink beer from the beer vending machine, play darts, Risk, and otherwise waste time. There's lots of weed floating around, and often free beer too. If you think this sound a bit more fun the average office break room, you're quite right.

As for the actual work bit, we do have to do that sometimes, too. On sunny days, warm weekend evenings, and anytime there is a cruise ship in port, we go out on these big tricycle-like contraptions and try to convince tourists to let us take them to dinner, back to the ship, on a tour of downtown, wherever. We charge a dollar a minute (no complicated math) plus tips. Generally, if we charge anywhere between 14 and 19 bucks, they just hand over a 20. That's all anyone ever has, 20s, so we get some multiple of that.

The best part is, everyone wants to take a picture of themselves with the cheerful young cab driver. I know for sure I'm going to walk into someone's house someday, somewhere in the world, and they'll pull out a photo album that contains my very own face staring back at me.

Anyway, between the drinking and carousing, it's possible to make $1000 a week. If, like me, you only like to work in the sunshine, it's still 40 bucks an hour but only maybe 8 hours. Pretty sweet joint altogether.

13 May 2008

The Hangover Shift

Yeah, I should know better than to party on a Monday night when I have to work on Tuesday morning. Tuesdays are bad enough without a hangover. At least I was smart enough not to try driving home last night, so I woke up on the couch of the Kabuki Kabs headquarters downtown. That gave me two hours to hustle home and make myself decent for work at 10. Along the way, I narrowly avoided losing my gloves and keys, and did lose my cell phone and my temper. No one should have to climb over a rusty iron gate at 8 in the morning.

Okay, so finally at work. No headache, just dizziness and general despondency. This translated to a sort of slow clumsiness that my new co-workers probably think is my normal state of being. A woman came in, your basic old-but-but-not-elderly type. She bought cigarettes and $50 in lottery tickets. Lord, this can't go on. If I'm still a minimum wage slave at that age, just strike me down with lightning.

And now, off to Big Bad John's to hopefully locate my phone.

12 May 2008

History

My dad worked in a liquor store for 30 years. I guess he liked it. Me, I'd rather die right now than spend the next 3 decades in retail hell. But as long as I'm in school, I can only work part-time, and I have no skills, so I'm stuck with the same kind of thing. This blog is a chronicle of all the crappy jobs I'm bound to go through in the next four years, while I finish my degree (or fail, or get distracted by something more fun).

I'll start with past jobs. At the age of 18, I've been the following:

Page at a library,
minimum wage,
8h/week,
stocking shelves,
no human interaction,
in my hometown

Fuel dock supervisor,
11.50, nice,
full time,
handing gas hoses to boat people and chilling in the sun

Clothing store cashier,
11.50,
boring as hell but a good coworker who was into air guitar,
in awesome Tofino.

Fuel dock again,
11.00, full time,
really cool people to work with,
back in the hometown.

Subway slave,
9.00,
nowhere near enough hours,
bitchy customers and mental patients from the hospital down the street,
coworkers who don't speak English,
in Victoria.

Safeway slave
8.75 minus union dues,
extra bitchy customers,
way too many hours,
brutal work in every way.

Pedicab driver
Most fun job by far,
free beer and weed,
but no money unless you're a born salesman, which I'm not.

And finally,
back in another gas station, a Shell this time.
8 bucks an hour.

yeah, I went from 11.50/hour, to 11, to 9, to 8.75, to 8. I'm obviously doing something wrong. In the future we will explore just how retarded I am and attempt to find explanations, maybe even solutions. Bear with me folks. Tomorrow is my second day at the gas station.