Careers/Jobs/Passions

I have been thinking a lot about jobs lately, and this week even more so because I am looking after kids for a friend of mine who runs a daycare (she had a death in the family). Boy am I tired, it has been a real busy week, and I have forgotten how busy you are when you have little ones in the house.

Anyway, I have done a variety of jobs - public sector, private sector, retail, waitressing and now some contract work. Each job has its benefit and of course its negatives.

Retail work by far is the hardest. When I was in university I got my first real retail experience in a lingerie store. Not a sleezy store, but one that sold support garmets, nighties, panty hose and the like. It was in a local mall and it gave me money to buy books for school, bus passes, clothes etc...

Now working in this type of store has an interesting side effect, every freek, nut and bolt seemed to migrate there and for some reason, migrated to me. I was eighteen and naive, and people would come in and ask me the wildest stuff. For instance, this lady came in one night and said that she wanted crotchless pantyhose, then preceded to open her or her husbands playboy, to show me exactly what she wanted and tell me why (like I really wanted to know). The wild thing was that we actually had them, but I was told we sold them bacause some women were allergic to panty hose and this was their answer to it.

Another night I got a call from a fellow who wanted to wear womens panties. He was inquiring about what size he should wear, the colors we had and styles and if he could try them on in the store (the answer is no of course, it is a ladies store). I was perfectly okay speaking to him on the phone, and then he said the dreaded "I am in the mall talking on a pay phone and I would like to come in and see what you have" and that totally freaked me out. I remember putting my head on the sales counter thinking "Oh God, he is here and now what ?" It was close to closing and I was alone in the store, and to this day I don't know if he saw my little melt down, or if he lost his nerve, because he never came in.

I was also hit on in the store quite a bit. I think men think if you sell lingerie you must be a real maniac in bed and have drawers and drawers of the stuff. Nothing could have been further from the truth, I was a student living at home. I had no money for anything. Also, when my boyfriend's friends found out his girlfriend worked in a lingerie store, they looked at him like he had scored some winning touchdown at the superbowl. It was really wild.

I worked in this store for a year then moved on to a lingerie dept in a large department store and it was just as interesting an experience, the nuts came out just as frequently, they were just a little more subtle about it.

Thought for the day

Money does not make you rich, being loved and loving does