Retail Academy

Catergory : Personal

Have you ever been in a situation that has given you no option but to sit back and take stock of your life? Forced to analyse the metaphorical trajectory of your life to make sure you're not going to go flying into the side of a mountain (or an Icelandic Volcano)? Well I was almost in one of those situations today, but fortunately my twisted sense of humour saved me from staring too long into the abyss, as today I started "Retail academy" a place where the damned people go to learn about how to break into the retail sector. Or, more accurately, it's where people who have been unemployed for too long are sent by the Benefits office to get them a job as quickly as humanly possible. 5 weeks of classes on how to sell shit to shit munchers; marvellous.

"But why the almost-self-reflection?" I hear you ask enthusiastically, Well i'll tell you.

The majority of the people who are on this course have less than 5 GCSE's, the equivalent, for you Americans, would be them essentially failing high school, and barely graduating middle school. I, on the other hand, have 11 GCSE's, College qualifications AND a University Degree (College isn't the same as University in England), Which means I've spent 5 years extra in education, have amassed many thousands of pounds of debt in tuition fee's and yet i'm no further up the "Career's ladder" than people who I was more qualified than back when I was 15.

I could barely stop myself laughing out loud.

But don't get me wrong, everyone on the course are a lovely bunch of coconuts and I imagine I will get on quite well with all of them.

All Except one.

On the course we have two teachers, Allison and Tina. Allison is regular and sane and therefore inconsequential and uninteresting. Tina, on the other hand, is so fecking irritating that she could teach things to thrush.

First of all, she's been in retail for 30 years and she makes sure we will wake up in the dead of night chanting that under our breath by repeating that fact every 30 seconds or so, but what's worse is that she seems so proud of it to the point of absurdity, she's practically bragging about it; I wouldn't be surprised if she often fantasized about walking up to Voltaire, Leonardo da Vinci and Norman Borlaug and spitting "I've worked in Retail for 3 decades, the FUCK have you ever done?". And of course 30 years of customer service related work takes it's toll on the human psyche, especially so when the human involved can't seem to get enough of it.

You know when you go into a shop, and the clerk/sales assistant/greeter is so chirpy and happy to see you, you know it's fake (or at very least exaggerated)? Well Tina has managed to internalize that to the point where it is no longer forced, but natural, yet it retains all the qualities of someone forcing themselves to be ridiculously happy...And she does this by turning everything into a mini-performance; "Tina" Written by "Tina" Performed by "Tina", with gusto.

First we'll get a small morsel of information about retail, followed by an improvised and camp scene of her "comically" acting out that information, followed by an anecdote involving that information, followed by her "Comically" acting out that anecdote, followed by the part of me that loves comedy dying a little. Rinse repeat ad infinitum.

But i've found a way to make it bearable - I just imagine she's some clever street performer who has swindled their way into the position and has decided to brilliantly parody the entire retail business through heavy use of straight-faced sarcasm. In that scenario, Tina is a fucking Genius.

But really i'm just blowing off steam now, I'm sure she's an excellent teacher, is clearly qualified for the job and seems a perfectly friendly and pleasant person. But i'm quite misanthropic, so the moment something can be described as a "Person" i'm already cynical about how much i'll enjoy interacting with it.

New blog about the pope to come later today! (hopefully)