At my golf hut, the khazis are round the back. This means that, if you’re working at the sales hatch, you can’t see them. In summer, the demand for the lavatories is extremely high, as there aren’t many other places to relieve yourself in the park (unless you go into the bushes, of course).
The previous owner of the hut knew an OAP who was prepared to turn up at short notice and staff the lavatories. This sounds like it was a zero-hour contract – because it was a zero-hour contract, only without the contract – , but the OAP came away with a good hourly wage and was more than happy with his lot.
Unfortunately, I don’t like this OAP and don’t want him there. The first time he turned up at the hut, his first words were, “You don’t know who you’ve got in front of you, do you?” When I agreed with him, he launched into a monologue about how important he was. He also brought his Mr. Toad brother with him, who stood at the sales hatch and moaned his cobs off about everything, so loudly that he was frightening the children.
After the 250th “Man, man, man, you don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”, I told the OAP to fuck the fuck off and fucking take fucking Toadface fucking with him, fucking.
So I now need somebody else to staff the lavatories when the weather’s warm. I spoke to a few friends of friends who’d expressed an interest, all of whom are long-term unemployed, OAPs or students. I told them exactly what the job constitutes and indicated how much they’d be getting. I said they’d only have to do surface cleaning and that if any major shit- or puke-related incidents occurred, I’d do the mopping myself.
Yet when I contacted them to do a shift (on a day that wasn’t all that busy anyway), the objections started. One of them said it was ‘unfair’ that he he’d be out the back all the time and that we should alternate, so that he can be the front man too. One of them said he’d thought about it and was unhappy at the lack of prospects were on offer. A third refused to do it because passers-by could see her ‘being a lavatory attendant’. The fourth suddenly wanted a guarantee of 20 hours a week – all off the books, of course.
Now, I’ve never had a job in which I’ve told other people what to do. I’ve always been on the receiving end of instructions. In my current job, my stock response to something I don’t agree with is, “All right, if you want shit, you’ll get shit. I’m good at shit.” In my past jobs, I just got on with it; as a paper boy, it would never have occurred to me to say to the newsagent, “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not deliver the Radio Times. Kenneth Kendall’s a wanker, Softly, Softly: Task Force is a load of shit and the test-card girl scares the crap out of me."
Is it always like this these days? Do people always want to rewrite the rules before they’re even applied?
I mean, I described exactly what the job entails. I said what the money would be like. I said that they couldn’t be guaranteed work every day a) because the lavatories only need to be staffed at the weekend and b) the number of customers is heavily dependent on the weather, in a city that’s infamous for its annual rainfall. I can’t afford to pay somebody to watch over a lavatory that’s not being used because it’s the third day of five rainy days in a row.
(And “can’t afford” doesn’t mean “will only be pocketing 500 euros that day”; it means “will be losing 50-100 euros on top of what I’ll be losing anyway.”)
The previous owner of the hut knew an OAP who was prepared to turn up at short notice and staff the lavatories. This sounds like it was a zero-hour contract – because it was a zero-hour contract, only without the contract – , but the OAP came away with a good hourly wage and was more than happy with his lot.
Unfortunately, I don’t like this OAP and don’t want him there. The first time he turned up at the hut, his first words were, “You don’t know who you’ve got in front of you, do you?” When I agreed with him, he launched into a monologue about how important he was. He also brought his Mr. Toad brother with him, who stood at the sales hatch and moaned his cobs off about everything, so loudly that he was frightening the children.
After the 250th “Man, man, man, you don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”, I told the OAP to fuck the fuck off and fucking take fucking Toadface fucking with him, fucking.
So I now need somebody else to staff the lavatories when the weather’s warm. I spoke to a few friends of friends who’d expressed an interest, all of whom are long-term unemployed, OAPs or students. I told them exactly what the job constitutes and indicated how much they’d be getting. I said they’d only have to do surface cleaning and that if any major shit- or puke-related incidents occurred, I’d do the mopping myself.
Yet when I contacted them to do a shift (on a day that wasn’t all that busy anyway), the objections started. One of them said it was ‘unfair’ that he he’d be out the back all the time and that we should alternate, so that he can be the front man too. One of them said he’d thought about it and was unhappy at the lack of prospects were on offer. A third refused to do it because passers-by could see her ‘being a lavatory attendant’. The fourth suddenly wanted a guarantee of 20 hours a week – all off the books, of course.
Now, I’ve never had a job in which I’ve told other people what to do. I’ve always been on the receiving end of instructions. In my current job, my stock response to something I don’t agree with is, “All right, if you want shit, you’ll get shit. I’m good at shit.” In my past jobs, I just got on with it; as a paper boy, it would never have occurred to me to say to the newsagent, “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not deliver the Radio Times. Kenneth Kendall’s a wanker, Softly, Softly: Task Force is a load of shit and the test-card girl scares the crap out of me."
Is it always like this these days? Do people always want to rewrite the rules before they’re even applied?
I mean, I described exactly what the job entails. I said what the money would be like. I said that they couldn’t be guaranteed work every day a) because the lavatories only need to be staffed at the weekend and b) the number of customers is heavily dependent on the weather, in a city that’s infamous for its annual rainfall. I can’t afford to pay somebody to watch over a lavatory that’s not being used because it’s the third day of five rainy days in a row.
(And “can’t afford” doesn’t mean “will only be pocketing 500 euros that day”; it means “will be losing 50-100 euros on top of what I’ll be losing anyway.”)
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