I didn’t mind working at Woolies as a checkout chick but I sure as shit didn’t take it seriously. Which, suffice to say, the store managers didn’t take too kindly.
With my rugged good looks and boyish charm, I could generally get by with a smile and was on good terms with the hierarchy. Until one day when it all came crashing down.
It was Christmas time and my supervisor, who at this stage I was on good terms with, approached with reindeer antlers for me to wear on my head. I wasn’t having any of it, so after barely a glance I quickly turned away to serve a customer. ‘Nick! You have to wear it. It’s company policy and part of the uniform,’ she says.
Never one to get into a barney, I say ‘righto’ and keep going about my business – working sans the reindeer antlers. You think that was the end of it?
‘You had better have this on by the time I finish handing these out,’ she says. And when she returns a few minutes later to see the antlers haven’t moved, she just stares at me as I shrug my shoulders and say ‘Can’t do it’. I’ve since learned that women don’t take kindly to that response. Nor bosses. Nor people in general, in fact. ‘If I decide to go to head office you could be fired,’ she continues. To which I reply: ‘Do what ya gotta do, babe. I can’t bring myself to do it.’
I’VE SINCE LEARNED THAT WOMEN DON’T TAKE KINDLY TO THAT RESPONSE.
Thinking that was the end of it, I went about my day triumphantly as all the other poor bastards were forced to stand eight hours straight wearing fake antlers. I mean, as if working the registers wasn’t bad enough?
But as I successfully finished my shift without the assistance of the precious antlers, the manager approached angrily: ‘Nick, why wouldn’t you do it?’ To which I replied: ‘There comes a time in a man’s life when he has to make a stand for what he believes in. And for me, this is that time.’
I was yet to celebrate my 16th birthday.