Junior

We have a new junior salesman that started work with us a week or two ago.
When I say Junior, I mean junior. He’s 19 years old, although to be fair he looks a bit older than that. He could pass for 23 – if only he didn’t open his mouth and speak.

When he speaks, it’s like he’s spewing youthful ignorance out into the world. I’m sure that at 19 I wasn’t like this. I mean, we all come off sounding younger than we realise, but he sounds so young. And the thing is, he talks ALL THE TIME. Non-stop. He is so chatty that it makes me want to tear my ears off just to get some peace and quiet.
I don’t talk much at work. In fact, the less talking I can do, the better as far as I’m concerned. But here I find myself with a junior employee who is constantly asking questions, or giving me a running commentary on what he’s doing.


For the past few days he’s been sharing my office while I teach him how we do the design work here. I often listen to music while I work, and so we got onto the topic of music and bands.

I was feeling a bit sleepy, so I put on The Beatles ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. Listening to The Beatles always perks me up. ‘The Fool on the Hill’ started playing. Then, as expected, Junior Salesman started talking:

Him: Is this ABBA?
Me: (jaw drops onto the floor) You’re kidding right?
Him: Nah, it’s ABBA, right?
Me: Ok, I’m going to pretend you’re kidding.
Him: So what kind of music do you listen to? Hey do you like that song by Rihanna? You know, the one with Eminem?
Me: Never heard it.
Him: It’s on the radio all the time.
Me: Yeah, never heard it sorry. Not really my thing
Him: So what music do you like?
Me: Well, my favourite band is probably CAKE…
Him: Who?
Me: CAKE
Him: I don’t know them.
Me: Stop talking please.

I suddenly feel very, very old. I know it’s rare to find someone who likes all the same music as you. KJ and I don’t even really like the same music. But at least KJ has heard of the bands that I like listening to – at least the ones who have been around forever, like The Beatles and like CAKE. So it’s begun. I relate better to old people than young people. This must be what it feels like to start getting old. How appropriate that it should happen just days before I celebrate my final birthday in my 20's.

Advice for Salesmen

Here’s some general advice that I’d just like to put out there in the vastness of the world wide web. It’s specifically targeted towards carpet salesmen, but feel free to substitute ‘carpet’ for any other product.

If you’re a big, fat, bald, sweaty man who shows up in shorts, a basketball singlet and thongs, then I’m probably gonna get the feeling that you’re not all that professional. Try investing in a shirt and pants, some shoes, a stick of deodorant and a handkerchief for that big shiny head. THEN I might consider purchasing something from you.

Reality Soapie

Today I had the strangest conversation with my boss. She called me into her office to tell me about some things that were going on in her personal life, because they had crossed over into her work life. She wanted to tell me about it before I heard about it as office gossip, because we’ve known each other a long time and she wanted me to know the truth about it all.

As she was telling me about what was going on, I got a little confused and thought maybe she was reading me the TV guide instead of telling me about her life, but no – she was definitely talking about herself. I felt like she was reading me a blurb about a TV soap opera.

I’m going to tell this story so that you can tell me if you think it sounds like real life or like a dodgy drama series.

Obviously I can’t use their real names, so instead I’ve named them all after characters from ‘The Young and the Restless’, ‘Days of our Lives’, and that great Australian soapie – ‘Neighbours’.

CAST

Female Boss – Charlene

Male Boss – Victor

Suave Salesman – Bo

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives….

Charlene has been very happily married for 6 years when she unexpectedly has an affair with the suave salesman, Bo. They are careless in covering it up, and are caught out. She splits with her husband.

Charlene’s husband works up a jealous rage and threatens to beat Bo to a pulp and dump him in the bottom of the bay, but ultimately ends up drinking himself almost comatose.

She is going to tell Victor that she is leaving her husband and that Bo is leaving his wife (who is 8 months pregnant) so that they can be together, but before she can, Victor receives an anonymous phone call outing their affair.

The anonymous phone call turns out to be from Charlene’s evil stepfather, Stefano, who somehow has a personal stake in the break up of Charlene’s marriage and has tracked down and called Victor without Charlene or Charlene’s mother knowing about it.

To be continued….

Is that day-time TV material or what? And I’m not making any of this up – this is the kind of melodrama that is happening while I’m off drawing playgrounds. All it needs is a nice rounded ending with someone in a coma and an evil plot by someone’s jealous wife. I think that Victor’s wife would be good at the jealous wife part, but I’m not too sure about the coma and the evil plot. Still, my boss told me all of this today and it’s only been two months since she split with her husband, so I guess there’s still plenty more time for B-grade drama to unfold.