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james t kirk · 12-20-2009, 07:53 PM

Well, it was an ok place to work for sure, but it had its moments.....

When I was in High School I worked after school and weekends at Woolco. Woolco was like a Canadian K mart I guess. (It got bought out by Walmart in the early 90's.) Anyway, there was a Woolco that was close to my parent's house and I applied for a job when I was 15 I think. I got hired as "Christmas Help" which basically meant that you stood behind a cashier for 4 hours at a time shoving stuff in bags as fast as she could key the prices in. Back then, the cash registers were very primative. There were no bar codes, there were price stickers on everything. You had to key in the department number, then the price. She would key it in, and I would shove it in a bag. You never stopped for the whole 4 hours.

Once Christmas was over, you got laid off because business tanked. If you were lucky, you got calle back for the Easter rush (which I did.)

The next Xmas, they called me back (keeping in mind that the Xmas rush back then was Novemberish into December). When Xmas was over, they asked me if I wanted a job as casual help on Thursday, Friday evenings and Saturday. Sure.

I think minimum student wage back then was $2.45 an hour and I remember making $3.50 an hour so I felt like King Shit.

The PROBLEM with the job was that I had to do the shitty jobs. If someone puked in the Red Grille (the restaurant) they called me. (There was actually 2 or 3 of us High school guys working there - so we took turns cleaning up the puke.) People would puke at least once a day in the restaurant, or so it seemed. That was harsh when you were 16.

Another part of my chores involved cleaning the washrooms at nights. I had to go in, clean the sinks, clean the toilets and clean up.

It was usually a bad scene.

Especially the women's washrooms. Women are pigs compared to men. (I've cleaned public washrooms more times than I want to remember.) The mens, at most you'd have some piss on the floor or pubes in the urinal.

The women's - holy fuck it was a snake pit. Tampons on the floor. Piss everywhere, Shit all over the place. I had this old shopping buggy that was filled with the tools of the trade to clean a washroom - brushes, soap, toilet paper,.......and a shovel. Yep, a flat ended shovel for scooping up the human turds on the floor in the women's washroom. Plop it in the can and flush it like the stupid bitch that left it there didn't do. The worst would be when someone took a HUGE shit in the toilet, then plugged it up for one reason or another and flushed it. You can imagine the scene there.

Those images are burned in my mind almost 30 years later. (I was all of 16 at the time.)

Shudder.

Anyway, we had a great staff at Woolco, and you did feel like you were part of this extended family of sorts. All the ladies who worked there were old girls who were older than my mom, but they treated you like you were their son. The bosses were all pretty good for the most part.

The problem wasn't the place, or the boss, or the money persay, it was the human beings who frequented the store. Puke, shit, piss, tampons. I've had to deal with it all in my past.

12-20-2009, 07:53 PM	#21 (permalink)
james t kirk Junkie Location: Toronto	Well, it was an ok place to work for sure, but it had its moments..... When I was in High School I worked after school and weekends at Woolco. Woolco was like a Canadian K mart I guess. (It got bought out by Walmart in the early 90's.) Anyway, there was a Woolco that was close to my parent's house and I applied for a job when I was 15 I think. I got hired as "Christmas Help" which basically meant that you stood behind a cashier for 4 hours at a time shoving stuff in bags as fast as she could key the prices in. Back then, the cash registers were very primative. There were no bar codes, there were price stickers on everything. You had to key in the department number, then the price. She would key it in, and I would shove it in a bag. You never stopped for the whole 4 hours. Once Christmas was over, you got laid off because business tanked. If you were lucky, you got calle back for the Easter rush (which I did.) The next Xmas, they called me back (keeping in mind that the Xmas rush back then was Novemberish into December). When Xmas was over, they asked me if I wanted a job as casual help on Thursday, Friday evenings and Saturday. Sure. I think minimum student wage back then was $2.45 an hour and I remember making $3.50 an hour so I felt like King Shit. The PROBLEM with the job was that I had to do the shitty jobs. If someone puked in the Red Grille (the restaurant) they called me. (There was actually 2 or 3 of us High school guys working there - so we took turns cleaning up the puke.) People would puke at least once a day in the restaurant, or so it seemed. That was harsh when you were 16. Another part of my chores involved cleaning the washrooms at nights. I had to go in, clean the sinks, clean the toilets and clean up. It was usually a bad scene. Especially the women's washrooms. Women are pigs compared to men. (I've cleaned public washrooms more times than I want to remember.) The mens, at most you'd have some piss on the floor or pubes in the urinal. The women's - holy fuck it was a snake pit. Tampons on the floor. Piss everywhere, Shit all over the place. I had this old shopping buggy that was filled with the tools of the trade to clean a washroom - brushes, soap, toilet paper,.......and a shovel. Yep, a flat ended shovel for scooping up the human turds on the floor in the women's washroom. Plop it in the can and flush it like the stupid bitch that left it there didn't do. The worst would be when someone took a HUGE shit in the toilet, then plugged it up for one reason or another and flushed it. You can imagine the scene there. Those images are burned in my mind almost 30 years later. (I was all of 16 at the time.) Shudder. Anyway, we had a great staff at Woolco, and you did feel like you were part of this extended family of sorts. All the ladies who worked there were old girls who were older than my mom, but they treated you like you were their son. The bosses were all pretty good for the most part. The problem wasn't the place, or the boss, or the money persay, it was the human beings who frequented the store. Puke, shit, piss, tampons. I've had to deal with it all in my past. Last edited by james t kirk; 12-20-2009 at 07:56 PM..