As I sat at my table in the Primark induction room, reading my 'name badge care - do's and don't's' sheet, I began to wonder what exactly I had let myself in for. 'Do not keep badge in pocket to avoid coins scratching the surface of your badge' was just one word to the wise, or alternatively 'do not clean badge with alcohol'. I began to wonder how many name badges had been needlessly destroyed through poor badge care, before somone eventually put their hand in the air and resolutely declared 'enough is enough! Something must be done! I dream of a land where badges are clean, bright and well maintained! I shall compile a list, a constitution of good badge care!' The first thing I noticed was that the whole place was run by children, it was almost like being the only adult in Bugsy Malone. My supervisor was 16. He had one of those 70's haircuts that his mum had tried to do herself with a pair of scissors in one hand a picture of the Bay City Rollers in the other. I'm not exactly sure how cool the Bay City Rollers were at their peak, my guess is not very, and certainly not enough to warrant the nostalgic reincarnation I saw before me. Is it unfair to judge someone solely on the stupidity of their haircut? Well, perhaps, but even Pat Sharpe learnt eventually, that life is hard.
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The pride and joy of the whole store is the clocking in machine. It inexplicably had a hand recognition device for clocking in, and measured your hand to make sure it was in fact you that was doing the clocking. It seemed like the biggest waste of money I'd ever seen, why not just have a pad and some fucking pens? Someone had obviously been drunk with QVC on again, and we've all been there, the bread making machine in my kitchen is testament to that. It also all seemed to be a discriminatory. What about the disabled? Or pirates? It didn't look very hook friendly to me, and when you live and employ people in Norwich, these sort of eventualities need to be given the appropriate consideration. Other highlights of the tour were a dark, locked room with the words 'void, no entry'. We were told this room 'didn't go anywhere'. Was this some kind of punishment room? Was this the way to Narnia? Before I'm fired for buzz cutting Bay City Roller Jr I must see the contents of that room. It's mandatory, I freely admit it, I'm immature. The words 'no entry' will forever be a challenge to me. I was Charlie, and this was my Chocolate Factory. The checkouts themselves looked like World War II nostalgia pieces. Inexplicably to 'sign on' to these, you simply had to write your name on the receipt. Theft from them appeared to be almost encouraged. I was told that there were 'hand writing experts' who would study the receipts to see who had clocked on to which till. This had to be a fucking joke. Even Bay City Roller Jr couldn't have gone for that.
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After pondering dotting with my i's with stars rather than dots to deceive the experts and make my fortune, I went to lunch. And by lunch, what I obviously mean to say, is pub. I spent the following four hours serving some of Norwich's most horrendously unattractive inhabitants. Breaking news, all the rumours about Norfolk are true. Around 30% couldn't form a coherent sentence, a futher 25% responded to the question 'would you like to keep your hanger?' With a look of confusion and disconcertion resembling that of a man choosing whether or not to take a loved one off life support. If Primark chose to release a line of clothing for the horrifically disfigured it would sell well. Very well. The Police don't need to tag prisoners who have been let out early, it's a waste of plastic, they're all here. The day ended with 'recovery', which basically involved picking all the clothes off the floor, and putting them back on the shelves. To be honest, there's really only so far something can go and still be recovered. This was a job that you might compare to trying to get all the water that had submerged the Titanic off using kitchen roll. With this is mind I steathily crept away to play around with the hand measuring machine.
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