1 post tagged “paramount”

What was the worst job you ever had?
Submitted by salaryman.

I used to work at the Paramount Theatre in Kelowna.  I loved the job, but the pay was basically minimum wage.  The only time I got a raise was when the provincial NDP government gave me one.  Still the job was good, and I had fun for the most part.  For a month however I had the worst work experiance of my life.

The theatre and its sister theatre the Uptown were cleaned by an elderly Italian couple.  After the last show they would show up, generally around two in the morning, and work all night to have the theatre cleaned for the day.  Giovani and Lousia were their names and we rarely had any interaction with them but when we did it was generally accepted that Lousia was nice and Giovanni was not.  One year Lousia went on holidays to visit her relatives for a month and they needed to find someone to help Giovanni while she was gone.  I was asked, generally because I never said no to anything, and told that if I helped him out I'd make my minimum wage but it would be under the table so I'd save tax money.  It was the summer and I didn't have school so I agreed.

So I agreed and was told to arrive at the theatre at a one o'clock when we would begin.  Working late shifts your body adapts to the schedual and your day simply becomes the night.  The trouble was I was trying to keep the job from messing up my enjoyment of the summer holidays so I did not alter my schedual at all, except to sleep less.  So I would show up at work in the early hours and work until about noon, then I'd sleep maybe until five before getting up to go back to work.

The work too was unpleasent, not only because I just really did not like picking up after people and washing toliets but also because Giovanni would yell at me if he thought I wasn't going fast enough, or doing a good enough job.  Because of that I did not talk to him, he wasn't a talker anyway, and so for eight hours a day we'd work in silence. 

Halfway through my time I just gave up trying to have a social life, I was too tired all the time and so I would simply work and then go home and watch television and go to bed.  My whole life became cleaning the damn theatres, and eventually I started dreaming about it.  Now there was no escape, as even in my dreams the Italian janitor was shouting at me.