30 June, 2009 in Holidays, School by Aonghas

Blending in at Rutherford

Today I met up with my old school friends at Rutherford! I arrived at the school just after 11am and signed the visitors’ book at the office. It just so happened to be their mufti day as well, so I didn’t look too out of place as I walked through the school at interval. It was a little unnerving at first because I didn’t know if I would recognise anyone, but I made my way to the TDI form class and was welcomed with a big “AONNNGHHHASSS!” as I walked in the door. Most things in the form class looked similar to last year, and I noticed some photos of me still on the wall which was nice to see. A couple of interesting things caught my attention however. The first was a small whiteboard behind one of the laptops with David’s name on it and read “What to Wash”, followed by a list of body parts for each day of the week. When I asked David about it, he told me that he was in fact washing those body parts each day PLUS more. That was reassuring to know. The other slightly strange object in the room was a large cardboard box with eye holes cut out on the front and the words “T.D.I Guess Who?” I managed to get a photo of me with the Guess Who box on my head – can you even tell it’s me under there? Pretty hard, I know.

A whiteboard to keep David's hygiene in check

Who's the mysterious person under the box mask?

I spent most of the day in the form class talking to whoever had study periods. Mrs Russell was trying to send an email in Gmail with an attachment file, but she kept getting a pop-up proxy box before it would freeze on her. I then found out from Chelsea that sending emails home was now restricted and they aren’t allowed to send emails home with attachments anymore?! That’s just crazy. It made me remember how much I loathed the school network last year. Thank goodness the network at Auckland Uni is nothing like that!

Chelsea, me and Gannin

Gannin, me, Ari and Clinton

Before I left Rutherford, I sat in with TDI during their form period after lunch in Room 50. It brought back a lot of memories from last year just being there, and all the things that I miss started to come back to me. It was so good to see that the love and support for one another in TDI is still very much alive; everyone still keeping themselves busy. Thank you guys for making my day and reminding me of the good ol’ days! I hope you all enjoy your ball this Friday!

29 June, 2009 in Work by Aonghas

Working at Cotton On Kids

This morning I had a pretty late sleep in (oh the joys of the holidays!). When I woke up and reached for my phone, I saw that I had missed two phone calls. My manager at work tried calling and she also sent me a text asking if I could do a lunch cover at Cotton On Kids today. Since I didn’t really have anything else planned for the day I replied and said I could work. I started at 12pm and when I arrived at the Kids store I met Pauline for the first time. She took over as manager at Cotton On Kids after Denis left last month. She told me that there wasn’t a lot of stuff to do today; just a few boxes of stock. It was a pretty quiet day so there weren’t too many customers. But when Pauline went on her break, I was left to fend for myself in the store – not knowing ANYTHING about children’s clothing.

My first incident with a customer happened about 10 minutes after Pauline left. This lady was looking at these baby-looking one-piece thing with buttons at the top and she called me over. She asked me,

“Do you reckon I should get a size 0, because I think size 00 might be a bit too small?”

Size 0? Size 00?! I didn’t even know there was such thing as size 0! After a short pause of awkward confusion, I said “ummm… well how old is your baby?” That was a BIG mistake. Now she thought I actually knew what I was talking about so she started giving me a lengthy description about her baby and how she sometimes gets a certain size from Pumpkin Patch but it’s different at Cotton On… then when she finished talking, she expected me to give her my “professional opinion”. I felt like I was digging myself a bigger hole, so I just said “maybe you could go for the size 0, but if it’s too big you could always bring it back and exchange it”. Phew! Nice work, I thought.

After that little run-in I realised how little I knew about clothes for babies and even what was on sale and what wasn’t. I tried to generate a few generic answers I could give the customers just in case I didn’t know the answers to their questions. Over time I figured the response that worked the best was “oh um… sorry I don’t usually work here, I’m just filling in today for a lunch cover!” followed by a small chuckle. That usually stopped them from asking further questions.

My silliest incident happened just before Pauline got back from her break. This lady who was pretty pregnant was buying some clothes at the counter and we got talking about babies. I told her about my previous encounters with customers and how I didn’t know anything about baby clothes, while she just laughed and told me not to worry about it. Just as she was leaving, she saw some children’s headbands in a plastic box next to the counter. She picked one up and asked, “that would probably be a bit too big for a new-born don’t you think?” to which I replied,

“err… umm… I don’t know what a… baby looks like sorry!”

As soon as I said that, I realised how stupid it must have sounded. I tried to explain what I meant but before I could the lady said, “hahaha, oh don’t worry you’re doing well!” before walking out. I didn’t know what a baby looked like…?! Stupid Aonghas, stupid.

I was glad when Pauline came back from her break because at least she would know what she’s talking about. I thought my awkward/embarrassing episodes would be over – but just to top things off, I had one more awkward moment before I finished work. Pauline was talking to a lady with her young son about jeans or something, and they had gone to the back of the store to try them on. A short while later when Pauline was at the front of the store, I heard the lady call out from behind the curtain, “excuse me!” Seeing as I was closer, I walked up to the curtain and replied “yes?” She pulled back the curtain and the immediate look on her face was that of pure shock. She looked at me and said,

“Do you work here?!”

Something told me that she was expecting to see me. Well to be fair, I wasn’t expecting to see her half-dressed son standing there either.

Today wasn’t the first time I’ve worked at Cotton On Kids, but every other time I’ve worked there it’s always just been to cover for someone so that they could go to the toilet or take the banking. Working alone in a children’s clothes store for that long was definitely a new experience for me! I never knew children’s clothing could be so complicated to understand!

28 June, 2009 in Twitter by Aonghas

My Weekly Twitter Updates for 2009-06-28

• is concerned that he hasn't finished reading his textbook for his exam in less than 10 hours #
• Yay 2 exams down, I'm halfway there! #
• only has 1 exam left.. Freedom is near! #
• just got a vista sidebar gadget for twitter so now I can tweet all day long #
• jumped online to check what all the fuss was about. Nooo not MJ! #
• is freeeeeeeee! #