The Man in the Fedora Hat
Many years ago, I worked in a department store. We worked Thursday evenings, 5 to 9 with an hour break for dinner and money to buy it too. We also worked Saturdays- 8 to 5. The upside of these hours meant we never missed out on student parties. The only drawback of the job was working over the whole of the Christmas break whilst everyone else took a holiday. However, this job had one major upside, one I had no idea existed until quite some years after I had left the store.
I was just 17 when I started working at the store. My very first assignment was running the Christmas giftwrap table. The Christmas season was short- only 4 weeks but, Tony, the floor supervisor told me that if I worked hard, he would see if there was a role for me once I started at uni that February.
Giftwrap was by the escalators, surrounded by a constant shifting tide of people racing around to finish their Christmas shopping. At the other end of the floor, towards the rear exit was the luggage department, run by Michael, an architect student and longest serving casual. It was the quietest department so he was on his own and on Thursdays and could quietly study. I could see the gift department, silverware, fine china and behind the escalators was kitchenware.
