JOBS—working for The Man (not Steve, the noun).

Over the decades of being a writer, some years earning a living, some years not quite, I used to hire myself out for many different types of jobs, all temporary, to fill in the financial gaps between the feast and famine. Here are just a handful of my perhaps more amusing short-term jobs, not presented chronologically at all, covering 2-3 decades.

- I worked at the old Simpsons department store downtown Toronto a lifetime ago over Christmas one year in...wait for it...the perfume section. Back then you could get various high-end brands like Halston, Yves St. Laurent, Chloe and etc. at the same counter. This is me, who is allergic to many scents! And, at that time, ignorant of perfumes in general. Yes, I had some 'training', mainly the women I worked with who were full-time employees who told me this and that, including, as I recall, one informing me which smelled closest to 'rotting cabbage'. And, of course, I listened to their sales spiels, which I emulated. They obviously liked me because I left with gifts, a tiny Halston kidney-shaped perfume bottle, and a small St. Laurent 'Opium' in spray form. I still have the Halston which is probably rancid by now. I can't say it was my worst job when I actually had to take 'jobs'. But still today I want to clobber any woman who douses herself with scent and sits near me at a theater or on a plane, ditto a man who overdoes the aftershave.

- Speaking of Simpsons, I worked as a freelance ad copywriter for them at another juncture in my checkered temp-work history. My friend-with-benefits at that time who had worked for the company for a decade assured me that me, being a writer, it would be easy and lucrative employment. The money was great. But honestly, even though I'm a creative type, I found it VERY difficult from ad-flyer to ad-flyer to describe in a new, exciting yet conservative manner pinwheel crystal. A few short months and that job was history.

- And delving into theoretically 'artistic' work, there was the 5-month June to October stint at the Royal Ontario Museum for a special exhibit: Georgian Canada. A new head of security, for the first time, apparently, a woman, had been hired and came up with the idea that she should bring in a crew to guard that temporary exhibit composed of creative young people who might actually be able to converse with visitors in an intelligent way and impart some info on the exhibit and its items. I, the token fiction writer, was hired, along with a token poet, musician, painter, budding filmmaker and a bunch of others. Oh, and one sports guy who was, apparently, an attractive accidental hire. As I recall, the exhibit was composed of 8 or 10 rooms with one guard per room. Once in a while, a member of the public would ask me a question about the paintings, furniture, silver this or that on display, something beyond the usual queries: "Where is the washroom?", "Is there a cafeteria?", "Where's this from?" Fortunately, my eyesight was pretty sharp back then and I, too, could read the description in at least one of the two official languages on the wall beside the gilded pine lion with one paw possessively resting on a ball and declare with some authority: "It's from the Upper Canada Legislature". My main communication, though, was "Please don't touch that!", parroting the signs everywhere. One day, Brian Mulroney came in. He had either just become or would by September be Prime Minister of Canada for a few years (the time frame of his visit is a bit sketchy in my memory.) We were warned that someone special would be coming through and the exhibit was cleared out of the hoi polloi. Bodyguards and others were stationed at the entrances and exits of all the interconnected rooms. I was specifically positioned in one of the larger rooms, which housed most of the enormous paintings. Suddenly, a surprisingly-short man strode into the room at a brisk pace. He said 'Hello" in my general direction, but didn't wait for a response, didn't look around the room but headed right to the giant painting of Wolfe (British) and Montcalm (French), The Death of General Wolfe (1770), depicting a death scene when the two countries battled for what was becoming Canada. In reality, both Generals ending up dying of wounds from that battle. Mr. Mulroney, fists on hips, looked up, scanned for several seconds the enormous painting that took up most of the wall, and then said to no one in particular: "Don't let Mila (his wife) see this, she'd want it for the living room!" And then he was gone. To be followed sometime later in the year by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip on an unscheduled visit to the ROM. Once the exhibit was over, all of us guards were offered permanent, part-time positions. I took that job (as did a few others) and lasted less than 2 more months before I verged on losing my mind completely and quit. You'd think working in a museum would be great, but it wasn't. I thought it would be more interesting than being stuck in one temporary exhibit, rotating between the few rooms, looking at the same things for hours every day, five days a week. With the whole museum, I'd get to be with the dinosaur bones and suits of armor and the gallery that had live creatures like giant Madagascar beetles (aka roaches), and scorpions. But sadly, most of my work time was spent after the Georgian exhibit in the Alfred Wirth gallery, at that time a small room, dimly-lit to evoke mystery and exotica, into which few people ventured. Soon, my brain headed towards meltdown. I can honestly say that I and every single one of the creative types hired for the special exhibit and/or after the exhibit were not able to create anything during our time at the museum. We talked about that constantly on breaks, wondering if the museum's air or the water fountain's water induced a coma-like state, or if creative stagnation was the result of deadly routine. Besides money to buck up the finances during that period, one thing that did, ultimately, work well for me was my mystery story "Mantrap", set in the ROM, based on their (former) security system, which won the Arthur Ellis Award for the best short story of the year (which, btw, I wrote after my employment at the museum ended, and published 7 or 8 years later.) I also did an interview with the woman who was head of security for Toronto Life Magazine. See! Good things come from dull experiences.

- One lesser job was at the post office over Christmas, where my ex-husband and I both had secured employment as 'sorters'. Back then, sorting was manual, and Canada was not far into the new postal code system. I'm the type who likes to complete jobs and perpetual work drives me insane. The job consisted of hundreds of letters dumped into the bin in front of me and me sorting them by the start of street names into rows of slots, specifically the slots that went from Ha, He, Hi, Ho, Hu to Hy. My letters were supposed to be the streets beginning with Ha and He, although if I came across other vowels, others were commissioned to do the Hi, Ho, Hu, Hy's. This was, of course, a tiny section of streets in the city of Toronto. I quickly discovered that when I'd just about made a dent in the mound, someone would come along and dump more envelopes into my bin. Far from catching up, the pile became huge to overflowing. By the end of the day, I was a basket case, and that night had a nightmare about an endless stream of letters flying past my eyes that just would not stop. The next day I quit.

- One particularly odious job was working at a small, one-off video store for a couple of weeks. This was pre-DVD/Blu Ray but in the midst of VHS tapes and the getting popular though eventually doomed LP-sized LaserDiscs. I don't know why I was hired since everyone who worked there was a teenager, but maybe the woman who owned the store thought I'd bring some sense of decorum and maturity to the place. I knew computers so had no trouble inputting rentals and sales on the rudimentary machines. Recommendations were something else. I've never been particularly aligned with most modern movies—then, or now. Hollywood movies are pretty much so-so in my opinion, kind of visual/audial pap, not wonderful for the most part but hopefully not deadly terrible either, just very middle-of-the-road with some standouts, but I've been a rebel and a snob most of my life in terms of the arts. Fortunately, almost all of the video-store customers knew what they wanted and hauled empty boxes up to the desk where I would slide in the VHS tape and then do the rental or in some cases find the unopened box for a sale. But one time a woman came in hoping to find an old movie from the '30s or '40s she hadn't seen, a b&w film a la Casablanca, African Queen, The Philadelphia Story. She loved the era and wondered if I knew anything about it. I did, and recommended the 1939 movie The Women (Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell et al) to this obviously worldly woman who looked rather artistic to my eye. I raved about the movie and gave her a brief verbal synopsis. She rented it and brought it back the next day telling me how much she loathed the film. That was my last recommendation, but not why I quit. The 'manager' was 17 years old, rather nerdy, and with his new-found power-position liked to gruffly order the other employees around. No style, no finesse, no respect, no etiquette on the go. One Hitler-like order too many and I was out of there.

By now you probably realize how ridiculous my life has been and this is just a handful of Joe-jobs. I did actually have some real jobs now and again that I held for a decent time, some big-paying and high-status, but that's an entirely different world, and not what this is about. This blog is about woeful, usually low-paying, time-consuming, brain-deadening work, and if you are or were forced to work at any job like any of these, you have my sympathies. So I'll close with just one more of the jobs that involved money coming my way in exchange for a schedule and/or routine or something else which, other than the salary, did not work for me.

- I've always hesitated to mention this one, not because I'm embarrassed, but because Poppy Z. Brite back in the day did similar work and scooped the shock value and I've never relished being seen as an imitator, although lots of young women did such work back then. In my case, it was very short-lived.

This happened back in the hippy days, which dates me, but not for nothing have I been deemed a 'living legend!' I was complaining about money, although in the olden days one did not need as much as is required today to survive, although some money was (and is) crucial to continue the creative life, not to mention life in general. A friendly neighbor who lived in my building worked as an exotic dancer and somewhat of a 'prostitute'—Her clientele consisted entirely of senior citizens, older, lonely men who preferred talking to her about their lives rather than engaging in physical intimacy. Her other gig, as a dancer, is where she suggested I should 'audition' at Zanzibar, which was (and maybe still is) a bar on Yonge Street located in what then was a wild, somewhat seedy part of the so-called 'mean streets' of Toronto. Zanzibar specialized in exotic dancers--meaning topless as in bare from the waist up, not a person missing half her body, although maybe that is a metaphor. Topless but for pasties (cups temporarily glued over the nipple area required by law, so you can imagine this was ancient history!) I was very young, new to Canada, new to Toronto, up for pretty much anything legal, which kind of goes with being young. I've never been particularly inhibited about physicality. And I'd been told often enough that I was 'cute' and kind of believed it on a good day. So off we trotted to the Zanzibar. It was daytime, the interior dark and reeking of stale beer and cigarette smoke permanently clinging to the air. My friend had set up an 'appointment' and the place was empty but for 2 men bearing an aura of serious-business. One of them directed me to get up onto one of the four foot high barrels placed strategically around the room as 'decor' or 'dance floor', whichever. Anyone who knows me well knows I'm not the most graceful creature, although my first name means grace, but so much for misnomers. Trust me, I was not graceful in the slightest as I visually searched for a way to get onto a high barrel. Finally, awkwardly, I climbed onto a bar stool, stepped onto the bar, walked a few paces across the bar to the corner and made it atop a nearby barrel without injury. Then the music played and I did, like Sandy Dennis in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, my 'interpretive' dance. Let's just say I was not hired. My neighbor, always an optimist, said, "Never mind those f@#$ers!" She had a gig dancing in Brampton, which is just outside Toronto, and dragged me with her the next Friday night. "All you have to do," she said, "is take off your street clothes, step onto a chair, then onto the table and dance the three songs, then come down, grab your clothes and shoes and follow me out." It sounded simple, the pay would cover two month's rent, and I thought, Okay, I'll try it. We caught a ride to Brampton from one of the band guys (the bar had a live band on weekends but we danced to taped music). The place was packed. My friend went to the stage and pointed me towards a big, round table with an empty chair situated in the center of the room, around which sat 7 men in this 'men's room' part of the bar which used to be common. Naturally, I was kind of nervous but thought: How bad can it be? 3 songs. I can do this! I slipped out of my shoes, then my skirt and blouse, folded the clothing neatly and placed them on the empty chair, then stepped onto the free part of the chair holding onto the chair back—since I was and still am such a klutz—and much more gracefully than I had managed at Zanzibar, hoisted myself onto the table crowded with jugs of beer—empty, half-empty, full—, beer spills, beer glasses with or without beer in them, beer bottles for those so inclined, plus ashtrays since this was still an era of smoking. I danced, glancing occasionally but rarely at eyes watching me at this table and those nearby tables. Time moved quickly, it was over, I stepped down onto the chair and then the floor and...my clothes and shoes were missing! My neighbor was waiting for me at the exit to the 'dressing rooms' while I frantically looked under the table, all around, and couldn't find my things, surrounded by a room of strangely-silent males. I felt panicked, near tears, envisioning having to spend hours in the Autumn air almost naked before I could get back to my apartment in Toronto. Finally, my friend, hardened to this job, realized what had happened, stormed over and blasted the guys at the table who were, by now, laughing at their joke. They handed over my things and we departed, but I was rattled. There were two more sets where my neighbor danced alone while I sat in the backroom thinking about my life and deciding whether or not I should go back to selling Harbinger, Toronto's underground newspaper. Or perhaps take a stab at selling roses on the street—a common job of the day—bought for 50 cents, sold for $1. Not as lucrative but definitely more doable.

And despite everything, all of those jobs taught me something. Mainly, that life looks strange seen up close but rather hilarious viewed from a distance.

Those particular types of jobs came to an end, none ever to be repeated, in, as Lady Bracknell of The Importance of Being Earnest put it, "A life filled with incident."

Paying bills, necessary.

Short-term paying jobs to sustain a career in the arts, necessary but feh!

Sense and sensibility and nonsense!