Slow down, you're moving too fast!!

Now it has to be said that for an actor, I have a pretty extensive resume. Unfortunately I can't yet brag about the length of my actor's resume, but my 'real world' resume is long. Stocked full of jobs that, for the most part, were a complete waste of my time and energy. There were the McDonald's days, which first triggered my love and passion of customer service (and dripping sarcasm). In fact, closer to the truth, it should be said that in my ten months as an employee of the McDonald's corporation, I established that they take so much shit that it should be the highest paid job on earth. Doctors may go to school for ten years to get where they are, but let's face it- people are a lot more likely to take out their aggresions on the starving students serving up Big Macs. McDonald's employees are in fact the psychologists of the poor. Need some stress relief? Feeling insecure? You can always head down to McDonald's to feel better about yourself. Not only did the company carefully manipulate our childhood memories to insure that nostalgia brings us back for a crappy cheeseburger when we're craving youth, but we as adults, can also appreciate taking out our anger on the young employee who replaced us when we moved on to bigger and better things. The McDonald's days weren't all bad. I have to say I still have pleasant memories of throwing toys out the drive-thru window to the drunk cowboys at the bar next door. Pickling people's cars from the drive-thru window. Water fights in the kitchen. Watching Andrew ice the drive thru so cars kept sliding past the window. But all good things must come to an end and I finally lost my patience with this evil, faceless organization. Ronald McDonald is the only face I have at which to direct my bitterness, so I try to avoid clowns for fear my emotions will overtake logic and I'll attack. I soon found myself at Red Lobster. The job paid a little better and was slightly less faceless on the surface, although Larry Lobster and I never resolved our differences. I just couldn't get that excited about seafood, and I'm not afraid to admit it. There are moments where I crave those Red Lobster fat-buns, but COME ON!! What kind of seafood restaurant gets its clam chowder from a can? Alas, I got sick of leaving work smelling of fish and I refused to witness anymore 'All you can eat crab' nights. I had walked in on one too many people puking in the bathroom. So Larry and I parted ways, and I started at the IMAX. What can I say? The pay sucked, but I stayed for three years. Moved to Montreal, but came back to IMAX on Christmas break. Quit. Came back on my summer break. Then it closed altogether. IMAX was a weird minimum wage experience. It was a place where we were paid badly, but treated well. There was no end to on-shift stupidities- which ironically, we were paid for. We'd work our shifts and without fail, every Friday and Saturday, be out drinking together. Four of my... hmmm... twenty something roomates were from IMAX... and a couple boyfriends. A couple of my roomates were there so much they became honourary employees. But most importantly, IMAX is where I developed a legitimate contempt for customers. Our stupid questions board in the box office, displayed non-sensical questions, such as;

• "What time does the 6 o'clock show start?"

• "The sign says sold-out, does that mean there aren't any seats left?"

• "Can you direct me to the IMAX?... No, this isn't the IMAX- the IMAX has a giftshop... Well clearly you don't know where you work!"

• "Is Everest the one about the Dinosaurs?"

• "Excuse me, do you have a hole-punch for my belt?"

• "Excuse me, can I have crazy fruit sex in your bathroom?" (okay, you got me- they didn't ask, they just did...)

It was at IMAX that I learned the skill of laughing in the face of a customer. Unfortunately, it seems that I had little control over this skill and it would just happen, without warning. It was at IMAX that I learned not to take crappy jobs seriously, and unfortunately I think it has spoiled my opportunities to be happy in any other work environment. I worked at the IMAX for three years. It has been five years since I left that job, but I came out of the IMAX with more friends and more stories than any other three year period of my life. I miss walking into the lobby and seeing Andrew 'stripping' on the staircase- confused customers looking on, asking to speak to the manager... and confused staff unsure as to how to say that the man stripping is the manager. I miss trying to mess Brett up on speeches by grabbing his ankles from the pit behind him, and drenching Nathan in vinegar from the doorway as he struggled to finish his mind-numbing 'in case of emergency speech'. And reading Laura's countless "When I am Prime Minister" rants on the computer. In any case, I quit this job where the 'clock yourself out' system ensured that I was always paid for rollerblading home, and the plethora of nearby pubs allowed us to go for beers on our long, long breaks. And so I moved to Montreal.

Montreal and I had a very rocky start. I loved Montreal, and Montreal hated me. I quit my first job at La Vie En Rose after witnessing my boss yelling at a deaf employee for something she had not done, but was unable to defend herself. I quit my second job at the infamously slutty Sir Winston's on the infamously slutty Crescent Street, after the Greek owners kept passing me up for serving positions because I refused to comply to their 'shorter skirt, higher heels, no hemp necklace' rules. My telemarketing experience with Geordie theatre ended poorly, as I simply couldn't beg people for money, even when it did happen to be for a cause that I felt strongly about. My mother set me up with a nice Mafia boy, who assured me he could get me a job at the luxurious Hotel Vaudreuil, and invited me to his family's box for the U2 concert so he could introduce me to his godfather. I never called him back. I quit Eastside Mario's after being throughly embarrassed by my behavior at a drunken staff party. Well, not really- but that's just how it worked out. I quit to escape back to the safety of Calgary, and the IMAX for a month. Upon returning to Montreal, I discovered that Montreal has the most ridiculous restaurant industry in Canada. The lies on my resume bought me a job serving at Westmount's ritsy Mess Hall. I lasted two weeks before my employer discovered that by 'basic knowledge of wines', I meant I could tell red from white. This became the first and only job (so far) that I was fired from. I worked a day at Mike's restaurant on St Catherine and Crescent, where it was established that I was the only one who spoke enough English to work anywhere west of St Laurent, but the Quebecois owner didn't see things this way, even as I took over tables in other sections because the servers couldn't make sense of 'salad' in English. But I proved too Anglophone for Mike's, and they never called me after that shift. A series of other restaurant jobs followed that summer, and fell apart due to my own naivete. I quickly learned, if they ask- you are Montrealais. Calgary? Never heard of it! It had happened too many times that I was escorted to the door, my boss claiming that coming from Calgary, my French was surely too poor to work there. I learned to answer yes to every question that began with "Have you ever...?" Because it had happened one too many times that I had made the mistake of honestly saying, "No, in fact I never have worked a breakfast shift," and the job was lost. I toiled once again in retail, and found I just wasn't built for it. My boss, who had shown up to work in mid-July in an orange and brown outfit (colors that to me, scream fall), sent me home for wearing a pale shade of blue that she deemed 'out of season'. And I never went back. I received a letter in the mail some six months later informing me that my discount priveledges were being cut-off. I was finally hired at Restaurant du Vieux Port in old Montreal. To this day, I'm not sure if I liked the job, or just declared it the lesser of the evils, based on what I'd witnessed in the restaurant industry. But I stayed a year and a half, and I learned not to take shit. I learned to put my foot down, which proved to be a skill that would be necessary to my sanity when I moved onto the crappy call center job. And I pulled on some other techniques I'd acquired over the years. I made a resolution this year to give myself credit where it is due, and so I admit that provocation is a special skill of mine. I know how to make people mad, in part, because I'm usually a couple steps ahead of my boss. Spitefully, I would milk my calls so they were as long as possible, then smile sweetly and keep them under the required time when they sat me down with a supervisor to help me out. And then continue to milk them after he left. If it looked as though I may be on time one day, I'd be sure to stop and buy breakfast somewhere. The job was short lived, and I found myself a crappy unionized hotel job. And I'm glad I did. Though it was mind numbingly boring, a chauvanistic environment where I had to contend with an obnoxious, pretentious Parisian man maskarading as my boss, I got to witness first hand union politics at its best. Unbelievable. As someone who relishes provocation, I loved watching my boss running around like a mad man because the union had ordered a work stopage. I loved smiling at him and saying "Eh, Nicholas- moyens de pressions!"

And then I landed in Korea. My rent is paid and the color of my hair and eyes guarantees me twice as much money as a Korean doing the same job. I may not agree, but I've learned that Koreans won't put up a fight about it, so why should I? Truth be told, I am here less to teach and more because of the color of my hair and eyes. Korea is all about image. It is fashionable to have your children in English school, and it is presently fashionable for English schools to have pretty, white Canadians maskarading as teachers. I spend my days being stupid, and getting paid for it. The job does not require too much energy, I leave and think little about it. The job may not be ideal for me- it can be boring, tedious and frustrating. But most days the extent of my job is to laugh with the kids and spend ten minutes reading a poorly written book. As I think about the inevitable end of my year-long contract, part of me dreads October. What awaits me in Canada? Another waitressing job where I fight not to have my ass grabbed by co-workers? (Interesting side note: A poll recently conducted revealed that 60% of Canadian women have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. As I read the article, I thought- hmmm... only 60%? That seems low to me- sure enough a footnote to the article revealed that restaurant and bar workers were excluded from the poll, as the results were skewed by the industry) Another mind-numbing call center job, that struggles to force an adherence to their by-the-minute calculations of efficiency? When I left the Hyatt, I left customer service for good. Or so I told myself. But what else do you do, when you don't know what to do? As I emerge 14 000$ in debt from my Bachelor degree- not bad in comparison of those around me, but I wonder if I have it in me to do it again. Am I up for the student lifestyle? I don't know. What good is degree really, if the one I have can do no more than find me a job teaching English in Korea? How can I go back to a country where everyone seems to have a degree, but only those overseas are using it? I recently met a man who works for the Korean immigration office, who told me that there are more Canadians in Korea than any other nationality. Is that not indicative of a problem? This does nothing more for me than make my quarter-life crises that much more mind-boggling, more difficult. I came to Korea to clear my head, and instead more questions emerged. Some things I've set straight, but for every question I've resolved, five more have appeared. If money were to fall from the sky, there is no question that I would head back to school and throw myself into an acting conservatory. I would love the rigorous demands of an intense program, which is what I had thought (and hoped) that I had found at Concordia. Part of me knows that I'm smart and love to learn and could throw myself into nearly any program and love it. And part of me thinks, but for what? I know I've chosen the right direction with theatre- I just need to figure out how it'll work... how it'll all come together. And how to do it without moving to Toronto (or as we call it, the graveyard with lights)? How do you look forward to coming home, when home means minimum wage, taxes, and expenses ten times higher than what they are here? And so, to help me out with some of these big decisions, I am currently accepting applications for the position of Personal Decision Maker. Please let me know if you are interested in the position, it will entail such responsibilities as decisions regarding my schooling, employment, and acceptance or refusal of any parts offered. It will also entail responsibility for all shopping that must be done on my part. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to speaking with all of the applicants regarding their visions for my life. Only serious applicants need apply.