Advertising and multiprofile jobs

Great news, everyone! It appears that exactly one week after it was started, Bioramblings got its first spam. There was a comment to my last post that clearly had nothing to do with anything I had written. Instead it stated content dissatisfaction and suggested that I should start advertising on my blog. Now, I do not know if it was a real life spammer or a spambot, and frankly, I don't give a rat's tail about it. If I wanted to advertise here, I would have done it already. If someone wants to put ads in their blogs, that's fine with me. The comment was deleted immediately and the same fate awaits its possible successors. This place was meant for thought sharing in an enjoyable way, please keep it like that.

With that taken care of (hopefully) I return to today's story.

If you still haven't tried working in a wardrobe, do not miss that chance. If there was a competition for the job with a most diverse profile, that would be it. It is like working at a Buddhist temple, demographic agency, fashion store, perfume distillery, alcohol clinic and psychiatrist's at the same time. And if you have the dubious luck of working on the same day as the previous bar master - biochemistry experiment laboratory or oenological tasting... both are true.

Yesterday, the club that I work at, had a disco night. This happens every other Wednesday and together with a pregnant woman's mood is the most variable thing you can think of. Two weeks ago it was such a hit, that people could not enter... or leave, for that matter. The stress was enormous. So the management decided to hire some extra hands for yesterday night. Trust me when I tell you it was a complete disaster. There were hardly more than 40, maximum 50 people in the building. And we have had club nights with 400+ guests. Anyway, I'm sitting behind the wardrobe counter, reading specialised articles in molecular biology. One hour passes, then a second one follows suit. Well, I think, I started at 18.30, and people sort of do not like to go to clubs and pubs when it is daylight, they wait until darkness falls. Those of you that have worked in a pub will agree with me. During the summer there is not a single soul in the pub until 21.00. In the winter people are sometimes waiting in line to get in even before the opening hour.

When the cathedral's bells announced nine o'clock, people finally started showing up. But not in a steady flow, so that I can do my job with the highest efficiency. Oh, my, no! They were entering (and later leaving) in groups of 5-8, making me dance around my workplace like a happy cannibal tribe around a missionary. On the other side, it is normal that people come to the club together. It feels a little strange if you do not know anyone. People are herd-partying animals. I guess it still beats sitting and reading about mice with pneumonia, though.

So, operating and normal work frequency, I started examining the people rushing around with a drink, a guy/lady or their own heads in hand. No Sleepy Hollow associations here, it was that a couple of ladies had a little bit too much to drink. Not that they regretted it. Heh. I soon started noticing things I was glad to see... and others that left me plain stunned. Clothing, for example. There were girls... yeah, I will mostly talk about female clothing here, because to me a guy looks equally good in T-shirt, jeans and sneakers or in something more fancy. I'm not implying that badly clad men do not exist, they just decided to stay home yesterday. Like I was saying, there were girls from all regions of the hotness scale, ranging from coyote ugly (an African big mamma who was so drunk on the last Student's day that she almost raped me in broad daylight, luckily she didn't recognise me yesterday), through plain, cute, charming, pretty to stunningly beautiful. No, I lied about the last one. No stunningly beautiful ladies at that club night. Well, on the other hand my opinion is a liiiitle influenced, so come and see for yourself, you might see something you like.

A similar scale could be drawn about the garments they had on. There were very elegant tight trousers and bodies, bold miniskirts and deep cleavages as well as casually dressed fun seekers. Then there were the others. Combinations of stern shirt, vest and necktie, a knee-long skirt and... hold tight... and sneakers. The whole effect of a gorgeous yet untouchable lady was spoiled by this piece of footwear. Or knee-long shorts plus ankle-reaching tight skiing-trousers.. and by tight I mean sausage wrapper-kinda tight. If it was a panty-hose, that would at least had given it some charm. But those skiing-trousers.. thanks, but no, thanks.

Fragrances. I can not tell much about them, since I know very little in this subject. There were musky, flowery, fruity, spicy and.. none. Yeah, in one or two cases the guest had apparently decided to go by androstenone and... erm... the female sweat stink substance, whatever its name.

Then the real fun part started. The guests were getting drunk. First the ladies, later on the gentlemen. The battle-ready, rhythmic click-clack of the high-heels became a disoriented clatter, the surefooted feline grace of the parquet lions gave way to a more gorilla-like wobbling pace. Girls started entering the men's restroom... and then leaving with either reddened faces or a smile that was something in between hungry and satisfied. For some obscure reason the guys never ever confused the WCs. Do we have some sixth sense that leads us directly to the much needed urinals or we just scan the surroundings upon entry, making mental notes where the facilities are? Another possibility is that because we are able to withstand bigger amounts of alcohol, our focal focusing power is at a little better level, so we can actually see if the little human figurine on the sign wears trousers or a skirt.

Then some strange things occurred. Now, the wardrobe at the club is free of charge, its price included in the entry fee. When I told this to some of the more influenced guests, however, they were so overjoyed that some of left me tips that twice exceeded the normal wardrobe fee. Oh, well, they are not getting that back. As the night progressed, I discovered that I was able to distinguish the coin value by the sound it made when falling in my tip jar. I am not sure if that is a sign of keen hearing or just greediness, though.

Have you smelled hay that has endured the first rain and has started decomposing? A really rich and filling smell, isn't it? And not at all unpleasant. It's still hay though. Something we associate with ticks, needles, cows and Fanfan the Tulip. I guess you can imagine my surprise when the bar master, Rafael, handed me a cocktail he had named Moquito - green coloured, with a lot of ice and the taste of a whole haystack. It was great, but I couldn't recognise the alcohol. And I know, that Rafael makes non-alcoholic cocktails only when you pay him and/or threaten his life. Probably some kind of liquor. So, for those of you planning a trip to Uppsala - drop by at GH Nation, Trädgårdsgatan 9, and have a Moquito. You won't regret it. Oh, and make sure it is a disco night. Otherwise you are only going to have a beer.