Random Queen

How to erase a bad bad weekend, a bad memory, a bad experience, a bad conversation…

The memories keep flashing in my mind like a bad taste that keeps coming and going.

So many feelings, so hard to deal with and I feel so stupid not being able to just pass to the next thing. So here I am writing my heavy heart, I’m hoping it can maybe help.

As I start this text, I realize that maybe this could be a funny story, or maybe, my gentle reader will relate to me, and we could cry together.

I was urgently in need of a bit of money. I had just finished another diploma in December, and I found myself looking for an urgent job, it had been one month and a half and nothing.

Maybe because January and February are dead for job hunting… I told myself and everyone else around me to feel better, I have to be patient, I said in a very loud voice, maybe trying to convince myself to be patient, and it was not working…

My friend, which is in a similar situation calls me and says: Urgently! I have to know if you want a job! they pay cash! it’s from Friday to Sunday!

I said yes, of course! I trust her, she’s a hustler… I really need some money right now.

What we have to do in this modern world to have some money, in this economy, in this crisis, in this unemployed situation… could be called slavery, but let’s leave this subject for later.

I was supposed to sell bike clothes, plus triathlon and running clothes.

The guy made us come on Thursday to explain how this will be done during the weekend, although Thursday was not a paid time. My friend had to do 40 minutes of metro and 15 walking from her place to the job place, where we were going to work. But the guy wanted us to come on Thursday. He also wanted us to come an hour before the opening without being paid, although we said yes, it never happened.

So the guy’s name was Steve… Steve? What kind of name is that?

Hi, my name is Steve (pronounced Stif)… I wonder what you imagine with that name.

It was the opposite of the Steven Universe character. Zero charisma, he had a grim aura around him, when I remember him, I picture him wearing dirty clothes, a dirty face, dirty soul, Steve without an n.

This guy had a very bad looking silhouette, just imagine a bald, bad shaved, red eyed looking guy, with a beer belly and yellow teeth whenever he smiled, which was a rare occasion, or maybe he just smiled at moments when you are not supposed to smile, like a smile after a racist-mysoginist-homophobe comment…

This guy didn’t say hello…. As soon as he saw us, he said: do you go to the gym? Do you ride bikes? On the gym…?

Now, my friend and I are not fit at all, we have overweighted women bodies, but we take care of ourselves, we tidy ourselves, we love ourselves, we feel pretty most of the time. I admit, I got some kilos more during my degree, I did my last diploma in one year, one hell of a ride, and I’m a stress eater, so it was very easy to obtain my extra kilos. But of course, this guy didn’t see that. Maybe he wanted slim people, so the customers would feel more appealed or something. Although, he was not paying enough for a slim sales manager. He was not even paying enough for us to come on that Thursday, which we weren’t even paid.

So not a very good first start, right? I laughed it out, but my friend didn’t. I sometimes don’t understand a situation before it’s too late and my natural response is to laugh out everything. Whenever I’m nervous you will see me smiling.

Bla bla bla, biking clothes, bike accessories, biking glasses, how did you two meet?

- Oh, we were together at Uni, yeah, I was doing my ethnomusicology master at that time, oh! It’s like anthropology of music.

- So like when humans were hitting rocks one to the other and you call that music?

- jajajajaj…ja… yeah… something like that… Oh I actually have an interview in one hour, so I only have 15 minutes

Apparently, Steve didn’t like that, maybe he was planning on explaining every single item to us and take more of our free time, but I doubt it, the guy was not organized. Or maybe his natural face was of disgust…

I asked if he had business cards, he didn’t, also, the internet site that was announced on his business signs didn’t exist, he also didn’t have a special item he wanted to sell, and the sales signs advised discounts in a very so random way that it looked like a scam store.

So every time someone would ask where they could find the store… we just answered with the most vague phrase: oh! we are a mobile store… (you cannot find it anywhere) we move a lot between Ontario and Québec, oh sorry, the site doesn’t wok but you can send us an email with whatever you need, we will try our best to answer your request…

We? Well, I told myself that if maybe I got the appropriation of the store, people will believe that it was genuine, or like a family business, with Steve being our… uncle? I don’t’ know, I thought it was helpful, I was trying to help a human who didn’t deserve my trying.

Steve has a daughter though, 8 years old, she was on his 2000 model phone wallpaper. Poor girl with a father like that. Just, let me tell you the story. The guy hooked up with a woman 25 years younger than him, the problem is, he said it as if he was proud of it. He’s 62 yeas old… Steve is a 62-year-old father… of an 8 year old daughter. Oh! But her daughter is a flirt! She is in the boy’s hockey team, because she is too good to be in the girls’ hockey team and she likes to flirt with the boys…

I don’t know what is more disgusting, the fact that he thinks she flirts at that age, the fact that he is proud of his daughter being a flirt, or the fact that he is telling me this.

Pure disgust. Maybe I should add “rapist” to the list of adjectives I will describe him with. I know maybe some of you would feel sorry of him being so old and working in this hard work line, but my disgust is bigger than my sorrow.

And also, the conversation about his daughter started because he fucking asked me if I WAS SINGLE

FUCKING STEVE AND HIS FUCKING STORE

- Oh! Yeah, I have a partner and we are married.

- So like… are you lesbian?

(Shall I just send this guy to hell….?)

…..

- Well I consider myself bisexual and I’m married to a non-binary person. But you know this is really not important…

- You young people, your generation is so welcoming to this kind of stuff, I don’t know any of this things, so what is bisexual and what is non-binary

(Shall I just send this guy to hell….?)

-Well, bisexual is that you are attracted to a person regardless of their gender

- Well that is convenient

(Shall I just send this guy to hell….?)

-jajajaj… I am attracted to all the genders, not only one… and non-binary is that the person doesn’t feel like they belong to only one gender.

- so like a mix ?

- I mean there are people who are genderfluid, so they can feel one day one gender or non at all. And I feel that a bisexual with a non-binary is a perfect romantic alliance.

- So all that stuff exist, huh? Your generation is so different than mine

-oh! you have a costumer behind you

…..

The conditions to this job were just disastrous, we couldn’t sit (no chairs anywhere), we couldn’t just stand (because it is aggressive, the customer will not approach you if you just stand there, just try to scan the clothes, you can even check the tags so you can learn the technical terms… hey remember when I told to not just stand there…?), we couldn’t chat (I don’t want you to talk to each other, it shows to the customers you are not serious), and we only had 30 minutes of break to eat something, also we had bathroom breaks, which we tried to extend to the maximum and to distribute along the day. I really just wanted for this job to end.

But the worst of all was, that we had to deal with fucking Steve, not only his conversations were awful and the least interesting in the entire history of stories, but also he used to tap my back whenever there was a customer that he wanted me to attend. I wish to erase the memory of his fucking hand touching my back for those 2 seconds, he did it 6 times during the weekend. I wish to erase all of this, all this bad  bad weekend, but specially he touching my sacred body with his filthy hands. 

Every day that passed was harder than the previous one. Everyday Steve had to fucking complain that he was not making enough money, that his minimum was not attaint. Oh! He also had these stupid comments about us like:

- you are doing good… for beginners

- If you did some kind of sport, I’m sure you would have had more technical information to give to the clients, we would have made more sales

- It’s a shame you don’t know anything about bikes

And whenever we were letting a customer go, he would come and say: what was the problem, what did they wanted? (whatever answer you want to insert) ugh, next time send them to me. Or. Ugh you should have said this/that. You can also finish your sale with: what else are you looking for? Or what brought you to the Montreal’s Bike Convention?

Or whatever annoying phrase about any annoying sales topic or bike topic you could imagine.

Also, I forgot to mention, the main reason why he engaged us was so that we could speak in French to the clients. ‘Cause his sorry ass can only take one language in his stupid brain, the language of racist-mysoginist-homophobe-rapist white English. The frustrating part was when he started to explain to his customers:

- I engaged French girls so they can talk in French with the customers

First off, we are not in France you asshole, second, we are NOT FRENCH YOU FUCKING IDIOT, third, could you be more condescending you fucking pig?

And this is the whole point of this stupid experience. He did never ever said thank you, never, not even when we worked packing his stuff (that usually sales people don’t do) or pushing his merchandise on the cart to his truck, or when we worked for 30 extra minutes to help him pack his shit, or when his shit got all over the floor when he was pushing his cart down the ramp and was blocking the cart ramp and we helped him put his shit back to the cart and truck. And the more things went to hell, the more the guy was aggressive and screaming at us if we didn’t do things the way he wanted to be done…

Like: I didn’t tell you to do that! I asked you to put this thing in this box, not on that box!

- I told you first the wheels then the bars!

- No! Don’t put that there!

- oh… could you please push the cart to my truck?

And then, he almost didn’t pay us… or he was hoping we don’t do the math correctly so that he could pay us less than what he owed us…

- Girl, let’s count together because I’m getting stressed and can’t count

- No! Don’t count together, she’s already lost, gimme that… I’ll count for you!

Then… why am I saying he’s racist? My gentle reader may ask… Well, we had a black customer that asked if he could separate some clothes for him, he was going to do the convention tour and then get back to trying the clothes.

- you shouldn’t separate it for him, he’s not coming back, I know his kind

HIS WHAT NOW???

- Oh I meant that the convention is almost closing… I don’t think he will be back

And then he proceeded to tell me the most boring racist story of how one of his bosses in 1978 was racist, not like him. His boss didn’t believe a black successful woman was going to buy an expensive bag. Well fucking Steve didn’t believe a black customer was going to buy a fucking biking jersey that was so old as fucking Steve, all his clothes were shit actually. Well, the customer came and he bought the jersey.

A little girl was hanging around the convention during Saturday and Sunday and asked me and my friend if the clothes we were selling were used. It really felt like some kind of sport thrift store, all the clothes had the hangers sun marks, they were so old and used and so low quality that even with his fucking thin sales managers, he wouldn’t have attaint the fucking minimum that he wanted.

But lastly, we finished the job, we got our pay, we got out of that place, we left the old geezer behind, and my friend and I were left feeling miserable. We called our spouses, to reassure them we were alive, that we got paid, that we were going home. And then all the misery came to our bodies. My feet were hurting, but also my pride. And she started saying why should we go through this, why should anyone go through this. Why after all that we studied, after all that we travelled, after all that we have learnt, why do we have to take this kind of jobs, with this kind of guy in this kind of country. Why has the life treated us so unfairly… what have I done so wrong for me to be found in a situation like this. Why have all my studies done nothing for me. Why do I have to kill my feet and my pride to get a bit of cash… I’m an artist, I wish to create, to be happy, to give something to this cruel cruel world. But right now, I feel just miserable, as if my life had absolutely no meaning. As if I was born with the wrong feet, in the wrong time, the wrong place. Maybe if I was white, maybe if I was rich, maybe if I had picked fucking finance as my career. Just, maybe if I have had a bit more of luck.

But hélas, I’m here, right now, and the only thing that calms me down is writing and hoping to share this with you, my gentle reader.

Yesterday I had nightmares, and then I had a panic attack, and then I was all tears. But my partner was there, to tell me everything was going to be alright, that I will never see fucking Steve again in my life. And with the money I made, I can pay some bills.

Although the next day I still had flashes of this bad bad weekend, I still heard fucking Steve’s voice in my head… I had to pass to another thing, another project made with love, it was another day, a sunny one. And the problem is, I’m so desperate that I’m sure I will do it again, because I need the extra cash right now.