poetry in commotion...

I am a Commerce Graduate: My Day as Mr Breadhead

The thing about my job is that its not a very glamourous job. For the most part it can be hard dirty work from what I can see, and there is really nothing distinguishing me from my co workers. While that wouldn't normally be a problem to me, on friday it seemed that all I could see were people who had gone to UWA or my high school, or friends and former friends I had met in that period. While it may seem petty to care about how my job looks to these other people, to be honest there were people that I loathed with a passion, and it seemed important, to me anyway, to look like I'm doing better than them. I met Mandurah Nat on friday. She'd stopped by in the late afternoon for a snack and after a few moments recognised me, though she couldn't place where at first. She's working with the Immigration Department in a graduate program after graduating in Social Studies from Curtin, and works just upstairs from the Perth City BD. She told me she was meeting up with Lee for lunch sometime soon, and said she'd bring me along if I was free. It was nice to see her again, bringing me back to a different era of a different Jason back then. It seemed important some how to look like I was doing ok to her, but I haven't figured out why.

On Saturday I went to work at Garden City with no real expectation except to get the hang of working the machine and building my product knowledge. As I walked up to the store I saw that there were more workers than normal, and that everyone was dressed as hospital surgeons and other such hospital uniforms, and it triggered in my mind that it was PMH Bunday, an annual event held by Baker's Delight around the same time to raise funds for Princess Margaret's Hospital. This year they were taking donations and giving one dollar from every half dozen of hot cross buns sold to PMH to buy an oxygenator, a special machine they put premature babies for an oxygen enriched environment. Or something. I walked in the store with my regular uniform and thought to myself, 'well, how awkward, I'm going to be the only one in my standard uniform'. I introduced myslf to the person in charge, who turned out to be Emma, where she promptly beamed and told me I would get a costume too. "Great!' I thought to myself, "I get to dress up like they do on Scrubs, it'll be awesome". Emma brought out a huge blue bag from under the counter, and asked me to get dressed and head over to the secondary table just outside City Beach near the food court. As I opened the bag and pulled out the giant foam head of Mr Breadhead, the Baker's Delight mascot, I realised with a certain amount of incredulous amazement what I was going to be doing for the rest of the day.

I was Breadhead the fucking Baker's Delight gimp, a giant foam monstrosity of pale terrocota brown colour with a Baker's Delight 'baking uniform', replete with cheesy grin, oversized shoes and, appallingly, two right handed gloves. Someone had made a mistake packing the bag it seemed. They took me out of a backdoor exit and slowly dressed me in this uniform, with its over reliance of straps around my neck, in effect hanging the uniform off my body and causing the straps to bite into my neck. I started laughing hysterically as they put on the giant head. Somehow, it made perfect sense that it was me, their upcoming bright business recruit, climbing into this costume while others did the sales, the baking, and other practical aspects of the business they were actually supposed to teach me. I was right. They seriously did not have a clue what the hell they were going to do with me, and I found out later they had thought it would be too busy to teach me anything and it was just easier for both parties if I climbed into a giant bread man and pranced around for the kids. Don't get me wrong though. After my initial shock and amazement, I wanted to be the mascot. You guys know me too well for me to lie about anything otherwise :P. I'd always wondered what it was like to be the man inside these costumes, and my yearning to try new experiences meant that I found this a great opportunity to see what it was like working as a mascot. Hell, how many people can say they worked as a mascot, and the Baker's Delight mascot no less? An elite few I would imagine. I rationalised it out as I walked back into the centre. It was just for the day, what did I have to lose? I asked myself. I ignored the sarcastic voice in my head that never fails to pipe up when something bad was happening to me. Finally, the sarcastic voice in my head said to me, a chance to use your degree.

Well, it turned out that the first thing I would lose would be my dignity, followed closely by the respect of my fellow man. You see, when you walk out into a crowded mall dressed as a giant bread man, you become the goofy looking bread man, and lose all the rights and priviledges that you as a normal human being would otherwise recieve. You become something a little more, but at the same time, a little less. You see, the first thing that dawns on you is that you suddenly become that person inside that everyone makes fun of. You switch to the perspective of the person. You suddenly see yourself outside at the people looking at you. There are three types of people. They all have one distinguishing thing in common. They always seemed to think I couldn't hear them. I have hearing like a fox. Even if I didn't i probably could've still heard most of them. Anyway, firstly are type A, the jerks. The jerks that joke about tackiling you to the ground or punching you, jokes that you probably would've made sometime in your life when looking at a mascot (well, for the guys anyway). There are about a million of these jerks. Everyone makes the same joke, and for some reason, to them, its always funny. The second type of person (type B) are those that look down on you. 'I wonder how much they're paying him to do that' asks one man as he walks past. Another remarks to his friend, 'It must suck having to do that for a living'. " I'm a commerce graduate" I wanted to say to them. But I couldn't. I am a sad panda T_T. The last type are the ones that completely ignore you, and avoid you. Some of those ignoring me are tye B's too. I shake the donation tins at these people, and they quickly walk past, refusing to make eye contact. "Don't think you're better than me" I wanted to say. But I couldn't. A mascot cannot talk. I have no mouth but I want to scream.

The second thing that you don't truly realise until you wear one, is how fucking hot these costumes are. It's like you're wearing a sauna suit all day. You sweat and itch under these costumes, but obviously you can't dry yourself or scratch yourself while wearing one, for obvious reasons. The foam also makes the body uncomfortable and adds to the heat issues. The worst part was when there was a slow trickle of sweat that ran down to the tip of my nose. It drove me crazy with the urge to scratch my nose due to the itch, but I had to ignore it till I had a chance to take a breather. It's enough to make any man insane. Secondly, the costume is also heavy for something that's all foam. While it's relatively light at the start, as the day goes on, it weighs heavier and heavier, and bites into the neck as time goes by. Suddenly all the little jigs I was doing (don't ask) began to add up, and increasingly got harder as time went on. Thirdly, there is absolutely no side perception when wearing the head, and little frontal visibility (until I got used to looking through the eye holes, and since the hat from the costume kept falling over my eyes it didn't make much difference anyway). Someone had to lead me to my stall in the beginning, and also thought it was hilarious when I walked into a pillar (by his orchetration no doubt). Yes it is hilarious (even more if happening to other people), but it just shows how little visibility I had. I aso had to have the girls tell me when kids were waving at me from the side, and hugging kids, shaking hands and giving high fives were more a matter of guesswork than anything else.

However, while there were obviously bad parts of being a mascot, it was more than outweighed by the good parts, solely from two great sources: kids and hot chicks. I love kids. I mean, who doesn't, and when someone says they don't like kids they're either a liar or someone completely devoid of human emotion. I'm not someone that elicits hugs from completely unknown kids though. However, being a mascot changes that. Sure, you have the kids who don't know what to make of you, or cry and hide when you get too close, but you also get the friendly kinds. Little kids that come up to you and hug you, and even though my reciprocatory hug is more guesswork (I have a visual deadzone, and lose sight of a kid when he or she approaches within 3 metres of me) than anything, having a little girl or boy hug me, or put up their arms to be lifted up, and when you do they grin with delight and wave at their parents (as they laugh)...it made the job entirely worthwhile. You forget about everything, the discomfort, the jerks, the thirst, when a kid like that comes up. You also have the kids who look at you, tug their mom or dad and point. Look mommy, the bread man is waving at me", and they'd enthusiastically wave back and laugh, and keep waving until their mom or dad leads the away, looking over their shoulder as they walk away. The kids were the highlight of the job. Thinking back on those kids didn't make me regret putting up with all the crap I got as a mascot. Of course, the hot women helped too :P. I don't know what it is with hot girls and mascots. Girls are like kids in that they can be an absolute joy at times, and the effect of being a mascot is no exception. Random pretty girls (often in groups) would come up for a hug, or a photo, most often both, or in one case, a group of girls repeatedly visited me to teach me their handshake, poke me and try to figure out what I looked like inside. I also abused my power as a mascot to elicit hugs from hot women. The girls working at the stall caught on in no time, and started teasing me about it, but I was determined not to let a perk like this slip away. When you're a mascot, every tiny bit of joy you can get, you grab with both hands and never look back.

Anyway, thats what I've been doing at my job. And I thought it'd be boring. The one thing about being a mascot, it's a convenient icebreaker. I have work at Garden City from tomorrow to wednesday, so drop by if any of you are free! Talk to you all soon!


  

posted by jaseypoo! @ 9:24 PM