I had to get a NORMAL JOB!!!
Feck sake!
I had returned to the London after my triumphant visit to the northern regions rich in experience but not in pocket. I was feckin' skint! Big time! A combination of pricey digs and really pricey train journeys as well as a few expensive nights out and a sneaky holiday beforehand had left a big auld hole in me wallet. That's the tricky thing about touring. Sometimes you can save quite a bit on the job, but there are times when it actually costs you money. This was one of those times. Shite. And I still had three weeks left in the London before I went back to the Déise for Christmas. This was not a good situation to be in let me tell ya. The minute you set foot in London the money just pisses out of your pocket. You go into the West End for a little walk around with no intention of buying anything and you come home 20 quid the poorer and you still haven't bought anything. It's a weird phenomenon and a costly one and being in the fiscal situation I was I couldn't just sit on me arse and wait for the next gig to come along. So I had to do it. Jesus help me but it had to be done. I needed money to pay the rent and have a couple of quid left over so I didn't have to make me own Christmas presents. Now Like I said before when an actor looks for a proper job they have to find one which is flexible around their acting career, where its cool to have time off for auditions and the like and you can leave at the drop of a hat when that all important movie comes along......or maybe a last minute TIE (Theatre In Education - worse than any normal job). So obviously the options are very limited. There are a number of jobs where you'll always find actors, for we are possibly the only ones desperate or stupid enough to do them;
- Face to face fundraising - In other words being one of those people who stand on the street all day with coloured overalls and ask you if you've got five minutes when you obviously haven't. There was no way I could bring meself to do that job. I get enough rejection in the acting profession as it is, to have it happen to you about 50 times a day would surely drive you over the edge. Also it's winter, it's cold and wet so there's health reasons to consider. But still people do it. Christ knows why!
- Telesales - This is an obvious one and a lot of actors do it because the companies feel that actors are supposed to have good voices and a lot of balls so they can just cold call people and try their best to sell them something that they more than likely don't need. I hate it when I get phone calls like that so I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if i decided to do that. Feck that so, I ain't doing telesales.
- Front of House - Ahh the perennial favourite. Being an usher at a west end theatre, maybe working on the bar or tearing tickets on the door or selling ice creams at the interval. Now while that might not sound so bad, its also not the best. I should know, I spent 9 months working front of house at the Lyceum theatre when I first left drama school and seemingly had theatrical plague because I couldn't get a gig to save me life! 9 months of wearing a burgundy waistcoat and putting up with ignorant and rude audience members. 9 months of the Lion King and Hakuna fucking Mutata!!!! No no. I had since done a West End play and had decided that I will never do front of house again.
So I had hit a brick wall with a number of the possibilities. I turned to that great organ of the showbiz world: The Stage newspaper, and sandwiched at the back of the paper in between ads for lookalikes, table dancers and TIE you will find a litany of crap jobs. As you turn each page they just get crappier and crappier until you start seeing adverts for adult chatline operators. Hmmm, I'm not there just yet I think. Well I hope! But hang on what's this jumping out from the page at me?
DO YOU WANT A GREAT JOB?
WORK WITH GREAT PEOPLE?
TRAVEL THE COUNTRY AND STAY
IN GREAT ACCOMODATION?
THEN COME AND WORK FOR THE
UK'S PREMIER PAINTBALL COMPANY.
Now this could be interesting! My answer would really be no to all of the above questions as what I really want is a nice little telly job but, seeing as BBC comedy are still not baytin' down me door, this could be an option. You see I have previous experience in the world of paintball as I used to be a marshall at the much missed 'Wacky Warriors' paintball arena which used to be on Summer Hill in Waterford. Its been turned into flats since, but I remember the time I spent there ordering people about, tending to rifles and cleaning up paint. Ah what halcyon days. But seriously it was a good craic. And with a history in paintball warfare like mine this job sounded like a distinct possibility. I went in for an interview the next day and got an unpleasant shock. Sitting in a small room full of Australian and South African backpackers I listened with unfolding horror at the job description. It had shag all to do with paintball! They wanted you to go out on the streets and try and sell people a sheet of vouchers which entitled them to a days paintballing for eight people. What the fuck? The sheet cost £50 out of which you would get £48 for selling it. Ooh that's not bad, well maybe..but if you don't sell any on the day you nothing..Naaahh! Jesus! I didn't want to go out onto the streets annoying people and trying to sell them something they didn't want! Its like the bastard child of face to face fundraising and telesales. No way boy, not for me I'm afraid.
'Now is there anyone here who thinks that this isn't for them?'
'Yeah, It's not for me buddy, sorry.'
'That's cool, if you don't want to earn maybe 500 to 800 pounds a week, that's fine.'
Piss off! So I exit stage left quicker than it takes John Mullane to floor a Cork Hurler, well annoyed at this dickhead wasting an hour of my life. I didn't need this I just needed a job! Big time! I was ready to kill someone. Maybe I was just being too picky and I should swallow my pride and go back to front of house. It was getting towards the end of the week when my great friend (and the little Japanese chick out of Gorillaz) Haruka Kuroda suggested I email a company called 'Turns' . Their proviso is to find shit jobs for actors. Now the difference between them and a shit agent is that they just inform you of normal jobs. Ok lets give it a go. I email them straight away from me mobile phone being the swish bastard I am (geek!) and fair enough to them they ring me back within half an hour to tell me they can get me a job at a market research call centre in the City. Ok not too bad. MR isn't half as bad as telesales, you're not trying to get people to buy things you just want them to answer questionnaires. £6.50 an hour, not great but I've had worse. And there's training the next day. Bring it on! I needed something straight away and I wasn't going to get any better offers. My sister would get her bottle of vodka for Christmas! I accept and breath deeply as if I've signed away me soul. Training first. Shouldn't be too bad.
I nearly slit me wrists boy!
In I go at 10am (ouch!) and I'm left sitting waiting with other plebs like me until this chick whose supposed to be training us walks in at 10.45! Jesus! As we're waiting the plebs start chatting and indeed most of them are actors. Now to be honest I'm not into this chat because all it turns into is questions about what you have done in the past and I don't fancy repeating me CV to every fecker in the building. So when they ask I tell them I'm a musician. Now that's not completely a lie so I don't feel so bad. Actually I don't really give a shit. The training, when it finally starts, consists of this chick mumbling her way through a guide book on market research as we read along with her. Every know and then she asks some inane question to make sure we're following along;
'So why do we have to be patient and speak more clearly when we are talking to people in an older age bracket? Anyone?' boringly mumbleth she.
'Because they're old?' Sarcastically quoth I.
And this continues until 5pm. Oh my god! I'm nodding off by the end. I'm an actor, get me out of here!!! Feeling well and truly trained up in asking willing people boring shite, I head in for my first day and its a questionnaire on washing up liquid. Aw no. And so for the rest of my time at the call centre I spend my time chatting to middle aged to old ladies about fecking Persil and Bold. Oh joy! It seems that the world's supply of washing detergent is defined by about 3 old ladies from Stoke on Trent. I could tell you all about what's good and bad about Bold Lavender and Camomile should you ever need to know. At one stage during my first week I get an assessment (where they listen into one of your interviews and mark your technique!) and I score 9 out of 10. For a few seconds I feel a bit of pride in being told I'm good at my new job. It doesn't last long though as I snap back to reality, realising that what I'm good at is a heap of shite. One guy answers the phone and half way through my opening spiel about why I'm calling he butts in and shouts;
'Look don't call again! Stop calling! And if you do call again next time get someone who can speak English to call!'
What a bastard! Jesus I had the rage after that. So I called him back a few times and hung up straight away to piss him off. Racist Fucker! I don't need to do this. Put up with this shite. But I need a few pound so its not a shit Christmas. So I grin and bear it for the couple of weeks. Thoughts of heading back to the Déise for a load of festive craic kept me going. Also one of the plebs that started the same day as me was a nice young chick who had just finished drama school in the summer and all she had done was a shitty tour in Scotland for £150 a week. She wasn't getting many auditions and was feeling really down about the whole acting thing. She told me all this because she thought I was a musician, she would never have admitted it to another actor. Listening to her, and looking at how lucky I'd been over the past 2 years, I had feck all reason to moan. Just get on with the necessary evil. And get on with it I did.
But is it all doom and gloom? Will the end of 2004 just be filled with old ladies, ignorant people and talk of soap? Did I not have any auditions before Christmas?
'Course I did.
