Everythings going to plan then

I got no money, I got no house, I got no job, I have so much fucking stuff accumulated that I’ve no where to put it...

I saw your mama kicking a cardboard box down the street, I say what you doing, she says movin’

Part of my go all the way grand plan was to move in with my tailor friend. We had big plans to get a place that had a space to set up a work area, he’d move his sewing machine and board in and I’d get all my college work done in no time and then start making some proper stuff. We didn’t even need bedrooms, just a big space and bunk beds so there would be more room for activities, it was going to be the best. Today was the day, my lease was up so I had to get something quick. I was quietly confident that my mate would have something sorted for us but little did I know that he was thinking the exact same thing about me. The phone call went something like this

Me:  have you looked for anything yet?

Him: No, you?

Me: No, shit.

Overheard at the bar

No hot drinks

One guy came up to the bar and asked for 2 cups of tea

 “No can do” I replied “we don’t sell hot drinks”

“Ok..eh…eh..coffee?”

One dimensional German guy

German guy asks what crisps we have.

I started “eh salt and vinegar, cheese and onion…”

“Ok, one cheese and one onion”

“No that’s the same flavour”

“Ok then two of them, how much is it?”

“1.50”

He hands me one 50p coin.

Glass collector boy

I was floating around picking up glasses and an old guy in the corner says

“here he goes

on his toes

picking up glasses I suppose”

I couldn’t help but smile and felt like a bit of a superhero for a while after that

Small medium or large

Woman comes to the bar, asks for a glass of wine.

“what size would you like? Small medium or large?”

“Oh it doesn’t matter”

“Medium?”

“Oh God no, small, small”

Hot glass plus cold beer equals warm beer

Pouring two pints for a guy, I leave one on the bar while I pour the other. He picks it up, looks at it and says “it’s roasting”. I was like yeah, no shit, I just picked it out of the machine, duh. He says “it’ll take all the coldness out of the beer.” Still answering the first question, I reassured him that the glass will cool down in a minute and he shouldn’t worry about it. Perplexed he took his drinks away. Sometime later I realised that he was upset, and what he was upset about.

Phased out.

The boss brings me downstairs and tells me that he has to let 4 people go because there’s too many staff. He already got rid of the fat geezer straight away and now he says it’s me, the Italian, another part timer and a full timer. I say not to worry, business is business and all that. If it wasn’t for them pesky old managers though hiring 4 people on their last day I’d still be sitting pretty.

Double jetted pockets

Friday started double jetted pockets. There is a lot more going on behind the scenes on a pocket than you would think, its a mess back there. Such a difference this week to the last week of last term. I’m totally shit now whereas before I thought it was kind of coming together for me. My jets are passable but when it comes to sewing up the pocket bag at the end the machine just pulls it all over the place and wrecks anything you’ve done before.

All looks good on the front but from the back the pocket bag gets all messed up. You’re meant to sew around the red line but this isnt the view you have when you’re sewing. You sew along a line at the back of a seam and then hope that it didn’t move around too much on you. There are a lot of layers of fabric going on back there that its easy to misjudge whats going on.

Too close to the edge 

Too curvy 

Almost made it

Success

Shear Disaster

Have been moving all my tailoring stuff into my locker in college cause I have to move soon. It’s absolutely wedged now cause I’ve got a few folders and a good bit of cloth. My mate gave me shit loads of lining too and that’s all in there. I can literally line everything I own. Now that I have a jenga locker it’s a nightmare trying to get anything out without something else dropping out and today I dropped my shears for the second time. First time they were grand but they’re finished now. Doesn’t really matter cause everything I got in Morplan was shit anyway so they wont really be missed.

It’s surprising how hard it is to cut straight lines in fabric with a good shears or not. I thought my cutting would be just as good as my paper cutting but it’s a totally different ball game. You draw a straight line on fabric using chalk. Then you cut straight along the line, slowly, making sure to not sway from the line. Then you look at it after and you’re like did I seriously just cut that. It’s ridiculous. Must be the shears.

Interesting shears related fact: to lubricate your shears all you need to do is rub any dust off them with your thumb and index finger and then rub them through your hair. The oil in your hair is the perfect lubricant. Good to know if a bald man is ever coming at your with a shears.

Shears fact two: don’t cut paper with them or you’ll wreck em.

back to college

First week back in college is totally messed up cause I was on the mega sesh for the champions league final and fell asleep on the way home again. But this isn’t really the place for that so I started a new blog here. Thursday someone stole my sewing machine so I spent the class trying to find a good one. Settled for an ok one in the end and we were working on doing a top stitch and a sink stitch but I didn’t have long to work on them by the time I got going on a machine.

basketballs still putting food on the table

Things are getting a bit too organised and predictable in the bar now which I’m not a fan of. You need chaos in a job like this. Two people used to work the busiest shifts and 4 used to work the quietest, things were always running out, especially glasses, most of the taps didn’t work. That’s what you want. It’s getting so organised and efficient now that my shifts are getting cut down, which is slightly worrying cause I know a phase out when I see one.

I try to convince myself I’ll be alright for cash a bit like Wesley Snipes in white men cant jump. I got the pub thing, I got the teaching thing, I got the catering thing in the summer, potential tailoring might happen. Basketballs still putting food on the table.

getting off on the wrong foot

Went into Savile Row for 12. Watched a bit of waistcoat making in action and then went to the pub. Had 4 pints and unfortunately had to leave for work. Second day with the new boss and I’m tipsy and late for a 7pm shift. You don’t realise how much your reflexes get messed up after a few drinks until you stop and try doing normal stuff.

One time back in the good old BOI days my manager brought a crate of cans into the office and we all had a few before going out for an enjoyable close to Christmas sesh. I couldn’t join them though cause I had a basketball match. It was my first time starting all season and my chance to impress and boy did I blow it. On defence I’d go to steal the ball and end up lunging into the guy and every time I was convinced I was going to get it but he’d slowly move it to his other hand toying with me like a matador.

It was bad enough having terrible reflexes in the bar but the new managers like nothing more than to sit at the bar and stare at you all day which made it ten times worse. Every time I went to pick up a glass I was convinced I was going to knock it over. It’s like Big Brother now getting watched all shift long. Try as they might but the old managers weren’t able to stare at you. Sometimes the old guy would get one eye locked on you but never both eyes. It was funny at the end of the night you’d always hear him shout “lads and lasses down your glasses” but everyone would just continue as normal thinking it was just some drunk at the bar, which it was. I miss his funny little ways. It’s kind of like he’s still here though cause I keep calling the new manager by the old managers name, which I’m sure he loves.

And those who cant teach teach gym

After that shift I went to sign up to a tutoring (giving grinds) agency. You have to have a CRB check writing down all your past addresses over the last 5 years cause its working with kids. I broke the record for that agency with 15 house moves in 5 years. Damn me and my honesty, will take ages to get this all checked out. Hope it comes through soon though cause its good money and pretty flexible hours-wise.

I think tutoring is the way to go. I was always better in college showing people what to do rather than doing it myself. One exam I had absolutely nailed the studying for it, knew it inside out. “Definitely getting between 85 and 91” I predicted. For once I was the one giving answers around the class for people to copy. The day before I was in a class room with Brian and a couple others showing them on the board how to do all the questions, drawing graphs and shit. This was his first time even looking at the subject. I explained exactly what was going to come up and how to answer it. Then on exam day I stroll in late as per usual, open the exam paper, have a yawn then panic when I realise the questions aren’t exactly as I expected them to be. The questions were the same, the numbers used were just slightly different. I got a 55, Brian got a 73.

I have endless exam disaster stories but this is probably the best.

In my first set of exams in first year I was 29 minutes late for the first one (30 mins and you have to repeat), did alright in the second and then started studying for the third with two and a half days to go. It was info systems which I didn’t know the first thing about (unlike now cause I’m a whizz, doing blogs and shit.) Even the most basic stuff like how many MB in a floppy disk went right over my head back then. I tried reading the notes and the book but it was painful so came up with the genius idea to record all the notes into a Dictaphone and then just play it back over and over and I’d ace the exam.

Started recording all the notes on Wednesday evening but by Friday evening I still hadn’t finished and had been so busy recording that I never had the time to play them back to myself to "study". I finally finished just before 1am, got into the bed and put in the ear phones. All I had to do was play it a couple of times and I might be alright.... sure enough after about 20 seconds of hearing my boring voice talking about how intranets work I fell into a deep sleep and woke in the morning distraught to see my ear phones hanging over the side of the bed.

I got up to college for about 9 and with the last throw of the dice cut out as many important slides as I could and stuffed them in my pencil case. The question on Porters value chain came up and I nailed it but that was it. 20 minutes in and I had absolutely nothing left to contribute. It didn’t matter though cause I had a match in Terenure against Vincents at half 11 and they were always my favourite team to play against so I had to leave anyway, get your priorities right and all. I scribbled down some retarded bullshit answers for the other questions and left at half 10. Unsurprisingly I got a 25 in that exam and had to repeat in the summer. When I got to Terenure the match was cancelled and we had to train instead.

The boy who couldnt smile

New manager was in when I arrived. First thing he says is “Things will be run a bit differently to them two pissheads. As you can see things are already much cleaner here and will get better. I had the two lads in cleaning the toilet last night for hours.” Hang on a minute. I checked the roster and I was scheduled to midnight from now on. I had been getting out at 11.30pm usually and I bailed early on Friday, Saturday and Sunday without anybody saying anything and I probably got paid for what I missed too.

Now he’s saying we have to stay late and CLEAN the TOILETS! We didn’t realise how good we had it with them two pissheads. He says we have to smile more, and to chat more to customers. He keeps saying hello to me, I hate having to say hello to the same person over and over. Alright, hows it going, that’s your lot for the day. And smiling at customers, bah!

When I was working in a restaurant in Sydney my boss was going to have to cut me off cause someone complained that I didn’t smile and they couldn’t understand what I was saying. Lucky my girlfriend at the time was the shining light in the restaurant and made all the tough decisions for him. I don’t have anyone to save me now though and my shelf life has just deteriorated drastically.