Working Girls and Girls Who Work

... There's a difference.

So, as most know, it's hella expensive to live in Aberdeen, as opposed to the States. On the surface, it looks like things cost the same, but then one must take into account the exchange rate, and if you happen to consider this while grocery shopping, your joints will grind to a halt and you'll find yourself completely unable to move, much less place that wedge of cheese in your basket.

Ergo, I work at just about every random job you can imagine, dear reader-- not because I like playing with cats or shepherding drunks, but because I need the money. Rent, groceries, the occasional pint: it all takes funding. Right now, I've got four basic part-time jobs, one of which is primarily seasonal. Firstly, (and most infrequently) I'm a house-sitter/child-minder/dog-walker/cat-feeder extraordinaire. No joke. However, it's only recently that I've been paid to house-sit, and that was a welcome improvement. I mostly provide these services for my faculty and related members of academia, and it provides a little pocket cash every once in a while, but it's hardly possible to depend on it. Secondly, I work with a photography firm that does graduation services around the north of England and Scotland. Again, this is all dependent upon when the services are and which contracts the company snaps up and all that. There will be another spate of them in the fall, but we're pretty quiet at the moment, which is too bad because it really is a good daily wage. Thirdly, we have the club. Now, there are two different establishments in this particular building, four bars in total with two seperate cash desks. I was originally hired to work the upstairs desk, the one leading to the 80s music review which allows teens and 40-somethings alike to dress ridiculously and groove to Prince and other vintage tunes. It's only open on Friday and Saturdays, and I only worked Saturdays-- this left Friday for general carousal and debauchery when I could afford it. More on this turn of events later. My fourth soucre of employment is at a wine shop. It's a nice little place, about 50 paces from the door of where I'm currently living, and all in all a good fit. I get on decently well with my co-workers and apart from once issue haven't had any problems with the manager (who is wound so tight, I think he irons his socks). The best part of the job is that it's close to the house and there's a staff discount. No joke.

But back to the club. Now, your friend Miss Melville has never denied being a bit of a prude. I like to think of it as being classy, but whatever. And I've been known to toss a few back in my day, I won't deny it. However, the number of drunk, lerching folk I've seen tumble in and out of the door of the club has been enough to really put me off the cheap booze recently. And then they went one better: I got transferred to the other cash desk. You see, children, the downstairs of this building, all owned by the same to men, is a strip club.

I'm going to let that sink in for a minute.

I know take a 6-pound cover from men who want to enjoy the poffered goods of what claims to be the premiere lapdance club in Scotland. Ah, goooooo, good sir. On the up side, I'm learning an awful lot about the industry and how it functions and a new subculture of foreign girls who barely speak english trying to make it here in the UK and sending money back to their families. As a sidenote, apparent the sharks to do send the money to Romania won't accept Scottish bank notes, and this is a perpetual issue. Inga is constantly asking me if I have English notes, and at first I was simply annoyed because it disrupted my counting system. I finally asked the assistant manager/bouncer about it, and he told me the deal. Now, I set them aside.

I've worked pleanty of scummy jobs in my young life-- most noteably, the third shift at the gas station in Michigan's Prison City. I chatted with hookers, brewed awful coffee, swept the lot, gave away day old hot dogs to bums and generally held down the fort through the long dark hours. But this is a whole new level of sleeze. I sorta understand the young bucks who come in for a stag do or with a bunch of buddies. It's the ones who come in by themselves, collar up and sober, who creep me out the most. Then there's the older guys who are in by themselves every day of the week. I was told yesterday that this place is open every night of the week, 365 days a year. Which means that good old Donna from Down Undah is bending herself around the pole on Christmas Eve, New Years Day and Easter Sunday. There's something that I find cripplingly sad in that.

Now, I just sit behind the desk and take money. I don't dress like one of the girls-- in fact, I pull my hair back and wear a fleece because it's cold by the open door. Yet, I still get harrassed. On Saturday night, the best man in one of the stag parties leaned over the desk, clasped my face and full-out laid one on me, and before I had time to react was out the door. Stunned. Who does that? Then there's the older guys to persist in asking if I'll walk them home. Usually the bouncers shuffle them along, but they usually have more dangerous things to see to, and I can normally take care of myself. But if they harrass mousey old me this much, what are they saying to the poor dancers? The manager, who is a proper hard nose, asked me how I felt about working behind the bar. Now, while I think it would be a useful thing to have some bar experience on my resume, I'm not sure that I want it at a strip club. And it would mean different hours AGAIN, and I'm sure the level of harrassment would only increase... I don't know.

And on top of all this hourly work, I'm supposed to be writing my masters thesis/dissertation. I'm not even done reading for it. Fortunately, I was talking to a fellow coursemate this past week and she's in pretty much the same spot, but anyways... Yeah. Let me tell you just how impossible it is to read Blanchot while listening to Back in Black by AC/DC and telling Veronicka once again that she has to have her commission money to Craig by 2 am. I finally finished the essay in response to Hersey's Heroshima Saturday night, but the combination of depravity in the club and the image of trying to pull washerwomen from a rising tide and having their skin come off like gloves in your hands was too much for me. I don't know how I'm going to balance this. Normally I'd have a drink and walk it off, but I don't have the time...

The work at the club desk is now both Friday and Saturday, and while the additional money is nice, I'm not sure how much longer I can do this. But I have a feeling my rent is about to jump, and I'm barely making it as it is. Le sigh... dammit.