The Idler

Spazzing

I once did the door to door household goods thing, about 10 years ago, in London. It was actually a live-in job as the company owned a house in Uxbridge and recruited kids like myself from the Northern wastelands.

Basically, you worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week and were expected to do ‘Spazzing’. This involved pretending to be mentally handicapped to gain sympathy at the door.

You were dropped off and picked up each day by the boss who drove a minibus. Whoever made the least money each day would have to sit in the ‘Slap Seat’ and be beaten by the others on the way home. Woe betide anyone who failed to help administer this punishment. Some people had been living and working there so long that they began to behave as though they really were mentally handicapped.

The guy who ran the company was exposed a few years later by the Evening Standard, under the front page headline ‘THE NEW FAGIN!”. I only lasted 2 weeks and managed to avoid both ‘Spazzing’ and the ‘Slap Seat’. The various employment I gained after that was less frightening, although no more fulfilling.

I am retired now. At 29 years of age I feel my life is just beginning.

Dan