The Idler

Suckered

I once got suckered by a Temp Agency into going for a job as a kitchen porter in a hotel in Bournemouth.

I was still at University and pretty naive and had no idea at the time what a kitchen porter did. After a formal half an hour interview (why?), I was offered the job on the spot and told to start work straight away.

I was led into the kitchens and introduced to the other kitchen porter, who was a Scottish psychopath in his fifties who’d spent most of his adult life in prison for various violent crimes. He outlined the laborious tasks that were to befall me over the next couple of days - basically washing pots and pans.

This Scottish guy was a real pro kitchen porter. He’d apparently spent about twenty years in prison doing the job and consequently his hands were like leather. He’d fill up the sink with water that was near boiling point and just stick his hands in it for hours. As there were no rubber gloves I was expected to do the same. It was complete agony. If you winced at all he’d stare at you as if was about to slash your throat so I just persevered.

After two days my hands were completely blistered. I had one blister that was so painful that it brought tears to my eyes. When the Scottish bloke sloped off for a crap that afternoon, I plucked up the courage and asked the Head Chef, who was also the owner of the Hotel, if he had a plaster. He reluctantly gave me one but told me if I needed another one it would be taken from my wages.

At that point I walked out. The Temp Agency wouldn’t even pay me.

Not as bad though as my friend who used to work in a porn shop in Soho. He spent six months in a dingy room in the basement placing stickers over erections in European porno mags to meet British porno law restrictions. He also once had to clean out a customer’s vibrating vagina that had stopped working because the mechanics had been caked in cum.
Craig Lee
craig_lee@totalise.co.uk