She works hard for the money

I'm currently writing this from an office temp job that's been keeping me busy the last few days. It's at an ad agency that is running a promotion for a teen-girl website. They needed 10 of us desperados to load data onto little USB keys, which will be distributed to 6000 teenage girls around the country. Very important stuff. It's not too bad, and I've rediscovered my love for the game Minesweeper.

Last week I tried out for what is quite possibly the funniest and grossest job I've done to date, and long time friends will know that I've done MANY crappy jobs over the years. This was at a "doggy daycare center". When I saw the ad I thought 'Dream Job', but after the 2 hour 'working interview' my illusions were shattered. First off I was told to go into the big-dog gym...about the size of a small school hall, with about 20 large dogs running around, peeing and pooping everywhere. The first thing that hit me was the overwhelming smell. It was disgusting. Think urine mixed with the smell of wet dog hair and poop. When I entered the gym all the dogs ran to me, or more specifically, to my crotch region, and slobbered and sniffed all over my jeans (again, more specifically, my crotch region). Can you imagine experiencing this at a job interview? I was mortified. And I'm a dog person.

Thankfully I noticed that they do this to every handler that enters the room. And they forgot about me soon enough. Over the next 30 minutes dog-walkers kept bringing more and more dogs into the gym, and I think it got up to about 40 or 50 by the end. The rest of the half hour was spent mopping up dog-business, and stopping the dogs from humping each other. And boy do these dogs love to hump. After 10 minutes of yelling "Oscar, get off her!", "Wendell, get off her!", and "Samantha, get off her!!!" I noticed that all the dogs were actually humping the one poor doggie, "Ellory", a chocolate lab with the same vacant expression of those window-prostitutes in Amsterdam (I haven't been to Amsterdam but I saw a doco on it once). I wanted to tell her that she's worth more than that, and that she shouldn't let these dogs do that to her. The other handler just got her to sit, which also worked.

I have decided not to take the job. Not just because I STANK after only 2 hours, but also because they pay $7.15 an hour, which is criminal! And it has nothing to do with photography, but overall it was an eye-opener, and makes for a great story. And I guess it wasn't that different to working at the Herald Sun, or at least attending the editorial Christmas Party (what with all the drooling etc). Here is a pic of the facilities, from the company's website. They have since removed the fake grass, probably due to the fact that the dogs pee every 20 seconds so a hard floor makes much more sense.