PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Back to the job search blues… Yesterday I went to an interview with an advertising/marketing agency. It was located on Hardware St in the city, right next door to Pig Molloys, where I sometimes had Friday night knock-offs with the guys I used to work with, in my last job. I caught the train.



The job had been advertised on one of those Internet job sites... the pitch for interest was their job title heading which read: “Do you want to play paintball?”

Of course this heading would be enough to suck many mouse clicks into further investigation... then, when you got to the job description, it read:



A (sic) inner city advertising company has started an exciting and successful marketing campaign on behalf of the world’s fastest growing adrenalin sport. We are currently looking for 8 individuals to join our sales and marketing team. A sports minded attitude and good communication skills are essential and full training provided. Further long-term opportunities are also available. For an interview call Shirley on... Etc.



It also had the additional “information” of stating the salary as “AUD 1,000.00 to 1,500.00 per week” and that the position was “Full time, Permanent”.

Sounded pretty good to me, so I thought I’d send them my resume. In my initial email I wrote:



To: Shirley Baxter

Henderson Marketing

Re: Paintball Sales & Marketing



Dear Shirley,



Please find attached my resume in application for the above position.

Although my resume would suggest I'm better suited for a desk job behind a computer, I assure you this is far from the truth! I am very sports oriented & to be frank I'm looking at getting out from the IT world altogether... it bores me to tears. I have thought about sales & marketing before but I just didn't know what area would suit me, as I'm the type of person who likes to believe in what I'm selling. After spending a weekend playing paintball I can say with confidence I have already made some non-commission sales to former work colleagues! ;o) What more can I say on paper? Interview me & you'll see that I'm the right person for this job!



Thank You,

Billy Boarster



Sure enough they jumped on my application and invited me in for an initial screening interview. I had a pretty impressive resume.

I got up before 8am for the first time in three months and proceeded with the usual corporate work routine... Shower, shave, suit and tie... Only I couldn’t remember how to fix the tie properly. I had six or seven goes before giving up and decided to just wear the shirt untucked, with the two top buttons open. In all my life I had only worn a tie to weddings and job interviews (the elastic ones I wore as a crowd controller don’t count). Why the fuck not? It was for a sales position with some new hip advertising agency, so the manager himself probably didn’t wear a tie. I learned later that I was right.



It was a hot and muggy morning. I got a bit worried that I was going to sweat too much dressed in a long sleeved shirt. I parked my car at the station at the very far end of the car park, where those who arrive after 8:15am are lucky to find one. The far end isn’t really part of the car park, just empty dirt space behind an industrial park that commuters have turned into parking space. This space presumably evolved from months of frustrated drivers constantly arriving late, to a full car park. None of the factories or government bodies seemed to have cared too much about it… or maybe it’s actually part of the car park, just that they haven’t bothered to asphalt it.



The train wasn’t too crowded, seeing I had missed the early morning rush. I got a good seat, next to a window, facing forward, and proceeded where I left off in Bukowski’s novel Hollywood. Back when I had worked in the city and caught the train, earlier the year before, I had always listened to CD’s whilst reading. This time there was no music as I had leant my portable CD player to my sister. It was a bit disappointing not having music, to drown out all the meaningless, dull, moronic conversations going on in the background. Somehow my patience prevailed. It always does… when I’m sober. Then again, I was three-quarters of the way into Hollywood and there was nothing that could sidetrack me now.



I hadn’t caught the train in to the city in the morning for quite some time, so I allowed myself plenty of time… just in case. I didn’t want to be late to my first job interview in over two years. I ended up arriving 45 minutes early. I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet so I dropped in to a 7-11 on the way and picked up a sandwich and chocolate milk carton. I walked around the corner and sat down on the ledge of a plant encasement, in one of those cheap inner city car parks, and ate my breakfast. The cheapness radiated through the many months of rubbish that had been dumped and forgotten within the encasements. I wondered if cleaners had been cut from their budget a long, long time ago. Lucky I still had plenty of the book left to read, to take my mind off the smelly surroundings.



The building entrance was thin and almost insignificant to the bulkiness of the surrounding city. There were only three floors yet there was an elevator. I thought of the many apartments my sisters had got me to help them move into over the years, all three floors or more, but never an elevator. It was a useless slap in the face. The company was located on the first floor so my initial instinct was to take the stairs, but after taking a quick look around the first flight and seeing only more stairs I decided to slide down and opt for the elevator.



I was apparently first to arrive. There were many more to come. The breakfast at the cheap and smelly parking lot had done little to delay my early arrival. I eat too fast. I have always been told this. Strangely, the current meal was the first one in my life where it actually made any sort of difference to the state of things. Never mind. I liked that I was the first there. It showed enthusiasm.



After waiting and reading for twenty minutes, I was called in to the manager’s office. I still can’t remember his name. I will never forget his face. It was full of panic, enthusiasm, fear and motivation. A combination I had only ever experienced in coke or speed heads. Maybe he was both... and/or more? We made some chit chat and I discovered he had a twelve-month old boy named Douglas. There was a lot of dribble on his behalf about “revolutionary marketing methods” and “expansion” and “good future” etc. I just sat there with a dignified look and nodded, everything going in one ear and straight out the other. I was more interested in him, not his company or what they did. I wanted to study his body language. Was he on drugs? Was he mad? Had he just spent too many years as a door-to-door sales rep selling useless products? Nevertheless, he was impressed with my false interest (with most sales people you just nod and they think they have you “dazzled”) and invited me to come in the next day for a full day of “you getting to know us and what we do, and for us to get to know you as well”. I thought that the next day I would just have to sit some aptitude test and have them explain this “revolutionary” marketing strategy. I was wrong. I should have asked for more details while I was there…. Let this be a lesson.



*     *     *



The following day I arrived early again. This allowed me to go grab a coffee from one of the cafés I had staked out the day before. The door to the building was locked and seeing it was only 8:40am I decided to wait across the lane way and drink my coffee. First one guy arrived... then a girl. Both successfully got in via the intercom, so I decided to join them. More comfortable waiting on a couch than on concrete stairs.



As I waited on the couch, reading Hollywood, more and more applicants started pouring in from the elevator and stairs. There were about nine in total. In the background, coming from the meeting room, I heard jeers and applause. The kind you only hear from a group of hyped up, brainwashed young sales reps. I think the manager was going through the previous months sales figures and telling his current crew how fantastic they were and what a great job they’d done and that now they’re going to expand the business here and there and bla bla bla… It was quite sickening, but I was so close to the end of the book I blocked out everything going on around me. I finished it.



One by one the sales reps came out from the meeting room and the manager called out a name or two from the applicants.

“Dave and John? This is Grant, he’ll be showing you guys around today, teaching you what we do and how it all works. You’ll have a great day with him.” With a wink he waved them goodbye and called up the next pairing.



I was called up in the last group and for some reason they put three of us together with the last sales rep. We were the dregs.



The sales rep they paired us with was named Ross and was madder, more on the edge looking, than the manager himself. He was a little taller than myself, thin, bald and had a long crooked nose with flaring nostrils. He had a paintball cap that he kept putting on and taking off his head. Speckles of spit squirted out in random directions when he spoke. I immediately thought he was on coke. He spoke constantly and it was almost impossible to get a word in unless he asked you a question that he genuinely wanted a reply to.



We all walked down the stairs together and around the corner, where Ross started to jott down some details about us. On the way I learned the other two guys with me were Mick from New Zealand, and Stuart from Geelong. Mick was a young good-looking guy who’d had enough of bullshit sales jobs. He was looking for a job he could earn enough money to pay for his airfare home in March (which he’d already booked). Stuart was a taller, plump and goofy looking guy who’d just quit another bullshit sales job with a charity firm. He said he was sick of busting his ass for peanuts.



One by one our job histories, previous salaries, reasons for leaving etc. were noted down on pre-printed questionnaire sheets. Still, at this point, none of us had any idea about what this job entailed or what we were doing standing on the city sidewalk disclosing personal information to a seeming lunatic.

“Ok, all done then?” Ross looked over to a female co-worker who was doing the same drill with another applicant, a few metres away.

“Sure, let’s go!” she said, and before anybody could ask any more questions we were headed towards Flinders St station. Apparently we were all heading out on the same train line.



The entire walk to the station was comprised of Ross’s reminiscing of paint ball stories. We were being “dazzled” I think. He showed us the package that they were “marketing”. It was pretty good. A sheet of 10 admission tickets to play paintball, including body protection, gun hire and a BBQ lunch, all for $80... that worked out to be $8 per person. Fuck, I thought. I had paid $70 for the same deal about 18 months earlier. “These things should literally sell themselves”, said Stuart, his face was full of excitement and promise.



It was only on the train that it became apparent what we were doing. Ross started blabbering on about “funny” sales stories, how he had evaded security in office buildings and let himself in through restricted floors. He went on and on... what’s so fucking “funny”? I thought, but kept a stiff fake smile to be polite. Ross was so excited telling these stories that I felt a complimentary smile was the right thing to do. You kinda sensed that his feelings would be hurt if you didn’t. On the inside I let out a massive sigh. These guys were just space-intruding door-to-door sales reps and our little trip out to Eltham wasn’t anything more than three unemployed guys tagging along with this madman on his daily ritual of harassing shops and industrial areas with his “virtually free” offer.



The train ride was long, all the way to the end of the line, and after he ran out of “funny” sales stories Ross embarked on a painfully long stint of doing “The 12th man” impersonations. Stuart seemed genuinely amused and joined in with his own attempts. I was pinned between these guys but Mick had escaped and was chatting with the girls in the seats across from us. I wished I were sitting with them. I rarely spoke, just keeping my fake smile set in concrete, nodding here and there and put up with endless renditions of Ritchie Benaud lines. Ross’s random spit speckles were much more translucent, as the sunrays penetrating the trains large windows struck them. One particularly large one landed on his slack covered thigh. He quickly noticed it and wiped it off in a swift and practiced action, showing no sign of embarrassment. I sensed this kind of display had become second nature to him, like how some people don’t care about picking their noses in public.



We finally reached the end of the line, got off the train and followed Ross like a bunch of lemmings. He took us through “the back way”, apparently a “short cut” he had already staked out in a previous visit of this particular neighbourhood. He was still ranting on and on like Billy Birmingham’s apprentice... I told him on the train what Billy once said in an acceptance speech at the Australian Music Awards. He took out the top spot in the “top selling album” of the year award and pointed out that “there really is something going wrong with the Australian music industry” when a spoken word comedian tops the bill. Ross just grinned madly and nodded, “Yeah... he’s a fuckin’ legend!”

I’m still not convinced he truly grasped what I was trying to say.



As we walked past the back of the Eltham Senior Citizen Club, Ross said, amidst the 12th man impersonations and egocentric dribble, “... and yeah I might get you to tuck that shirt in. You know, to look more respectable.”  What the fuck? It was 30+ degrees Celsius... I was wearing slacks and a long sleeve shirt, and now this psycho wanted me to tuck my shirt in? For what? To sell fucking paintball tickets in an industrial estate of outer Melbourne? This was the instance when I totally lost confidence in him. Not wanting to cause any fuss, I complied with his pointless wish and proceeded to tuck my shirt in. He seemed pleased that his authority had been acknowledged and returned to being a jackass.



“Hmm... I think it’s over here... No wait! This way... I think?”

Ross was leading us across a football field and seemed to have few clues as to where we were heading.

“I know there’s a bridge here somewhere!”

A creek had to be crossed yet there was no visible way across it, except going back to the main road and using the main bridge.

“Over here!” I yelled, having spotted a footbridge a little further down stream.

I felt an overwhelming urge to defect. Had this moron been my commander in a hostile war scenario I surely would have defected. Tuck my shirt in? Doubts began to creep in as to what this guy was supposed to be... a brilliant salesman? Maybe he was... maybe I was just as far away from the required persona as you could get. I knew there and then I wasn’t going to do what he did. Still, I followed and kept up a positive attitude.

“Gee, that looks good...” Mick was commenting on the atrocious state of the creek water as we passed over the footbridge.

“Looks like dirty dish water” I added.

“What was that?” Ross snapped, almost cutting in. “Looks like dirty dish water? Yeah it does...” He spoke faster than any speed freak I’d ever met. He was grinning madly.

I had to shut my eyes and imagine I wasn’t there to remove his image from my mind.



*     *     *



With a combination of patience and tolerance, I endured this spectacle long enough for us to reach our first victims. It was some sort of a specialist industrial factory/shop. I think they manufactured or distributed custom-made parts for the highly lucrative industrial-sized ball-bearing market.

When we walked through the doors it felt like we were the first living customers that had done so, for a very long time indeed. It felt like I was John Wayne, walking into a ghost town saloon, with a cavalcade of dumbass collaborators. The mezzanine was literally bare save for a water dispenser in the corner.

“Yes, can I help you?” asked the clerk/secretary/administrator/office gopher (these types of businesses always employ multi-skilled office workers as the first point of contact for the outside world).  

“Umm... yes... umm... we’re actually from ‘Paintball’, you know...” at this point Ross raised both his arms and cocked them back, as if he was shooting a rifle, putting on a charade to “dazzle” his victims, pretending to pull an imaginary trigger a couple of times whilst still keeping one eyeball looking straight into his victim’s eyes, then lowering his arms into a more comforting and welcoming gesture, “... the shooting game?”. I sensed that I was witnessing a well-rehearsed act, and I learned later, yet again, that my presumptions were correct.

Ross went on and on, explaining the details and “savings”, as if he was an angel sent from the consumer gods. I stood still, silently watching his unashamed rituals unfold, thinking of how much this man repulsed me. He was relentless.



We moved from one bad target to another, some which even seemed ludicrous to even bother approaching, yet Ross insisted on knocking on every fucking door, of every fucking business. With each new visit, the arm-cocking-trigger-pulling act became more and more apparent for its practiced nature. This guy must actually have gone home each night, and practiced it in front of the mirror! I somewhat felt like a participant of Taxi Driver yet maintained enough poise to wilfully continue this degrading journey with our insane “trainer”.



At each instance where Ross thought he had some tickets sold, but the intended buyer suddenly pulled out and declined the “virtually free offer”, he became notably agitated. It was as if some kid in primary school had just called him “Gonzo” for his big nose... It was extremely painful to watch him, pathetically trying to win an already lost deal. Is this what it takes to be a salesman?  

“Umm... this is just a very slow day, okay guys?”, Ross was becoming defensive with each failed venture, “I mean, last week this guy bought 20 tickets off me! Can you imagine that? I mean, every day? It can be done you know!”. I was now ready to go home. We’d been walking for several hours in the hot sun. A lunatic leading the way, and every step was becoming another nail in the coffin of this hopeful dream.



At about the sixth or seventh factory, where we had to endure yet another of Ross’s undignified sales pitch façades, Mick and I retreated to a park bench outside. We took one glance at each other and knew exactly what was the other’s mind.

“This is fucking bullshit!” Mick remarked.



“Yeah, tell me ‘bout it” I nodded sympathetically.



“I mean, I was led to believe this was going to be different! I fucking told ‘em in the interview I didn’t wanna do any more of this bullshit door-to-door commission shit!”. I could tell Mick was a seasoned campaigner in this field, and that he was honest in his attempts to escape it.



“Yeah... I know... not exactly what I had in mind either.” Somebody was speaking my language, so I spoke back.



“I mean, after the next fucking factory visit I’m fucking off ‘n’ goin’ home!” Mick had made his decision.



I only felt sympathy, and to concur his desires by acknowledging “I’m with ya mate!”



*     *     *



We kept our planned mutiny a secret between ourselves and unlike Mick’s promised decision, we decided to stick it out until we stopped for lunch and had a bite to eat. There’s nothing worse than having to wait for public transport on an empty stomach, especially with the knowledge that the trip itself would take over an hour. But our moods had suddenly changed, being uplifted by the anticipation of telling this Ross guy to stick this unnecessary and degrading excuse of an occupation up his arse!



After giving off a few subtle hints that we were “starving”, we had Ross convinced to break for lunch, but as soon as we’d “finish this street”. He said there was a Red Rooster in the vicinity. This was just about the only option we had since we’d unanimously ruled out McDonalds. Only thing was “this street” dragged on for quite some time, especially after Ross had hooked a potential major haul.



It was in some sort of tool factory where Ross spent some considerable time with ‘the one that got away’. A young guy working near the reception, after witnessing Ross’s choreographed sales pitch, approached us and said “Hey wait here, I know a guy who wants to organise something like this for his buck’s party weekend... he works out the back... I’ll just go and get him.” I’m about to get married... what would be the last thing I’d like to do as a bachelor? Run around in the bush, shooting fake bullets filled with ink at my mates? Who are these fucking rednecks?



“You fuckin’ beauty!” Ross exclaimed under his breath, but with enough emphasis so his ‘team’ could share this sudden endorphin boost. He even uttered it from the corner of his mouth whilst giving us the ‘nudge nudge, say no more’ wink, “You’re about to see why I’m in this game boys”.



It was painful to watch. To see Ross come so close, only to walk out empty handed in the end. Apparently, one of the groom’s mates had secretly planned a ‘paintball’ weekend and had already booked and paid for most of it. It was appeasing to see that the redneck groom had been fully engrossed with Ross’s ‘virtually free’ offer, seeing the fate of his buck’s weekend was no longer a secret. This information, however, only surfaced after Ross thought he had sold forty tickets, for a $320 commission. The added red glow to his face made me realise a new dimension to his character, as if he was an actor who’d just discovered a new range in his abilities.



At the next stop we bumped into another door-to-door sales person, working in the opposite direction. It was a cute little Asian girl who I guessed could not have been older than fifteen or sixteen. She was carrying a very large sports bag, the kind that professional tennis players use to carry their hoard of overpriced equipment.



“So.. whatcha sellin’?” Ross snapped, eager to find out if this girl posed any territorial threat to his own sales pursuits.



“Oh you know... cool gadgets and stuff...” she answered, taking no notice of the hostile tone in Ross’s voice. She seemed extremely cheerful and happy, like on a huge natural high. Now this, this is the kind of person perfect for this job. She probably hasn’t sold a fucking thing all day. She’s just happy that her parents are finally off her back about ‘getting out there’. She pulled out a few items to show us and perhaps, if any of us were ‘interested’, to offload some. They were all the kind of useless electrical gadgets you find in those budget stores that sell surplus stock. After telling us what the prices for each item were, I made a mental calculation and suddenly realised that even with such a large bag, there was only sufficient room in it to carry a maximum of about $80 in commission. And that’s provided she sold all of the items. It looked like she was having an equally slow day.



“Oh yeah?” sneered Ross, “You work for Eagle Promotions don’tcha?” The girl nodded.

“Yeah, fucken knew it!” Then, slowing down his verbal pace and raising his eyebrows, the ‘nudge nudge, say no more’ persona took over as he began to ‘dazzle’ this girl.

“I used to work for ‘em a while back ya know... bastards, pay you nuthin’ but peanuts for a shit loada work” he triumphantly remarked.

“Yea I knoooow!” the girl replied with a goofy smile. She didn’t seem to mind, as if she was just performing an inevitable chore. I loved this quality about her, in spite of its innate stupidity.

“Well...” Ross gave her a matter-of-fact look and put one hand on her shoulder as he pulled out his ‘business’ card from his shirt pocket with the other, “...if ya ever feel like makin’ some real money, give us a call and I’ll hook you up no worries!” Nudge nudge, say no more.    

It was now almost two o’ clock in the afternoon and Ross had sold two tickets during the entire day, for a commission of $16.



*     *     *



We finally reached the ‘end of the street’ and broke for lunch. Stuart, who had been relatively quiet all day – either that or I just wasn’t registering what he was saying; he mostly spoke to Ross whilst Mick and I talked amongst ourselves – now became visibly excited and raised his voice a couple of notches on the decibel scale, as we headed towards Red Rooster. The sweat beads trickling down his forehead were a testament to the extra load he had been carrying around all day. I estimated him to be between 110-120 kilograms. He sure needed a rest.



What we had envisioned to be a welcome diversion from Ross’s sales spectacles quickly deteriorated into another test of our tolerance levels, as Ross picked up from where he left off with this morning’s 12th man impersonations. No, not this again... fuck! Thankfully Ross’s random mind changed topics on itself and mentioned that he was a guitar player. Being one myself I could relate and jumped in to expand the discussion, forever killing any chance of him returning his focus back onto his love of cliché parody.



“Is that one of those new Strip Subs?” Ross was goggling my lunch with his wild bulging eyes. I nodded. “Any good?”

“A bit bland actually... still... not bad value for money I guess” I replied.

“You shoulda got the ¼  chicken’n’chips combo... I got the ¼ chicken’n’chips combo... can’t beat it... bet you’re spewin’ now eh... eh?” he winked. Nudge nudge, say no more.

How much more of this do I have to endure? Stay calm... as soon as Ross picks his next failed sales venture we’re giving him the ’thanks, but no thanks’ routine and fucking off home. Relax... think about how you’re going to beat the rush-hour crowds home.



The final factory Mick and myself tagged along to was a panel beater of ‘classic’ cars. Mick and myself were chatting at a safe distance from Ross and Stuart and decided this was the right time to defect. Just as we approached Ross to let him know we were no longer interested in this kind of ‘occupation’, a large, bulky and bearded mechanic stepped out from the garage and approached us.

“Yeah fella’s, how can I help ya?” he asked, in a coarse and meaty voice.

Shit! Oh well... we’ll just endure one more of his rehearsed monologues and then we’ll tell him. It would be too cruel to piss off in front of a customer. He might be a jerk, but he’s only made $16 for the entire day... poverty isn’t a crime.



After listening to the ‘virtually free’ offer, the bearded bloke assured Ross he wasn’t interested, but reluctantly called out for his coworkers to come over at Ross’s relentless insistence. (“C’mon mate! This is a panel beater’s! There must be somebody here interested!” What are you saying? Anybody who works in the auto industry is a gun-toting redneck?)

We tried to intervene in between each successive rejection, to deliver our intentions, but it was impossible to interrupt Ross’s motor mouth.



When Ross was finally convinced that there were no more employees hiding out in the back of the garage, and that this panel beater was now clearly a lost cause, we approached him with our further demoralising news.

“Umm... Ross... can we have a quick word with ya?” I asked.

“Yeah sure...” he looked puzzled, “what’s up?”

“Well... we umm... it’s just that... well... look, this just isn’t what we were looking for. We’ve seen enough and we might just head back to the office and let the manager know we aint interested.” A sudden rush of blood filled the capillaries in Ross’s face. He became very agitated and defensive.

“What? You don’t think these are a good deal?” he pointed to the paintball tickets. “You... you think I’m an idiot or something...? You think I don’t make any money doing this...? Is that it? You think I’m a chump huh?” we had apparently insulted him.

“What about you then huh?” Ross glared at Stuart, “you think you’re too good for this job as well? Well... are ya? Huh?”

“Nah, nah mate” Stuart looked ashamed on our behalf, looking at his feet when he spoke. “I’m with ya all the way man.”

Ross returned his menacing stare back to Mick and I, looking us up and down in disgust, as if waiting for us to beg for mercy for our treacherous act.

“No, no, it’s not that... nothing personal mate” I offered,  “...we just don’t think we’re the right people for this job. We didn’t realise it was door-to-door sales and we just don’t think we have what it takes.” My seeming sincerity had him mollified. First law of pacifying your superiors is to make them feel as if they are just that; superior.

“Well... ok then... go on then... it’s your loss!” he made a shooing gesture.

“No worries...” Mick took over, “thanks for your time... we’ll drop in at the office when we get back to the city, and let them know we aren’t interested... ok, catch you guys later” he said, and we both turned away to gather our bearings in relation to the train station.



We both laughed, as we crossed the street, noting the synchronicity we had in liberating our tucked shirts from their uncomfortable confinement.

“Fucking thirty degree day and sunshine! And he expects us to walk around all day looking like office jerks...” Mick was speaking my exact thoughts, “I mean, c’mon, we were selling discount paintball tickets for fuck’s sake!”



The trip back to the city was relatively pleasurable, as I found Mick to be a decent conversationalist. We spoke of the price difference of recreational drugs, comparing ‘his’ New Zealand prices with ‘my’ Aussie ones. Even after making mental currency conversion estimations in our heads, we came to the conclusion that Australia was much cheaper. We perved at the teen girls in tight, short mini-skirts getting on our carriage at every stop. School had just finished for the day. We exchanged phone numbers, for he was eager to sample some acid at Aussie prices – which he had yet to do since arriving in Australia, blaming it on not having had time to establish any decent drug connections.



Once back at the office, we left our message with the receptionist, as the manager wouldn’t be back until five o’ clock. I bet he’s out and about, selling door-to-door like the rest of ‘em. She didn’t seem the least bit surprised; she must have been used to it.



We exited the building together and walked down to Elizabeth St, where we shook hands and went our separate ways. “Give us a call eh?” Mick said, as he walked backwards, making the hand-phone gesture. “Will do mate, catch ya later!” I replied with a quick wave. I never spoke to him again.



I headed back to Melbourne Central Station, finding my way down to the second level that serviced the Lilydale/Belgrave train line. Waiting on the platform for my train to arrive I wondered if Ross ever improved on his $16 day. Still... that was $16 more than I made that day.