You can put your weed in there

by AC

Working as a sales assistant at a Smiggle kiosk I serve a lot of customers, and almost every day I work I get at least one odd customer.

 

One day when I was alone, I had this very intoxicated man stumble into the kiosk. From the look in his bloodshot eyes and the way he was moving and talking I was pretty sure he was on drugs and not drunk as I had first assumed.

 

He was carrying a backpack (probably full of drugs), was covered in tattoos, including two tear drops under an eye and kept leaning into my personal space.

 

My town was finally living up to its bad reputation and I wondered if I should start to worry about when I have to work by myself. The worst part about this guy was that he hadn’t just been attracted to the bright colours; he had intentionally come into the store.

 

He started asking me about our Booksafes, which are safes disguised as books. I showed him our current range and he said he would come back to get one. He then asked if we had some kind of iPhone cover and realising we didn’t he left, making sure I understood that he was going to check JB Hifi.

 

After he was gone, all I could wonder was if he had wanted to hide his drugs in the Booksafe and I wished I had quoted Adam Sandler in The Hot Chick saying, ‘you can put yourweed in there’ to him.

 

If you think you would enjoy a little thrill of danger in your work life, then a sales assistant job is for you.

We think it was a Chocolate Bar: Part two

by AC

I once came a across a mound of dirt, just sitting on our safety mat on the floor. I could not fathom where it could have come from, it was hilarious. I had to take a moment to stare at it before I cleaned it up with a brush and shovel.

 

I later had a fellow Smiggler explain to me that it must have been from the shopping centre’s holiday planting activity, which had been set up for children not too far from the kiosk.

 

Another time I was walking around dusting and straightening products when I happened upon a cigarette butt sitting on a shelf. I had no idea how it got there or why but it went straight into the bin.

 

The most exciting mess I ever discovered was on the floor between our kiosk and a Priceline store. I was with another Smiggler and we were fascinated by this thing on the ground that looked like it should have been in a toilet.

 

Picture this flattened

 

We enthusiastically discussed what it could be, while watching as it was trampled by a stampede of shoppers. We finally settled on a chocolate bar when my fellow Smiggler suggested it looked like a flattened Cadbury Flake. We then called the cleaners who came and made it disappear.

 

If you would like to find interesting messes at work, get a job at a kiosk in a shopping centre.

Boost battle Beauty

by AC

I am unfortunate enough to have a job at a Smiggle kiosk that has been placed right next to a Boost Juice kiosk.

 

Boost Juice workers love to lure their customers with loud music (or maybe they’re just trying to drown out the incessant grinding of multiple blenders and the sound of them thumping juice out of containers and into their customer’s cups.)

 

Whatever the reason, I am subjected to a constant heavy bass drone that has me asking customers to repeat themselves and covering an ear so I can hear what people are saying to me over the phone. It’s enough to drive a poor Smiggler mad.

 

 

 

VS

 

 

 

 

I thought this was as bad as it could get, until one day at work I heard this horrible jumble of songs, as if Boost Juice was playing music from two different places. I wondered if the second source of music could be coming from the My Beauty Spot kiosk that had recently appeared on the other side of Boost Juice.

 

My manager confirmed this when she described her conversation with Boost’s manager to me. Apparently the two kiosks are competing with the volume of their music.

 

I understand that the businesses want to attract customers to their store and not lose them to the one next door with the louder music, but there’s no need for this battle of beats.

 

If you want to be able to hear yourself think at work, DO NOT get a job close to a Boost Juice bar or My Beauty Spot store.

We think it was a Chocolate Bar: Part one

by AC

When you work at a Smiggle kiosk in the middle of a shopping centre and right beside a food court, with a Muffin Break on one side and a Boost Juice kiosk on the other, you have to expect it to get messy.

 

With customers constantly bringing in food and drinks and passersby too lazy and inconsiderate to find a bin, you can imagine some of the things we have found.

 

We get heaps of Gold Buyers’ flyers and scrunched up food wrappers lying on our shelves, rubbish from Donut King and Wendys left on the top of the kiosk and we are forever finding Boost Juice cups throughout the store. I even found chewing gum stuck to our Smiggle display glass once (we like to draw and write on this with our Liquid Chalk.)

 

 

With children handling ice creams and drinks we also get a lot of spills. I had to call the cleaners once when a girl’s ice cream had fallen from her cone onto the floor in front of our gift pack wall and my manager had to call them another time when a girl had thrown a milkshake at her brother.

 

To find out about some of the weirder messes I’ve found at work, continue on to: We think it was a Chocolate Bar: Part two...

Top 5 Most Popular Smiggle Products for Boys

by AC

I work at Smiggle, a funky stationery brand that caters to children of all ages. Recently, I have noticed a lot of customers asking what they can get for boys. We do get a lot more female than male customers, but boys are just as enthusiastic about Smiggle products as girls.
To help Smiggle customers who are unsure of what to get for a boy, I have constructed this list, counting down 5 to 1, the top 5 most popular Smiggle products for boys.


NO. 5

No. 5 - Pop out Pencil Case
The Pop out Pencil Case is a top seller and a favourite with all school children. It comes with a built in compass and has two buttons, one which opens the built in sharpener and the other that pops up a plastic pencil holder.

NO. 4

No. 4 – Hardtop Pencil Case (medium)
The medium Hardtop Pencil Case has been a top seller the entire time I have worked at Smiggle. There are a few different styles and designs; the bubble, bubble with coloured zip, moonscape and spots. These pencil cases have loads of space, pen and pencil holders and mesh pockets.

NO. 3

No 3. Slapbands
We have lot of customers come in just to buy Slapbands. Customers can accessorise with our large range of different colours and styles (we even have spiky and glow in the dark Slapbands).

NO. 2

No 2. Electric Eraser
We have had lots of boys coming in store specifically to buy Electric Erasers; I think they’ve become somewhat of a fad in primary schools. They work with a light touch to paper and are very handy for erasing mistakes quickly.

NO.1

No 1. Snake Puzzle

The Snake Puzzle is one of our top sellers and one of my personal favourite products. I cannot tell you how many quiet hours at work I have spent making balls, dogs and pythons out of a Snake Puzzle. I can remember a time when the Snake Puzzle was out of stock and we had boys, girls and parents regularly coming in to check if we had received any. You can mould the Snake Puzzle into loads of different shapes.

Pictures from Smiggle

Backyard Chickens

Chickens have been a regular fixture in our backyard for about 9 years now, and have provided us with many, many lovely fresh eggs. But it has only been recently that we have looked at their food producing capacity in a different light.

The first step was to procure a roster, which wasn’t too hard – our next door neighbour sourced one for us and popped it over the fence. One minute we had three chooks, the next, we had four, just like that.

He was really only a teenager and he hadn’t started crowing yet, but after a few months he found his voice and figured out what he was supposed to be doing. We thought we would wait until one of the hens went broody and decided to sit on some eggs, but in the end, we were way too impatient and set up the incubator.

Into the incubator went six eggs, two from each hen. After seven days we candled the eggs to see which ones were fertile and had developing embryos. Two were definitely developing, one we weren’t sure about because the shell was so thick it was hard to see through, and the other three looked like they were not happening.

Courtesy of Rachel Gay

At the ten day mark, we candled again. We decided to get rid of the three that weren’t showing any signs, and keep the other three.  We could see the embryos moving around in the two we were sure about, which was kind of freaky!

On the 19^th day, they started peeping. We could hear them through the shell and the incubator. Then, they started to pip, which is when they start breaking through the shell. It can take up to 24 hours from this stage for them to hatch out.

Day 20, one day early, two little soggy black chicks broke free from their shells. The third chick, in the shell that was so thick we couldn’t see through it properly, was the first one to pip, but was really struggling to get out of the shell. 24 hours after the first crack, we decided we had to help. You should only help if the chick really cannot get out on its own, otherwise you could hurt it.

We gently peeled back small sections of shell using tweezers and keeping the membrane damp using wet paper towels. After we had removed a section of shell, the chick was able to get a leg out, and from there it was able to do the rest by itself.

Now we have three little fluff balls that are getting bigger and more inquisitive every day! There are eight more eggs in the incubator, and we are looking forward to tucking into the first roast chook that has grown up in our backyard!

 If you are interested in having your own backyard chooks for eggs, meat or both, there is some great information at  Backyard Poultry, and there are many local groups that you can find by searching on Facebook. 

By EB