Workplace 26 - Atmospheric

If you’re day at work has never included paying for parking a km away from your work, bomb and bag checks on arrival and abuse in a range of languages then you've clearly never worked in a café at Brisbane Airport.

Let’s go thru the average day:

Leave home – the trip can take anywhere from 15mins to an hr depending on the day of the week.

Arrive at the Staff Parking Area – the carpark requires a security pass to enter and is the furthest away from the airport

Spend ten minutes walking to work.

By now I was usually late, and hot and sweaty from the walk. This ensured that I was picked for the bomb check after I’d waited in the lines for my handbag and shoes to be checked.

Arrive at work, starting set out food and warming up the coffee machine. Deal with the breakfast rush of people, every single one of whom complains loudly about the price. Smile and don’t stab anyone.

This continues for about ten hours, incorporating lunch and dinner.

Walk back to your car, hoping someone else gets there at a similar time because you left the swipe card in your car. Again. Sit outside the gates, contemplating climbing the fence until someone else arrives.

Drive home, hoping peak hour is gone.

It’s a riot. The pay is, like the casino, a bit over average to make up for the inconveniences and the staff turnover, like the casino, is a bit over average because of the inconveniences.

Days off are completely banned over any holidays or weekends, if you’re rostered on – you are on. No exceptions. The group that runs the café owns about half a dozen food/drink outlets throughout the café so you could be rostered on at any of them. Some of the venues were bars and service started when the first flight left, about 7am. Getting people drunk at 8 in the morning was a bit unusual but you get used to it.

The most memorable thing about my time there were the other staff. There was one lady who was a compulsive liar and every shift came in with a fantastic new story of things that she’d done or had happened to her. It made for interesting listening at first but rapidly grew very annoying. No conversation could occur without her topping the topic in fairly unbelievable ways.

Another coworker used to turn up drunk, every morning. I once commented on how maybe drinking a six pack on his morning commute as breakfast wasn’t the best life choice and was absolutely slammed by another employee, defending him as I had ‘no idea what he was going thru’. I stand by my criticism.

 

I didn’t work too long here, maybe a month or two. My downfall at this position came when I applied for a weekend night off to go to a concert I had tickets to and they said no – it’s a weekend ofcourse not. So the next shift I brought in all my uniforms and a spare set of clothes and at the end of the shift when the boss said “See you Saturday afternoon” I said “Here’s my uniforms, I’ll drop my swipe card off later. Bye!” Honestly one of my favourite quits ever.

If you thrive on conflict and love having people yell at you about things like meal size, international exchange rates and Amex transaction fees then this is definitely your favourite job ever. 

If you would like to not be on the fast train to hating everyone, maybe don’t go for this one.