Concealer by Hugh Cron Warning – Adult Content.

Miss Shaw, please take a seat. I’m Bill Nixon…So you’ve filled in your new claim and you’ve stated that you walked out of your last employment. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“You do realise that you may be sanctioned and won’t receive any benefit?”

“I know.”

“Well in your own words, could you tell me what happened.”

She took a sip from her water bottle, “Well you see I was in a very bad mood so I was glad that we were supposed to mix and they had put us all at different tables. There was no way that I wanted to sit with those absolute cows that I worked with.

I’m not like them, I don’t bleed the fucking make-up and I don’t come in my pants when I see a new lipstick.”

“Please Miss Shaw, watch your language.”

“Sorry! I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, let me start at the beginning.”

“I think that would be best Miss Shaw.”

“Please call me Laura.

He nodded, “In your own time Laura.”

“For the last year I’ve been working in the department store in the High Street. My job is to sell make-up and for me to sell make-up, apparently I have to look like all the other daft bitches that work there. I do just enough to get by. I draw the line at applying foundation with a trowel, having magic marker eyebrows and extending my hair. I don’t do that at all, in fact the only hair dressing I do is reducing when I need a wax…Sorry!”

“Go on.”

I’m nothing like them. I don’t live on dust and dehydrated water or brown nose the management. I’m a bit fragile every Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning. Sometimes on a Wednesday as well. And I get bloated every month. Those straight lined vertical fuckers don’t. They couldn’t afford to loose any blood, they’d fucking pass out. The thought of their bodies retaining anything would have them in therapy with PTSD.

I may be generalising here, but I reckon that I’m normal, and they are cunts.”

“Laura please. Will I need to call security?”

She stared at him, “To be brutally honest Bill, probably if you take offence at my language. I’m sorry but I’m nervous and very fucked off…Sorry…Annoyed.”

He tried to hide his smile, “Go on I’ll edit out the swear words.”

“Thanks…Bill!”

“Where was I…Oh I remember…They would stab you for a sale and shag anyone if there was a chance of a promotion or even a tenner voucher for being employee of the month. They do have morals though, none of them would go down on anyone, they would be terrified of the calories.”

He shook his head and signed for her to continue.

“Sorry! A tenner, I might add, wouldn’t even buy you one of their Jojoba / Unicorn Placenta or whatever the fuck it is dipped in cotton buds. I wish the animal rights fuckers would bomb these bastards.”

He held up his hands, “Right Laura I’ve given you some leeway with your colourful language but you can’t be threatening to bomb people!”

“It’s just me spouting off. You may have realised that I’m not happy. The good thing about that job was it had encouraged me to look for my next one with some vigour. But you’ll know yourself there’s not much out there.”

He nodded, “It’s difficult, that’s why we need to do these. We collate information in case there are any problems with certain employers.”

“Really Bill? Is that what this is all about?”

His face flushed, “Go on.”

She took another drink of water.

“We had a team meeting one week where there was more fawning than Bambi from the staff as they heard that we were being asked, well forced, to go to a conference on make-up techniques. If it had been on my day off there was not a chance in hell that I’d have been there, but the way it worked out, I was on shift anyway so I couldn’t argue.

…Now back to the beginning when I said to you that they were making us mix and sit with other employees.”

He nodded, “I take it that was at the conference?”

“Yes! I was in a bad mood right away as my supervisor or as I call her ‘ArseBitch’, oh that’s not negotiable Bill, I refuse to refer to her as anything other than ArseBitch. Anyway she told me that I would be receiving a verbal warning as I hadn’t worn a neutral coloured watch from their ‘acceptable watch’ list. Fucking ‘acceptable watch’, have you ever heard so much shite?”

“Sometimes employers insist on a dress code.”

“It’s still shite! The one that I normally wore ran out and I grabbed the first one that was working. I had to wear a watch as having a mobile visible was a sacking offence. If one went off I think they took you outside and drowned you in their God awful perfume. There was no way that I could get through the day without seeing time move so I had to take the warning.”

“Was the warning given correctly?”

“It doesn’t matter as it escalated to a written one when ArseBitch demanded that I gave her my watch. I told her that it was my dead gran’s and there was no way that I was giving it to anyone. The warning escalated further to a final when she insisted and I advised her to ‘Fuck off’.”

“You may have a case there. Any discipliner escalation can’t be done that way.”

“Whatever you think Bill.”

“Was it your dead gran’s?”

“No. I bought it from a pound shop but she didn’t know that.”

She was impressed at the speed he was typing.

“Please, go on.”

“Well that was how I found myself at a table of eleven strangers who were as big a bunch of bitches as the ones that I worked with.

We had the meal and nine of them hid their lettuce leafs under a lettuce leaf and two ate very quickly but curiously this made them need to pee.

They all talked shop and I was ignored as usual. I must give out the ‘don’t talk to me’ vibe. Actually I reckon they thought I might eat them.

It came to the ‘Product That The Client Needs To Know About’ presentation. I have to think about the abbreviation but all those arseholes could rhyme off PT…TC..NTA or whatever the fuck it was. I mean, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue now does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. I think you missed out the K – No matter, you were saying?”

“We had the usual nonsense about the stuff and how it was the best ever. Then a mind numbing demonstration on skin type and how to match and apply for skin tone and of course, blend.

I wanted to cry.”

“So you were stressed out?”

“Well, you could call it that. I considered opening a vein rather than listening to any more but I gave myself a talking to and thought about the money. That really didn’t help much.”

“You felt undervalued?”

“God yes! Those other daft cows think it is a status symbol to work there. Me, I’d rather be paid.

So, we had a ten minute presentation on how well the company performed regarding work / home life ratio. I agree with that. The job was that shite that I was always delighted to go home. I welcomed being in my crap flat.”

“So we can put down that you felt undervalued.”

“Why not. Knock yourself out Bill!

Things got worse, it was time for the sycophants. There were two folks chosen to speak. One was a new girl who had only been with the firm for a couple of months. She stood up and spouted the usual love-in that you would expect from someone who was arse-licking themself towards management.

“You felt there was no way to progress in the company?”

“That’s sort of true, I would rather have shot myself. Anyway the next Fem-Bot started. This was one of those allegedly motivating stories.

She told how she’d been called out to an older lady’s house to apply her make up. She began to talk to her and ‘Marjorie’ was so grateful that she was there.

As she continued Marjorie became more and more thankful. Every brush stroke and new application was met with a barrel-load of thanks.

The Fem-Bot continued and she told us how she felt Marjorie’s emotion and she herself began to feel a little tearful.

The story continued with more thanks from Marjorie and even more emotion from both of them.

She made a little product joke that it was a good job that all the make-up was waterproof.

How the rest of audience laughed.

She built the emotion up to a crescendo. I looked around and all of them were dabbing at their eyes.

And she finished with:

‘Marjorie was looking and feeling beautiful and she said so. I was so happy she felt that way. I asked her to give me a hug, she moved towards me. It was only then that I realised… I pulled back and started weeping.

…As I wept, Marjorie told me that she couldn’t thank me enough. She told me that I was as beautiful as I’d made her feel. You see – Marjorie had never been able to do her own make-up as she had no arms.’

The whole audience got on their feet and gasped and sobbed and cried and cheered.

Daft cow should have done an advert for Specsavers!

I couldn’t put my jacket on for laughing.

I gave my boss the finger and left.”

Bill kept his head down as he continued to type.

“I’ve got the crux of that, you should get a decision within ten days and if there are no problems you will get your money five days after your signing on day, I’ve marked down the dates.”

“Do you think that they will sanction me?”

“It’s not my decision.”

“I won’t hold you to anything, I was just wondering what you think.”

He leaned forward, “If I wrote down what you said, you’d have no chance. I’ve fudged it a bit. We’ll leave it at that for now and hope for the best.”

She smiled at him, “Thanks for going out your way.”

“No bother. I respect your honesty. But maybe at any interviews you should keep that story to yourself.”

She stood up and shook his hand.

“Before you go Laura, any questions?”

“Thanks for that and thanks for the advice.

…Since I’m fucked for a reference, can I put you down on my CV?”

 

Hugh Cron

Image – Google Images

*This is based on a story that was told to me by Diane Conway. The Homeless Care Sector is a lesser place since this young lady left.