Saturday, June 13, 2009

Confessions of an Ex-Fish Monger

Good evening all.

Today, I write to internet land to inform those reading that I have found a new job. 

Hoooorrrraaaaayyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!

However, first - some confessions:

a) Whom ever it was who said that people are inherently evil, must have absolutely worked in customer service for a large portion of their life. Customers in the food industry are some of the most evil people I have ever, EVER met. 

b) When it comes to food - "The news is like sand - people like to bury their heads in it." :

Fact - farmed fish is good for you. It is not this evil blob of poison that will kill you, or, harm you in any way for that matter. I have spent the better part of the last year eating farmed fish from around the world, and not only am I in good health, I am in even better health than I was before I started the job. Also - Fact - farmed fish from asia is GOOD FOR YOU!!!!! Get your heads out of the sand and realize that a shrimp is a shrimp - whether it was wild caught in sewage pipes in the gulf coast, or farmed on the coast of vietnam - a shrimp is a shrimp!!!

c) When people wanted me to break a hundred dollar bill first thing in the morning, it was everything I could do to refrain from insulting their intelligence. 

d) I just about hit a stupid, obnoxious customer.

e) I loved my discount

f) The first thing you see when you walk into the store is cookies, and jam. I must admit - this is quite off-putting when trying to buy fish. I'm not saying "stop selling the cookies and the jam", but they do need to be moved. 

g) Most customers are really stupid

h) My boss perpetually insulted my intelligence out loud, in front of co-workers, and customers.

i) Alex is better at cutting salmon - this I will admit. But I was better at cutting halibut.

j) I loved it when friends and family came to visit. Thanks Guys!!!

k) If you are trying to start a job in the film industry, I do not recommend a job at the fish store.

l) Fish only smells gross if you don't work with it 8 hours a day

m) Working at the store opened my mind to a whole world of culinary genius that I never even dreamed possible


I could go on, however I have other places to go tonight, so I shall leave it at that.

If however, you are ever finding yourself in the position of considering a job as a fish monger, please - consider the following:

1) Do you have NO inhibitions?
2) Do you like the smell of fish?!
3) When you say "Fish" do you say it with a Borat accent?
4) Do you like regurgitating facts?
5) Consider all the inhibitions that you chose to forget about in question one
6) Do you enjoy working with raw animal products?
7) Do you like buying meat pies from Bon Ton down the street every lunch hour?

If you answered no to any of these, the job is probably best left for others.

While this note may seem to portray that I hated my job, and my life in general for the last 380 days - this is not the case. I just chose to highlight the funny bits that made me really mad at the time for effect. 

All in all, it has been an excellent experience working for Billingsgate, meeting all the staff, working with a new culinary medium, and ultimately, learning many life skills at the same time. I really liked learning things, and I really liked meeting some customers. 

I hope one day, should I ever choose to get married, that I shall marry a girl like my favorite customer Kathy. Kathy is amazing - always smiling, happy, talkative, interesting, interested in what I have to say, ya know... 

I would like to wish the company the best of luck in the future, and say a sincere thank you to all the staff that I worked with over my 380 days for putting up with me, especially in the last month, where I'm sure I was not very much fun to work with. 

And a huge thank you goes out to Bryan - a man many former employees consider to be fire-ey and angry - he's really just a friendly, kind hearted individual, but he is a "boss" so he needs to put on that short tempered thing every so often. Thank you for hiring me (despite the fact that I couldn't have even told you which end of a fish was which when I started), not firing me, hiring me back after I quit to go do Rogers Pass, and continuing to tolerate my existance until yesterday.


Unlike Courtney has lead many people to believe on my status thing - no, I did not get fired:

I am going to work on the third season of CBCs series "Heartland" as the new sound trainee. Pretty much - following the dream.



If there's one thing that this whole last year and a bit has taught me:



Ask and it is given. Always. 

No exception.


-Ryley