Carnie Life

08/09/2012

Today I got up at 7a and went to work with Ben. At 9a Chipper got us passes and showed us to our games. There we began to summon customers to pay $10 and throw a ball in a bucket. I went out, got their attention and offered them a free throw to lure them in. I did this all day and by 3p I was the last to get my break. At this point I was dehydrated and hungry but only had $3 for a water. After getting a bottle of water (since they don't take cards and they dont have water fountains) I went back to the games and worked until 6p. Then we packed up and talked to Chipper about getting my housemate Jenny a job at the EKKA. I mentioned how motivated she was to work at the EKKA so he gave me an extra pass for her.

08/10/2012

Today was a bit tougher than yesterday. We made more money but we had to work 13 hours... Ben and Jenny quit when we got back and I wish I could but then I won't get paid and tomorrow might actually be worth the trouble anyways since that's when people start to show up. The first day I brought in $150 and today $800 so my hopes are to bring in around $2000 each day this weekend since the crowd should more than triple in size. Since we got off so late today at 10p we didn't get home until about midnight which means I don't get to sleep until 1a and will only get about 6 hours sleep. Oh well, here goes...

08/11/2012

Today I went in on my own, trained my friend Victor from the meetings whom I convinced Chipper to hire, brought in about $1500 and went home at 10:30p. It was the longest day yet but I made some money.

08/12/2012

Today I was pretty much going out of my mind but Chipper let me go early. At home I got to sleep as soon as I could.

08/13/2012

Today I didn't have to start work until noon so I took care of some things and caught a ride with Vicke and his friend to the station. During my break I went on a ride that Chipper owns called Rock Star and got off at about 10p. At 11p I arrived home, made lunch for tomorrow, ate and went to sleep.

08/14/2012

Today I started regaining my voice from basically losing it the other day. I also got the police who patrol the area to play my rigged game. Carnies are so dodgy... not one that I've met has a history without drugs, violence or some kind of crime leading to probation. One of the guys actually goes by the name "probie" as in "probation."

08/16/2012

Stranded by Translink this morning: I waited all morning for a bus then tried to make up for lost time by following a faster route from the translink website but that bus doesn't run as late as the site suggested so I had to catch a different bus 45 minutes later. I had to transfer from that one to yet another one for the remainder of the trip. At work I went on skywalker ride, worked in the good booth down the street where they get all the customers, had rolling breaks throughout the day and filmed the Guy Fawkes Firework display.

08/17/2012

Today I had another mishap with Aussie public transport - my bus didn't come and a train going the wrong way came when mine was supposed to... I was really late.

Notice anything about the departure times vs the actual time on the top left?

It was real slow when I got to work and about halfway through Chipper wasn't very happy with my performance so he had me walk out and put the ball in people's hands rather than calling them over from the side. For the rest of the day I picked up more business. During the day we had a run-in with some "lads" or "stripeys". Lads are these teenager punks that steal stuff and go around trying to resell it. Apparently one of our guys got something from them but didn't pay so they kept coming back to mess with him so Chipper snapped and threatened them until they left. It seems they want to rob the guy I work with when he leaves the showgrounds.

08/18/2012

Today I finally finished work at the EKKA. After arriving late again (this time because I missed the bus because I was running late) I worked a few hours then took my first break during which I had a footlong dagwood dog (corndog) and had some free samples at the Woolworths Pavilion. Back at work tensions were high as probie faught with Chipper and Mike faught with the guy who keeps causing problems with everyone. Probie had taken one too many smoke breaks so Chipper had a go at him and docked him $50 pay. Chipper even threatened to make it so Probie never worked another show again. Mike almost knocked out the one guy because since he just wouldn't stop mouthing off and causing problems. I got a bit of a talking to by Chipper after I got caught leaning for a few seconds - I think he watches us and just waits for a reason to come over and reprimand our performance... After the last break we all pushed through the last few hours then began packing up. Victor and I had to catch our train so we left at 10:15 while the others stayed until four in the morning.