The best job I’ve ever had was at Royal Copenhagen Ice Cream store in the city. Rarely was there a sourpuss customer because you were serving them something that brings out child like qualities.


Skills I learnt:

  • paper folding cone wrapping origami techniques
  • when to turn off the freezer to get the best consistency to scoop the icecream
  • how to make an ice cream waffle cone and tell people I make cones for a living
  • how to make the best thickshake ever.. known as the magic milkshake. take a scoop of royal copenhagen, a scoop of double chocolate chip and a scoop of mocha almond fudge, with a squirt of caramel and a squirt of chocolate fudruckers fudge. Add milk and blend. Magic

08-09-04_1550.jpgWhen I started work there, I nearly didn’t make the cut as I was horrible at scooping ice cream. Roz and I spent ages practising and she had almost given up on me when I finally got the knack. I think I was manic after that as I spent the rest of my time their always evaluating how good each scoop was. I also developed an excellent thumb muscle that can still be seen to this day but of course isn’t as powerful.

Only a couple of us were what you call full time casual workers, the rest were uni students. It was great because you could work odd hours, such as 4pm to 12pm so you were able to fall asleep to Donahue during the day. You could also negotiate with the ferrari driving manager (Mark) to get 4 days off in a row and still get the same amount of hours/pay that you would working 5 days a week. For a while me and two of my friends were all working in food stores in the city, so we’d have fish and chips for dinner, cake and ice-cream for dessert.

Although I never got to the levels of ice-cream maker, I held my own in the cone making department. Cones cooking always smelt great from afar, but if you got any of the mix on your uniform, you smelt like vinegar for days after. The worst part was that people would come and stare at you while you were doing it. One security guard asked me what I was doing – I said designing aircraft parts. It was while making cones that I got addicted to coke when I should’ve been drinking water to cool me down. It actually takes quite an amount of effort to make sure that the heat of the plates were right so that you didn’t burn any. It used to shit me when I was the only person in the store and got in to my cone making groove when a bunch of customers would come. That could wreck a whole batch.

Royal CopenhagenMy favourite sale was when this bigshot guy came up showing off to his girlfriend and said “How many scoops in a single cone”. I said “a single scoop” in an incredibly sarcastic voice. His girlfriend thought that was pretty funny. I always wondered why people couldn’t figure that out. I mean there were big bloody pictures on the wall everywhere exhibiting what it looked like:

  • kiddy cone – 1 scoop
  • junior cone – 2 small scoops
  • single cone – single large scoop
  • regular – 2 large scoops.

I don’t know how many times I had to repeat that speil. But it almost became a chant by the time I’d finished there.

When I began at Copenhagen, there were three stores in the city. One at the Wintergarden (it sold hot dogs to the drunks from the pubs downstairs) and two at the Myer Centre. The one at the Queen St mall entry to the Myer Centre consistently won awards for making the most sales per square inch. On Sundays in summer there would be up to 4 people in the tiny space working their butts off and still have a crowd. I quickly had to learn where everything was in the Myer Centre because it seemed that our store was a quasi information centre as well. It was a great place to see friends too because they’d pass by on their way to uni or to catch a bus or something.

But the best part was that we had a radio and a cd player and you’d get to listen to triple j all day when it was good and had Mikey and Helen and Angela Catterns. Plus I could just concentrate on enjoying my life instead of all the “adult things” I have to think about these days.

Oh yeah, and if any ex-employees ever come across this site, especially:

  • Mark (finally got sex when he got a ferrari)
  • Tara (part time model and had a cool party)
  • Roz (she left to go be a jailer in a correctional facility)
  • Girl who slept with Mark who’s name I’m desperately trying to remember
  • Trav (he owned the sacred cow vw van seen about Brisbane and played good
    music)
  • Blonde Girl who left to work on the black thunders for B105
  • Trudy (she liked Gap clothing and calvin klien jeans)
  • Michelle (who was going out with Nick and she was very responsible – and
    an ice cream maker)
  • Matthew (my ex-boyfriend and whiner, but a very sensitive guy who played
    a mean guitar)

Make sure you say something in the comments.

Comments

comments

2 thoughts on “The best job I’ve ever had

  1. Kelly says:

    Okay, so I didn’t work there, but I remember just how much you used to torment me when you worked there. NOW I KNOW THE TRUTH!! you would never tell me how to make the ice cream, now i know why!! because you didn’t know!!

    P.s. I’m one of the cone maker starers, I think it’s totally cool to watch!!

    Reply

Leave a Reply