Work

Indian Spice

I have had a good hodge podge of jobs over my working life. There’s something about being a student that keeps the right amount unpredictable in terms of availability and adequately desperate that you will take on almost anything legal that comes your way. Well, I always had the luxury of opting for legal work, I know not everyone can be that fortunate. No one escapes tertiary study without knowing which places pay cash in hand.

I was a nanny for a good number of years, both in Australia and the US. Following that I worked for six dismal weeks at a financial management institution. They were heavily into appearances, and reminded me three of four times a day that I was on probation. Plus the clients that called to ask about their money were not at all kind. I tried to work out at what pay bracket you start treating people badly, so that I could stay below it (no issues there, so far).

Then I worked as a receptionist for a community housing organisation and met every type of person you could ever hope to meet from the opposite end of the income bracket. They were, on the whole, much nicer to work with. The next job I had was to be Santa’s helper at Myer. I dealt with a lot of cranky parents there. I don’t have the magic ability to stop your terrified child from screaming in the Santa photo. I did that every year for 3 years, because humiliation and abuse from entitled parents pays well. I also taste tested for a major supermarket. That is not as much fun as it might seem. Have you ever eaten canned corn beef, or drunk beef stock straight?

After that I got a nice, normal, part time administrative job where we dealt with a lot of international clients. We had a lot of people from India make enquiries, and understandably, in a country with that many people, a lot of people share names. Often the only way to differentiate was by using dates of birth as well (although, there were a couple of occasions where that wasn’t possible either).

While I held this job, I was grocery shopping and the manager paged “Gurpreet Singh” to come to the service desk. I had come so accustomed to responding to that name by asking, “Could you tell me which date of birth that is?”, that I almost said this out loud in the supermarket. Try as you might to keep your work life separate from the rest of life, a little bit always comes with you.

This brings me to Indian Spice. This is a chai blend with no tea in it, so for any of those after 4 chai cravings, this may be what you’re after. That said, T2 recommends this as one to blend with black, so if you do that, don’t do it before you go to bed. The aroma of this baby packs a punch! The cloves are out in full force, but cinnamon gets a good look in too. Don’t let the smell put you off if you think it’s too strong. Once brewed, it’s a soothing cup where the ginger and cloves dominate the taste, and the cinnamon and pepper add a delicious warming tingle for cold winter nights. The flavour can be a little 2 dimensional towards the end of the cup though. That said, I wish I’d discovered this one sooner!

Indian Spice: 4/5
Enjoy with: that bit of your work life that comes home too.