There is a man at my church who has his own Tax preparation business, located near a shopping mall. Today he asked me if after Church I would go to the mall with his son, “Stewie” and advertise for him and tell people that he would be open for business 7 days a week. He had us dress up in a red, white and blue “suit”, the suits were flashy and it made us stand out, which was the point.
Stewie and I were walking around the mall and people were calling us names like “Dork”, “Geek” this was really getting to me because I kept wanting to respond but Stewie kept like reminding me that we would get paid really well if we stayed the entire 4 hours that we promised.
A boy, I’m guessing around my age dropped a milkshake on us from the 2nd story it wasn’t a lot but it landed on me like I had been pooped on by a gigantic bird and when I looked up I could see him and his friends running away. Everybody that was standing around had a different reaction because one woman was really concerned about me and the there were other people that were laughing. This one lady was really concerned and she insisted that we report the incident to Security. I went up to a Security Guard and told him what happened and he asked me what the person looked like that threw the milkshake. I told the guard that it was a kid with black hair, wearing a red shirt and he said that I described 25 per cent of the people in the mall. Since the people that threw the milkshake were on the upper level and ran off that was the best description I could give. I asked the guard if he could look on the security camera and he told me that the incident wasn’t important enough to look through the footage, not in those exact words but that is what he meant.
Stewie told me to let it go and that it wouldn’t matter because later we could come back to the mall in our regular clothes and we would be able to buy stuff because we were going to get paid that same day. Stewie’s Dad told me that since I got something poured on me that I would be paid extra. For all our trouble and wearing ridiculous clothes, being laughed at, pointed at having a milkshake poured on us Stewie got a 50 dollar gift certificate to the mall and I got a 100 dollar gift certificate because the shake landed on me but the catch is that the gift certificates only work at one store that I happen not to even like, so there you go. I’m not sure if I pit myself for agreeing to dress up in a silly costume and walk around the mall without knowing how much I would be paid, the Security guard for not taking me seriously, Stewie for talking me into doing this with him, the stupid kids who poured the drink on me or the people that laughed when I got doused in strawberry flavored milk product. Either way that was over 4 hours of humiliation that I will never forget.
Can you sell the gift certificate to someone who does like the store? If you are lucky, you can find a nice person who is willing to do an even trade or who wants a gift to give to a friend. Even if you only get $50 for it, that’s $50 you didn’t have before. Or you can also use the certificate to get presents for people from that store.
That mall sounds very poorly run. If something like that happened at the malls I currently attend, security would be all over it.
Don’t worry, the redshirts are always the first to die.
The whole situation sucks, and every party deserves a pitting. Especially the fucker with the milkshake; if you see him again, I recommend violence.
But you have control over your part of life, so take this as a lesson about knowing what you’re signing up for.
Don’t most malls have mall-wide gift certificates at least? Why didn’t he give you cash, anyway? That’s fucking weird.
You and your friend didn’t by any chance later go to his house and build a really hot woman using his high-end computer and a Barbie doll, did you? (*note to humor impaired, it’s yet another movie reference.) 
Heh, get used to it START. This is only the begining. Humility is a part of life-leessons-learned. I know the feeling sucks. The best I have to offer you is just shake it off. AT least you were out there earning a buck. Which is LOADS more admirable than some kids I know of these days.
Look on the bright side, START. You got a hundred-dollar gift certificate for your troubles. If you had spent that time in the mall as a mime, you would still have been harrassed by assholes but it would have been for a handful of quarters tossed into your hat.
Well, now that you have called it to our attention, you may rest assured that you have been laughed at for well over four hours.
Were you at least carrying signs or something pointing shoppers to the tax guy’s business? How does just walking around in flashy costumes increase his traffic, you just had to wait for the odd person to ask why you were dressed that way?
Another life lesson to be learned – when someone says “Do this very humiliating thing for me now, and I’ll pay you a small fortune of an unspecified amount later”, that is a clear signal to run away as fast as possible.
If you can manage to get full cash for that gift certificate, then you’ve made $25/hour, which is quite good, even if you got strawberry poop dumped on you. OTOH, if you get no value out of it, then you’ve been paid exactly bupkis.
Next time someone asks you to do something like this, ask exactly how much you will get paid, and in exactly what form of payment. Be specific, with things like “Cash?”, and “American?”
Ooh, that was cold. Keep up the good work. 
If it makes you feel better, Start, I haven’t earned twenty five bucks an hour in my life. So you’re ahead of me in that respect.
Daniel
Aww. what a crummy day.
Your story reminds me of my friend who got a job at a jewelry kiosk in the mall for the holidays. The kiosk owner promised my friend that if he worked really hard and extra holiday hours without complaining, that my would get a nice bonus when the holiday season was over.
When the holidays were over, the kiosk owner offered my friend a whopping one hundred dollar bonus. My friend told the owner that a hundred bucks was an insult for all the extra work he did and that if that was all he could pony up, then he probably needed it more than he (my friend) did. Then he quit.
The lesson I learned from working in the mall (I was across form the kiosk in the “real” jewelry store, which is a complaint for another day) was ask questions and be prepared to get poorly treated and ripped off.
What goes around comes around. I’m sure you’ll run into the kid on your way out from the knife store in the mall. Then he’ll see you standing there with $100 worth of sharp objects and go :eek:
Tell us more about this suit, I kind of want one. Did it have stars or stripes? Americana in anyway? It sounds to me like the one Bubblegum Tate wore on Futurama, which would be super cool.
Oh, and yea, I’ve been to the mall as a mime before and didn’t even get hassled once. Your mall sounds like quite an experience!
Whenever I see those guys dressed up as Uncle Sam on street corners during tax time or dressed up as clowns or animals in front of restaurants I always honk, wave, and smile at them since they kind of make my day for some odd reason.
People that would make fun of them are just asses plain and simple.
Hey, I found a picture of START at the mall
Actually, for me the most surprising thing about the story was that a mall would allow people to use mall property to advertise for a private business that was not in the mall itself. Malls are usually pit bulls about keeping out leaflet distributors, protestors, and any other advertisers who aren’t specifically paying to be on mall property.
The mall near me booted out a bunch of people last year for handing out “No War” leaflets, after calling in about 12 cops to “control” a crowd of 8 people who were doing nothing more than giving out pieces of paper. And in some malls you even have to be careful about what t-shirt you wear.
Dude, you got off easy. Here, the Liberty Tax Service has people (male and female) out there on the street corner morning noon and night dressed as the Statue of Liberty. The morning guy actually made me think of you today; he’s got his headphones on under his green crown and he’s all dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, and he always waves at me.
Yeah, I’ve got to agree that this was an excellent life lesson, START. You’re young, and you will be working for a living soon (if not already), and entry level jobs are almost always humiliating and unpleasant. You don’t usually get paid in gift certificates for them, though. The best thing you can do with this experience is use it to motivate yourself to do what it takes to get a good career where you don’t have to be a dancing monkey for the rest of your life.