Everyone (British) loves to complain when shops start stocking winter festive cards and playing snow themed songs before leaves have contemplated parting company with their branches. Well you guys will be surprised and horrified to hear that Australia holds you trumps in getting prepared for Christmas early…
It’s Toy Sale season in Australia, with shops encouraging parents to buy their little tykes presents now, and the shop will store the items for you up till Christmas-eve. It’s JUNE!!!!!! True the sales are actually very good for the customer who can get great bargins, though not really profit making for the shops, and when my department store opened its doors last Wednesday evening to commence this event (spanning a few weeks) it felt like last-minute Christmas shopping madness… It’s JUNE!!!!! The 24th December is hardly visible on the horizon!
In anticipating of this yearly shopping craze, I was quickly trained up to use the tills. Simple enough you think, though I haven’t done cash handling officially like this since I was 14 and here I am in another country with different currency, money terminology and customers with different attitudes. How did I fare?... Well actually I enjoyed it. Let me explain…
Currency: Australian Dollars (AUD)– not your average dollar bill… these one’s are waterproof and tear proof… if you don’t believe me go to your local money exchange office and ask for a $5 note and try and break it using your expensive gym-given strength… you’ll find that little Ozzie is pound for pound stronger (pun fully intended ).
Another money quirk… they don’t have 1 or 2 cents… though an item can be priced at e.g. $15.99… yes confusing, but the Ozzie just round to the nearest 5 or 0 mark. Thus the till tells you the price is 62.73, you should quote 62.75. Yea ok that doesn’t seem like a big challenge but it’s just a bit strange… why not just get rid of prices with cents ending in 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9? as technically they don’t exist... hmmmm
Their equivalent of the UK ‘points’ saving scheme (e.g. nectar points) is called ‘flybys’, ‘do you want cash-back?’ is ‘do you want cash-out?’. The till assistant has to check all the customers bags at the counter akin to airport security checks… though the certain items being looked for are somewhat ‘different’.
Aside from all these technicalities, this gave me prime opportunity for engaging in pleasant chit-chat with the shoppers as items were being scanned through and learn a bit more about the Ozzie. One particular specimen of shopper was the ‘country’ type… the one who woke up at 6am to drive into Perth for their ‘big shop’ day, an event undertaken by this particular customer bi-annually. This reminded me that Perth is really the centre of no-where.
If all this Christmas shopping madness didn’t confuse my seasonal senses enough the weather is certainly succeeding. Ok I will admit I bought a coat. No matter how many of you seem to scoff when I tell you so but IT IS COLD IN AUSTRALIA! I have 5 layers of blankets on my bed and I have dug out the beanie I wore prior to my flight out here in December. It was 7.5’C this morning and it was certainly cold… though also true the afternoon reached 17’C, so I opted for shorts and t-shirt when I went for a jog (had no football commitments this week, so felt obliged to do some sort of exercise).
All in all I should fully accept this cold truth and get around to packing away my summer clothes and stock up on thick socks to tide me over the next couple of months.
End of transmission.
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