« Heavy metal preview | Home | No e-mail. »

“I got jobs.”

I have a job now. Yesterday Nico was in a hurry to get out to his new job, for which he had to take the train out to the end of the line somewhere, and he mentioned to me that there was an opening at a cell phone store where he works on and off. He asked whether I wanted a couple hours there, hoping that I said yes, as if I declined him, there weren’t very many more German-speaking Americans he could ask. So I happily accepted and promised to be at the cell phone store by 3pm that day, to work till 6pm.

The work is handing out flyers on the street. Yes, I’m that guy, now. But I honestly love the job. I get to walk around the beautiful square near the store, listen to happy people playing acoustic guitar and accordion, watch bratwursts be cooked, served, and gobbled up, and best of all, I get to start conversations with Germans.

I worked again this morning, another three hour shift (11am-2pm), bringing me up to six hours’ worth of experience. In this time, I’ve learned a ton about how to approach people. I’m now comfortable with five or six ways of saying hello, terms and expressions which I must dole out carefully according to the general demographic factors, most important of which would by far be age, although gender is critical, too.

I’ve also gotten to spend a lot of time learning the signs of approachability, which are in my opinion quite different from those I’m used to seeing in the US. (For those interested, Firefox does not red-underline “approachability.” Cool.) I’ve already mentioned before the weird eye contact rules round these parts, and I certainly had to deal with that quite a bit, handing out flyers. For instance, I knew that if I girl looked me in the eye, boom, I could walk right up to her and shove anything into her hands. In stark contrast, guys would often snipe me from my blind side and just outright take a flyer from my hands, without making any eye contact.

It was of course just as important to maintain approachability myself as to learn to notice it in others. I’d fan out these sexy looking cell phone sheets, printed on thick, glossy paper, the text oriented so that passersby could read it, but that wasn’t enough. There were two easily visible cell phones with prices, one of which was really freaking expensive. So I rummaged through my shoulder bag of supplies and fished out some cool toys. Among the baubles allotted me as prebend for my fealty to the O2 network, especially their very attractive Oktoberfest celebration sale prices, were little blinking plastic hearts with the O2 logo on them. (Blinky bling is hot at Oktoberfest, so it’s actually pretty intelligent marketing.) With these trinkets I gracefully obscured the price of the expensive phone, leaving only two phones and one low price visible to those walking by. I wish I had taken measurements before and after this decision, because my acceptance rate went through the roof.

Once I discovered the success of the blinky hearts (my manager called them something, and I’m still not sure whether he said “Blinker” or “Blinge,” the latter of which of course would be the most badass), I began to target anyone who looked like they were on the way to the Wiese. (That’s what people call the field for Oktoberfest: Theresienwiese.) It was exactly hard, as almost half the people walking by were tricked out in Lederhosen or Dirndl. So I used this to my advantage, and reminded them that nobody walks around the Wiese without a blinky on. If it was girls, I reminded them they had to look hot. If it was guys, I reminded them they had to look hot. If both guys and girls were together, I threatened to give all my blinkies to the girls unless the guys took some and gave them out as gifts. Then I loaded them up with O2 fliers and bade them farewell.

So all in all, this is a really good time for me. The whole day, though, I was thinking of the Mitch Hedberg standup line where he says, “I hate it when people hand me fliers on the street. You know what they’re really saying? ‘Here, you throw this away.’” But I had an awesome time and if I keep this up, I know I’ll be able to cull away my American accent, or at least steep it so deeply in Bavarian slang that no one will care to notice I still can’t roll my Rs.