Straight to the Top

Someone must have surreptitiously assessed my nose-bridge symmetry during my temping interview because I got the call I had been waiting for. I got a job as a sunglasses model.

A popular high street brand of sunglasses had a manufacturing flaw: some sunglasses fitted crooked and some fitted straight.

Important and stylish sunglasses people with perfectly applied makeup and affected accents must have discussed the problem over a large expensive boardroom table with expensive catering containing the latest superfoods: flaxseed oil, pomegranate, kale, and cacao, and come up with a solution: try them on.

At a warehouse in Highbury and Islington, I was one of four temps sitting in pairs at a long table in a small warehouse watched over by a Fat Controller from a glass fishbowl-like office at one end of the warehouse. The Fat Controller assessed us assessing the sunglasses’ crookedness or straightness.

At the other end of the long table sat four permanent staff, Romanian women in their forties with crooked coffee-stained teeth and noses to match who also tried on sunglasses. Their bodies were conditioned to break times, they spoke in borderline violent animation and moved as a single unit.

The clock stuck break time: the Romanians placed their sunglasses on the table, rose from their chairs and shuffled to the kettle. The kettle boiled: in unison, the Romanians reached forward and lifted a coffee mug from a shelf beside the kettle and the dominant older Romanian spooned coffee granules into each coffee mug.

The Romanians simultaneously spoke in serious and aggressive tones. It seemed they didn’t listen to each other but they laughed together, paused together and whispered together, confirming they were interacting.

And they frowned together. They frowned a lot. They lifted their coffee mugs to their mouths and frowned, smiled and showed their brown teeth and fell silent together then frowned. They looked across at us temps in our own foreign collective and frowned.

In my foreigner foursome were three Australian girls.

I took to sunglasses modelling with gusto and skill, cheerful because the job was marginally better than processing credit card applications. There were two fewer transport changes to work, making my commute one hour each way instead of two, and the Fat Controller let us talk to each other while sunglasses modelling.

This job was a dream on minimum wage.

Not only was I saving fashionistas from the social shame of wearing crooked sunglasses, but I was looking glamorous, and it was here I met Becca from Perth, Australia. She had long straight black hair and a background in finance and marketing.

Becca had come to London with her boyfriend Gary who, from the stories Becca told, seemed to be a good idea at the time but not anymore. She was planning on removing him from her life.

Becca and I laughed, a lot.

We put on sunglasses, we took off sunglasses. I remember the sunglasses had purple lenses and we put them in plastic sleeves and placed them in straight or crooked piles on the table.

Although the job sounds simple, it had its challenges for Becca and me.

“Straight,” I said, doubting myself. “Nah, crooked.”

Across the table over plastic wrappers and sunglasses, Becca and I took seriously our roles as sunglasses models undertaking quality control.

“You try. I’m not sure,” Becca said. “Maybe it’s my nose.”

She removed her sunglasses and passed them across the table. I examined her nose, it looked symmetrical.

Putting on the pair Becca had just tried on, I was unsure. “How do they look?”

She giggled. “Hmmm, those are straight.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Straight.” But I wasn’t convinced. I had seen too many sunglasses.

I added the sunglasses to the straight pile. Some fashion guru would buy that pair and find themselves a social leper. I felt the guilt of accountability.

We each took another pair.

“How do these look?” I asked, and flicked my head to the side like a beautiful woman with long silky hair.

In my mind we were shopping at Top Shop. After taking a pair of sunglasses from a rack, trying them on and looking at myself in a mirror, I turned to Becca and asked her opinion. Around us music wafted through the store and other shoppers tried on sunglasses. And then I noticed: every fifth person’s pair was crooked. I felt responsible. I had to get out of the shop.

“Hmmm,” considered Becca. “I’m not sure.”

The brand’s reputation was at stake. The pressure was on us to save the company’s reputation and countless fashion victims. Luckily, Becca was a true professional who kept cool under pressure; she was decisive. “They are straight. I’m absolutely sure of it.”

We laughed and looked at the Fat Controller glaring at us from behind the glass. This was a joke.

At the other end of the table sat the Romanians. They had a proclivity for black and purple velvet. I wondered about their conversation while assessing the quality of their work, deciding they weren’t making enough effort.

They put on sunglasses for less than two seconds before making a crooked or straight assessment and placed them in a random pile. I swear they didn’t even look at each other, and because they were talking the whole time, their cheeks moved the sunglasses. There was no way they could properly assess the crookedness or straightness.

Becca and I may have laughed a lot making the Fat Controller’s body ripple with anger thinking we weren’t working hard, but of all the staff, we were the most dedicated and conscientious.

Our comprehensive and robust checking process meant we employed attention to detail by double checking each pair, both trying on the same pair. We approached each sunglasses assessment with clear minds and objectivity. It was our job to ensure no crooked sunglasses got through to the marketplace.

Day three and one of the temps had a mental breakdown. That, or she got a real job or the Fat Controller dismissed her. She disappeared without explanation.

This meant an uneven number of staff and, in the professional field of trying on sunglasses, a borderline emergency; I didn’t want to be an alarmist, but carried deep concerns.

As luck would have it, one of the Romanians was shopping for velvet so I volunteered to become Romanian.

The three remaining Romanians grinned their scary brown teeth at me and welcomed me to the team. Slightly frightened, I did my best to act cool by manically smiling back.

At first the Romanians were quiet. My presence had upset the group dynamic. But after two minutes their heated conversation returned and because I couldn’t speak Romanian, I took the opportunity to study them closer.

These women should never wear these sunglasses in public: it was incongruous, like a grandmother wearing a Thomas the Tank Engine t-shirt. One of the Romanians was in her mid-thirties and prettier than the others, she said slightly less, being relatively demure. Her coffee granules were spooned last into her cup.

Once assimilated, I learnt the Romanian words for crooked and straight, which I cannot remember now. For all I knew they taught me two rude words and laughed at me.

Sitting with my new friends, adjusting a pair of sunglasses on my nose bridge – where the skin had started to thin – I looked down for a moment.

When I looked up, the table was empty. The clock had struck break time and the Romanian flock had dropped everything and moved to the kettle. I returned to my Australian gang to see how their morning had gone and report my findings. I told them I had learnt a foreign language. They had nothing to say, nothing had happened any different to any other day trying on sunglasses.

After we had done four days as sunglasses models, The Fat Controller told us to go home.

I said farewell to my Romanian friends and they waved in unison and frowned. Frowning must be Romanian for “I need glasses.”

I felt their angry warmth.