lets fight crime with mangos and limes

On monday i started a job as a christmas temp cleaner at west orchards shopping centre. It is honestly the most boring, monotonous, repetitive job i have ever had the pleasure of doing. I previously worked as a cleaner back home from the age of 16 at a hotel complex and ive always been lucky enough to be invited back to work there in the holidays and im good at it. Cleaning is not a difficult job, its not rocket science but manual labour, it doesnt require alot of intelligence but you do need to be grounded, down to earth and willing to mix with people across the spectrum of our society.
I need to stress that i am not stuck up, i have more than the utmost respect for everyone that works full time as a cleaner as ive been there and done that for many years now and i was so thankful when i got this job, its 20 hours a week for 7 weeks and i can earn up to £900 and how i need that money im back on the brink of entering my beloved/dangeros overdraft and i need this money for next year, to start getting into this industry and how i hate saying this but money is needed to get a head start.
So on Monday morning i put on my horrible uniform (sensible shoes, need i say more?) and sat through 3 hours of awkward silences between the new christmas temps as we filled in paperwork and learnt what cloths went with what liquids and the dangers of cross contamination...
It hit a low point when people struggled to fill out there addresses but i looked past this, i put on the 'pinny' (why cant they call it an apron) and my name badge 'general assistant' and after a tour of the shopping centre we were let loose on the food court.
The next four hours were the worst of my 'working' career, the staff that work there full time were honestly lovely, but there were 14 new christmas temps and about 8 fulltime cleaners and it was a monday afternoon... we were racing eachother to be able to be the one to take the tray.. clean the table.. clean the chairs.. empty the tray.. and begin the process all over again.
Actual highlights include learning how to put bin bags in a bin at the end of the day and .. actually and nothing.
If your unsure where your going in life do a job like this, i was doing this and knowing i can do better, knowing everyone working there can do better but I have the determination and the tools to succeed. I got talking to a woman who when she found out i study fashion at university was telling me how she always wanted to do fashion, how she idolised zandra rhodes and how shes made wedding dresses and loved Mary Quant in the 1960's and all she kept saying to me with regret in her eyes was that i need to go for it, i need to push myself, i need to get away from cleaning, i need to do everything i can and in the moment i realised i do. I dont want to be that person stood there telling someone 30 years my junior about my past dreams and realising that i never achieved them and never will.
Sometimes you need a real shock of reality to make you reassess where your going, how your going to get there and where you will be if you dont manage it.
I have my next shift there tomorrow, 12-6.30 which is annoying as it means i miss most of university, but this week it couldnt be helped as they had already rota'd on the shifts without knowing my timetable so hopefully next week will be better..