“I mean, fuck, can’t we just get over it?” said Jaap Stam, 37, Golden Square.
21 years, 167 days, and 8:59 hours (roughly) at work and Mr Stam has cracked it.
“It’s morning. It’s good. Take it as given,” said Mr Stam.
Mr Stam’s co-workers disagree.
“Oh it’s just lovely saying a good morning to all the lovely faces that work here, just lovely,” said Samantha Kerr, 87, Bendigo.
“Yes dear, oh, just lovely,” agreed her friend Mia Hamm, 86, Bendigo – who technically doesn’t work anymore but she has nothing else to do with her time, she’s not good at crochet or anything and since her husband never existed she’s just pottered around following Mrs Kerr all her life, which gets on Mr Kerr’s nerves but you know, what’s he going to do but hope one of the three of them dies soon.
None of this makes Mr Stam happy.
“Can’t they let it go? It’s not them. It’s the routine of it. Every bleeding morning. You know I didn’t want to be a fitter and turner. I wanted to act on Broadway. I tried contacting the Bendigo Theatre Company you know, but they wouldn’t have me. No-one wants me, and now I got to say good morning every bleeding morning of every bleeding day until I die. And while you’re here, it’s not so much the fitting I mind. It’s the turning. Gud help me, if I have to turn another thing…,” Mr Stam trailed off into a lifeless stare one might see in the recently deceased.
Still, on the bright side he can look at his role with Kerr Family Fitters and Turners at Flora Hill as a kind of acting job that he does every day of his life since leaving school at 16.
Sort of like Topol did with playing the Fiddler in Fiddler on the Roof for 46 years, except without the international travel, accolades and sense of legacy in inspiring children around the world.
Oh well.
The Bendigo Standard would like to say good morning Mr Stam, and all the Mr Stam’s everywhere in Bendigo.
