NAMETAG NETWORK VIDEO

Given to all staff (with chosen name or nickname) at Network Video on Railway Ave, Kelmscott. 'It was my first job. I started when I was in year 9 (14 years old) because there was a school trip to Canberra on offer and my parents said I could go, but I had to pay for it myself. So I needed a way to earn money, and didnt like the idea of working at a fast food place.
It was a great first job, I loved movies so it was always fun doing staff recommendations and chatting to customers. A lot of the staff had their special interest areas. Cazz was the horror buff (and a goth), Matt Zappalla was also horror and action guru but would watch just about anything. Lori (Lorenzo Monteleone ) was the ganster/action movie nerd and anything Bruce Lee. I was the comedy and kids movie one. Matt and Cazz were a couple and the most enthusiastic about the movie business. Cazz was also a great special-effects make-up artist, all self-taught, and Matt loved script-writing. Their house is a movie shrine, the place is wall-papered with posters which were salvaged from the shop, they bought all the ex-rental stock they could (both VHS and DVD) and have cabinets loaded with movie figurines. Matt went into making short action movies after he left work at Network.
The shop was great as there were so many regular customers to chat with. We also got free rentals at the end of the night. I usually worked the 4 pm - 9 pm shift after school on a Friday so if there were new releases left on the shelf at the end of the night we could take them home free. We got free weekly rentals any time. One of the regular customers, Patrick, used to bring us dinner on Sunday nights. Hed normally call the shop around 5 pm and see who was working and take orders (generally Chicken Treat, McDonalds or anything in the Kelmscott Plaza area) and hed deliver it to us as we werent allowed to leave the shop during work. It was great; he was one of our favourite customers and would always get massive discounts on rentals. Hed usually take about 8 - 10 movies a week, often many more.
The shop was owned by Morris Bahbah and his four kids, Shadi, Jess, Vivian and Daniel would all work shifts with us as well. They were good fun too. Morris could be a pretty stern boss but generally was fair with everyone and could be good for a laugh sometimes. He wasnt very generous with the pays. When I started I was earning $4 an hour, and by the time I left in January 2008 I was 17, on a manager's pay and still only being paid $10.50 an hour. As it was my first job I didnt really question the low pay to begin with, and then by the time I realised it probably wasnt legal, I liked the job too much to be bothered about it. It wasnt fair for some of the other staff though, one was a single parent and he managed to fool her into taking less pay because he said anything higher would end up reducing her Centrelink payments (which was false), but he made it sound like he was doing her a favour. Apart from that it was probably one of the best places to work, all the staff were friends outside of work too.
I started at the changeover from VHS to DVD and one of my first jobs was to re-arrange all the shelves to make space on the top two rows of every shelf for the DVDs, the bottom four shelves stayed VHS. When they properly phased out VHS, the staff bought most of the ex-rentals.' Michelle Hobbs 2016