On the one hand you’ve got your boutique surf shops miles from the ocean selling mainly soft goods to softies, while at the other end of the spectrum… Photo:Timo

SURF SHOP WORKER

Surf time:

Awful. Rarely enough time before opening for a dawnie, unless you’re French you’ll get half an hour at best for lunch. You’ll get one day off during the week, usually a Monday or Tuesday, and will there ever be surf that day? Will there fuck.

Money:

Pitiful … minimum wage with no real perks except some discounted/free gear. It’s OK if you’re 15, but shithouse after that.

Qualifications:

Obviously if you are a good local surfer, you will get more cred, but that’s not gonna make a huge difference for your sales. On the other hand, you will need to know fits, sizes etc. a good/creepy salesman will always spot the right bra and ass size for women. For the technical gear, i.e. wetsuits, the standard technique is wait until you know the one they like, then tell em that’s the one you use and it’s really good.

Travel possibilities:

Shit. Almost none, plus you can’t afford to go anywhere, anyway.

Downside:

Get a surfgear overdose, all those boards, wetsuits, boardshorts, bikinis, barcodes, sizes, will give you nightmares sometimes. I don’t know about you but the lights make me nauseus. But the worst is listening to dickheads go on all day about what the surf’s like and you have to feign interest when what you really want to do is smash em over the head with a thick wooden coathanger.

Famous surfers:

Radlets like Jonathan Gonzalez, Tiago Pires and the Hobgoods have got their own surf shops, but how much time they actually spend in them tidying the Reef sandals display vs. merely counting the Benjamins is debatable.