Working on an ice rink at Christmas is like hell frozen over

My role involved ensuring the smooth running of a crummy amusement, where expectations were impossibly heightened, at a time of year abundant with vain attempts to invest in future memories

People will still skate in ankle-deep water, because they paid good money to do so

My first job after graduating was working in a temporary ice-rink within one of London’s most popular landmarks during the Christmas period. The staff were a rag tag assortment of struggling actors, summer tennis coaches, and older people struggling to find steady employment during the recession.

Working ten hour shifts in a glorified tent was hard enough, trying to seem enthusiastic with Christmas spirit whilst being able to see your own breath was harder still.

Strangely, the hardest thing was not the discomfort or the forced gaiety, but the music selection: a forty five minute playlist on repeat ad infinitum. The compilation included such range as three different Queen songs (to get people excited), ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ (to get people excited about Christmas) and by Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’. I would find excuses to leave the public facing area so that customers and staff members alike wouldn’t have to pretend not to see me cry to Tracy Chapman’s distressing tale of cyclical poverty and abuse (Merry Christmas everyone!).

The experience made me very uneasy and it was hard not to become cynical. The environment felt bleak and cheap, sticky and hollow. The attempts to turn something cold, wet, overcrowded and overpriced into a ‘festive’ and ‘joyful’ experience came to encapsulate the wariness and contempt I felt towards Christmas, the city of London, and my personal future after graduating.

Throughout the ten week period I worked at the ice rink I learnt that many, many people will pay a lot of money to try and pretend that they’re enjoying themselves just because they think they ought to be. My role involved ensuring the smooth running of a crummy amusement, where expectations were unnecessarily and impossibly heightened, at a time of year abundant with vain attempts to invest in future memories.

As much as I tried not to let my face show the melancholy the experience was laying on me in abundance I don’t think I did a very good job. I also learnt that ice melts at a surprisingly low temperature, and that people will still skate in ankle-deep water, because they paid good money to do so.

Finally, the experience taught me something about understanding my own contentment. In the years since I have used the experience as a yardstick for measuring my own happiness. Each Christmas I ask myself: “Am I happier now than when I was working in a temporary ice-rink and plastic gloves were the only thing shielding me from the insides of 100 pairs of strangers’ sweaty rental skates?” Thankfully, the answer has, so far, been an unequivocal ‘yes’.