Time for another blog entry. I've had very little time recently again, but now I found some time to write a new entry...
So, I've worked at a flea market selling electronics for a few months, and I've got some interesting stories from that time, since flea markets really have an atmosphere unlike anything else. I won't be including any photos today, and I also won't be including as many details as I'd like, since I don't really want this to be easily linkable to where I worked at. Well, here are my stories, split into a few short chapters, so have fun reading them (hopefully).
Bad Weather
The biggest downside of flea markets is usually having to deal with the weather... This specific flea market had basically nothing to protect against that. Dirt ground, no roof, turns into mud for hours with even low amounts of rain. You're on your own to survive there under a tent. It might not be a huge problem for those who sell other things at flea markets, but with electronics, you have to be really careful... The goods we were selling already often had signs of rain damage. Rusted connectors, stained plastic and metal pieces, wet boxes, etc. When it starts raining, it's just a hurry to close all the laptop lids, hide the more valuable and fragile things, protect as much from the rain as you can. The tent won't protect you from rain falling in from the sides...
Did I mention mud? Before we set up in the early morning and after we pack up in the early afternoon, we have to move all our stuff between the van and our spot at the flea market, which involves carrying everything on carts through a distance of a few hundred meters. A few hundred meters of unstable dirt ground which turns into mud whenever it rains. One time, a box of battery banks fell off from the cart, directly into the muddy ground. You can imagine how bad the consequences of that were... Well, in short, we have to do a lot of cleaning of the goods we sell, and they are often not in good condition.
iPhones?
We had a lot of used, usually broken smartphones for sale. And that sometimes unfortunately included broken iPhones. Why is that a bad thing? Well, imagine what happens in an Apple product fan's brain when they come to a flea market, where they expect to find everything cheaply. Someone comes up and sees the iPhones pretty much every other minute, starts to look at them closely, asks the price, asks if they're working, then walks off disappointed upon hearing that the phones are sold for parts... It's obviously very annoying, but it's not like that's really anything unusual. I quickly learned that it's very normal for pretty much all sellers at flea markets to be extremely annoyed at the end of the day after having to deal with so much repeated annoying questions. It's just unavoidable. But this specific case just shows what the Apple brand does to people.
The story about iPhones doesn't end there though. Besides the phones themselves, we also had a lot of accessories, and one kind of accessory we had for sale were battery cases for iPhones (thick cases with built-in powerbanks). One time someone was interested enough in them to start trying them out and eventually buy one. The guy tried putting it on his iPhone, and it fit just fine and worked, but then tried to get it off, asked me for help with it, I couldn't get it off either with my weak hands. It was a really tight fit. In the end, he just gave up, said that it's fine and that he's buying it, so he paid for it and left satisfied. The next time, seemingly the same person came to our tent again, and asked us if we have replacement screens for iPhones. Well, I wonder if something happened there...
Things I've Bought
Of course, when working at a big flea market, you'll also get to see what the others are selling every single time. I ended up buying some really nice things for myself at really good prices. The first time already started off great - alongside some other plush toys, our neighbors had a pretty big Pikachu plush that looked official, of course dirty from the mud, but nothing a washing machine can't fix. I walked up to them and asked how much they want for the Pikachu plush, and they just asked me "Which one? What's a Pikachu". Turns out they were selling it for just 1 Euro. It was an instant buy for me. It was not only official, but when I got home with it to throw it in the washing machine, I also found out that it's actually a talking plush with a battery compartment hidden in the back. But well, I didn't care about that anyway, so I just took out the dead batteries that were left inside of it and threw in inside the washing machine. I bet the sounds would still in fact work if I tried putting batteries in it now, even after that wash. Anyway, it was a really nice addition to my collection.
I've bought quite a lot of other small things during my few months of working there, but the two other most interesting things I bought were a small portable B/W CRT TV (seems to be a common Chinese model sold under many brands, includes an FM radio and composite input) for just 5 euro, fully working, and an old reel-to-reel recorder for just around 10 euro, together with a few old tape spools. It was sold as working, but of course it did have issues with basic operation when I got it home (oh, and did I mention how tiring it was to walk just 1km home while carrying that thing?), fully expected from a >50 year old device after all. I left it untouched for a good few months since I didn't really have any motivation to mess with it at the time, but I did eventually get around to fully taking it apart, cleaning it up, and doing other regular maintenance tasks, and now it's actually working pretty nicely. I've recorded some of my own tapes on it too. Definitely one of my best purchases, since I wanted a reel-to-reel recorder for a really long time.
Free Stuff
Why do so many people "like me" too much? I'm really tired of it at this point. Men fall in love with women far too easily. The amount of times I've gotten "nice" comments, the amount of times I was asked for my phone number and had to decline, and I also often ended up getting free things just because I was liked. Some people would probably dream of being me just from hearing this description, but believe me, it's not nice at all anymore when there's too much of it. One time we had a neighbor who really liked me way too much, had to spend 10 minutes just trying to get the words asking for my phone number out of his mouth, gave me 5 different plush toys that he had for sale throughout the day, all that while being at least 30 years older than me but clearly interested in me... It really gets creepy sometimes. Even though I don't work there anymore, I still have to deal with things like this way too often.
The 2 Euro Laptop
Flea markets also sometimes seem to work the other way around - the people who come during the day to buy things from the sellers working there the whole day, instead try to make the sellers buy something from them. It happens at least a few times a day, and usually it's nothing worth caring about, but one time some woman came to our tent with a laptop, and asked us if we want to buy it, because "she's tired of it". She didn't say any price she wants for it, so my co-worker jokingly offered 2 euro for it. The woman pretty much immediately said "OK! 2 Euro, just take this dumb thing away from me!". And that's how we got a working laptop for just 2 Euro, it has a Core 2 Duo processor and as I later found out, it can even run modern Windows versions without much trouble. I asked my co-worker if I can have it for those 2 euro, and he did just give it to me, he didn't seem to care much about that laptop at all. Really surprising how often people consider good things as "old junk"...
Well, if you've gotten to this point, you're probably really bored, but thank you for reading. I hope this was interesting to at least some of you.
So, I've worked at a flea market selling electronics for a few months, and I've got some interesting stories from that time, since flea markets really have an atmosphere unlike anything else. I won't be including any photos today, and I also won't be including as many details as I'd like, since I don't really want this to be easily linkable to where I worked at. Well, here are my stories, split into a few short chapters, so have fun reading them (hopefully).
Bad Weather
The biggest downside of flea markets is usually having to deal with the weather... This specific flea market had basically nothing to protect against that. Dirt ground, no roof, turns into mud for hours with even low amounts of rain. You're on your own to survive there under a tent. It might not be a huge problem for those who sell other things at flea markets, but with electronics, you have to be really careful... The goods we were selling already often had signs of rain damage. Rusted connectors, stained plastic and metal pieces, wet boxes, etc. When it starts raining, it's just a hurry to close all the laptop lids, hide the more valuable and fragile things, protect as much from the rain as you can. The tent won't protect you from rain falling in from the sides...
Did I mention mud? Before we set up in the early morning and after we pack up in the early afternoon, we have to move all our stuff between the van and our spot at the flea market, which involves carrying everything on carts through a distance of a few hundred meters. A few hundred meters of unstable dirt ground which turns into mud whenever it rains. One time, a box of battery banks fell off from the cart, directly into the muddy ground. You can imagine how bad the consequences of that were... Well, in short, we have to do a lot of cleaning of the goods we sell, and they are often not in good condition.
iPhones?
We had a lot of used, usually broken smartphones for sale. And that sometimes unfortunately included broken iPhones. Why is that a bad thing? Well, imagine what happens in an Apple product fan's brain when they come to a flea market, where they expect to find everything cheaply. Someone comes up and sees the iPhones pretty much every other minute, starts to look at them closely, asks the price, asks if they're working, then walks off disappointed upon hearing that the phones are sold for parts... It's obviously very annoying, but it's not like that's really anything unusual. I quickly learned that it's very normal for pretty much all sellers at flea markets to be extremely annoyed at the end of the day after having to deal with so much repeated annoying questions. It's just unavoidable. But this specific case just shows what the Apple brand does to people.
The story about iPhones doesn't end there though. Besides the phones themselves, we also had a lot of accessories, and one kind of accessory we had for sale were battery cases for iPhones (thick cases with built-in powerbanks). One time someone was interested enough in them to start trying them out and eventually buy one. The guy tried putting it on his iPhone, and it fit just fine and worked, but then tried to get it off, asked me for help with it, I couldn't get it off either with my weak hands. It was a really tight fit. In the end, he just gave up, said that it's fine and that he's buying it, so he paid for it and left satisfied. The next time, seemingly the same person came to our tent again, and asked us if we have replacement screens for iPhones. Well, I wonder if something happened there...
Things I've Bought
Of course, when working at a big flea market, you'll also get to see what the others are selling every single time. I ended up buying some really nice things for myself at really good prices. The first time already started off great - alongside some other plush toys, our neighbors had a pretty big Pikachu plush that looked official, of course dirty from the mud, but nothing a washing machine can't fix. I walked up to them and asked how much they want for the Pikachu plush, and they just asked me "Which one? What's a Pikachu". Turns out they were selling it for just 1 Euro. It was an instant buy for me. It was not only official, but when I got home with it to throw it in the washing machine, I also found out that it's actually a talking plush with a battery compartment hidden in the back. But well, I didn't care about that anyway, so I just took out the dead batteries that were left inside of it and threw in inside the washing machine. I bet the sounds would still in fact work if I tried putting batteries in it now, even after that wash. Anyway, it was a really nice addition to my collection.
I've bought quite a lot of other small things during my few months of working there, but the two other most interesting things I bought were a small portable B/W CRT TV (seems to be a common Chinese model sold under many brands, includes an FM radio and composite input) for just 5 euro, fully working, and an old reel-to-reel recorder for just around 10 euro, together with a few old tape spools. It was sold as working, but of course it did have issues with basic operation when I got it home (oh, and did I mention how tiring it was to walk just 1km home while carrying that thing?), fully expected from a >50 year old device after all. I left it untouched for a good few months since I didn't really have any motivation to mess with it at the time, but I did eventually get around to fully taking it apart, cleaning it up, and doing other regular maintenance tasks, and now it's actually working pretty nicely. I've recorded some of my own tapes on it too. Definitely one of my best purchases, since I wanted a reel-to-reel recorder for a really long time.
Free Stuff
Why do so many people "like me" too much? I'm really tired of it at this point. Men fall in love with women far too easily. The amount of times I've gotten "nice" comments, the amount of times I was asked for my phone number and had to decline, and I also often ended up getting free things just because I was liked. Some people would probably dream of being me just from hearing this description, but believe me, it's not nice at all anymore when there's too much of it. One time we had a neighbor who really liked me way too much, had to spend 10 minutes just trying to get the words asking for my phone number out of his mouth, gave me 5 different plush toys that he had for sale throughout the day, all that while being at least 30 years older than me but clearly interested in me... It really gets creepy sometimes. Even though I don't work there anymore, I still have to deal with things like this way too often.
The 2 Euro Laptop
Flea markets also sometimes seem to work the other way around - the people who come during the day to buy things from the sellers working there the whole day, instead try to make the sellers buy something from them. It happens at least a few times a day, and usually it's nothing worth caring about, but one time some woman came to our tent with a laptop, and asked us if we want to buy it, because "she's tired of it". She didn't say any price she wants for it, so my co-worker jokingly offered 2 euro for it. The woman pretty much immediately said "OK! 2 Euro, just take this dumb thing away from me!". And that's how we got a working laptop for just 2 Euro, it has a Core 2 Duo processor and as I later found out, it can even run modern Windows versions without much trouble. I asked my co-worker if I can have it for those 2 euro, and he did just give it to me, he didn't seem to care much about that laptop at all. Really surprising how often people consider good things as "old junk"...
Well, if you've gotten to this point, you're probably really bored, but thank you for reading. I hope this was interesting to at least some of you.
