Mall Rats

The Tower Centre was Ballymena's first shopping complex. It used to be a hub of activity. With all the best shops, a supermarket and two cafe/restaurants, the Tower Centre was the place to be. I remember the old entrance when I was a little girl. There were steps down to it, or a ramp for prams and wheel chairs and two rotating posts that held adverts behind the pyrex. You could spin them round 'til you got dizzy. The supermarket was called Crazy Prices. This was before globalisation and all shops were independent companies. It's only rival was Stewarts, which later became Tesco.
Ballymena, for as long as I can remember, had always had a name for being a good shopping town. Especially when it opened up it's secong shopping centre on the site of the old Fairhill Market.

People didn't really warm to the Fairhill Centre though. It's open plan design gave it a very light, open feel, which people did not seem to desire. They quite liked the dark, brooding atmosphere of the Tower Centre. It was warmer. But somewhere along the line, probably with the shift in generations, the Tower Centre lost it's appeal and the Fairhill Centre began to get all the top names of the high street on their premises. Refurbishments were carried out. More space was created and filled with even more popular high street stores. All the money went to that end of the town. The Tower Centre had one feeble makeover but it was too late. The more popular the Fairhill Centre became, the less people shopped in the Tower Centre.

I worked in a shop in the Fairhill Centre for 2 and a half years. I then worked in the Tower Centre for 5 years. I didn't realise at the time, although I knew it was bad for buisness, all the buisnesses, but working in such an environment was very demotivating. The whole place just has a real slow, boring, dreary thing about it. Now I don't work there I'm seeing it through the eyes of a consumer and I am shocked by how zombie like the members off staff from various shops can be, with the exception of a few. I am glad to be away from the place. Of course, in a few years time I'll be cursing the job I have now. I have fresh eyes though and I want to keep them fresh for as long as possible.

This Thursday I have an interview for a part time counselling course at college. I really hope I get a place as this will be the first step towards me working in a profession I actually enjoy. I have been working 8 days in a row, getting up at 5 every morning and so I have a day off tomorrow to prepare for my interview. Not that I plan to do too much. This is very much a case of me just being myself. Oh, and I used to be a mallrat in the Fairhill Centre. There was a bunch of older guys who populated the Tower Centre but we didn't hang with them because they sometimes glared at us.