
By GEMMA ASKHAM
“Old guys, young guys and creepy guys are all going to be looking at your bits. If you don’t mind that, then I guess it’s OK.”
We’re not describing the pap test from hell. This is one woman’s job description of what it’s like to be a ‘skimpy’ – a barmaid who travels to the most remote parts of Australia to serve drinks to locals while just wearing lingerie.
Yes, that terrifying dream of leaving the house and realising you’re only dressed in your knickers is an actual job.
On paper, the ‘bikini barmaid’ role is to pour drinks for the largely male community in agricultural and mining towns. In reality, the role is to smile in the face of sexist remarks and duck wandering hands (or worse), while wearing the kind of synthetic, asset-enhancing undies that will at best disintegrate after one use, at worst give you an intimate rash.
So far, so ‘no thank you’. But here’s the catch: you could get paid $6000 for doing it. Which makes the situation a whole lot more… confusing.
Picture this – and many of you won’t have to imagine hard as it’s probably the exact life circumstance some of you are in right now. You’re smart, educated, ambitious, and broke. You want to go to university/further education/buy a house – but resources are saying no. So the options are: work your ass off and earn just enough to get by, or work your bikini-bared ass off and earn sh*t loads.
Which is a seriously depressing thought, considering we’re nearly in 2015.