Worst Holiday Season Job? Times Square Charmin Ambassador

What do you get when you cross an "American Idol" audition, a Broadway casting call and, well, toilet duty? You get a ballroom at New York City's Midtown Manhattan Hilton filled to bursting with glorious freaks, desperate out-of-work actors, and people who just wandered in off the street, all vying for the seasonal job of Brand Ambassador for Charmin toilet paper.

Since 2006, Charmin has offered New York City's holiday shoppers a place to, uh, make a pit stop in Times Square. From November 23 through December 31, the Charmin restrooms, located at 1540 Broadway in Times Square, between West 45th and West 46th streets, provide 20 individual stalls (cleaned after each use) stocked with plenty of high-quality Charmin toilet paper; the bathrooms are free of charge and open to the public.

The five winning Charmin Ambassadors will greet each guest and keep them entertained with witty banter while they do their business. In years past, the "greeters" at the temporary encampment were selected by a casting company, but, this year Charmin decided to go with a contest, open to anyone and everyone, to find their Brand Ambassadors. Who would want to be a bathroom attendant, you ask? Apparently, plenty: about a thousand people auditioned for the five positions, which pay $10,000 for the five week run.

Charmin posted notices about the November 5 casting call on Backstage.com and Craigslist, and went so far as to mount a billboard in Times Square, which also promoted their "Enjoy the Go" website.

Shawn Pulscher, Assistant Brand Manager for Charmin (a Procter and Gamble subsidiary) told Holidash that the company decided to go with the casting-call approach because, "This year we wanted to bring it up a notch, to hire really outgoing people that would enhance the experience, and who also would be able to blog about it, use social-networking tools -- like Facebook and Twitter -- to create more of a buzz around the event."

You might think that working as a glorified janitor, in the winter cold, in Times Square, might not equal "dream job," but every person Holidash spoke to was enthusiastic about the possibility of being chosen as a Charmin Brand Ambassador. (We suspect that the $10,000 salary might have helped sweeten the pot -- pun intended!)

Easily the most striking contestants were Arjuna Ladino and Shanti Owen, pictured above, who came to the Charmin casting call dressed from head-to-toe in superhero outfits, including silver-glitter-encrusted platform boots. The couple, who are engaged, are NYC-based "relationship coaches," and they were handing out flyers for their most recent "Love In" at a Midtown club and promoting their "Transformational Warriors" website. When asked why they wanted to be toilet-paper shills, Ladino replied honestly, "The money!" Owen added, "Times Square is where the world comes together, and we want to greet the world!" When asked about the downside of the gig, Owen was up-front: "It'd be tough to be out in the cold for eight hours straight."

Not every applicant was as out-there as Ladino and Owen, though. "It's wild," said Clark Kent doppelganger Ron Maestri, of Far Rockaway. "I actually just came into the Hilton to use the bathroom -- they're really nice -- and I saw this going on and figured 'Why not?'" It turns out that Maestri is a voice-over actor, with a riotous sense of humor. "Last week, I had a gig where I dressed up like a giant piece of bacon for Beggin' Strips dog treats, which was fitting, because my mother always said I'd grow up to be a ham!" When asked what the downside of a Charmin ambassadorship might be, he answered, "None! It'll be fun to yell to people 'Come on in and take a c - - p!'"

So what does it take to be a Charmin Ambassador? Adorable, girl-next-door Alice Buhlke, new to New York, tried the honest approach in her audition: "I can get people really excited to go to the bathroom!" Buhlke's tactic worked: She got a callback.

What else were Charmin hopefuls willing to do to get this job? In the are-they-crazy-or-just-in-character? column, we found Frank Pullicino, who usually plays Santa at Christmastime, all decked out in a king-of-the-throne ensemble, and who had composed a book of verse that was an ode to the pleasures of the loo. Loren Charlene Hudson (stage name: Herle Eva Jean) had come all the way from Georgia for the audition, and spoke to Holidash entirely in character -- that of a backwoods, Appalachian granny who tied her hair back with wads of Charmin and had her resume printed on a roll of TP. Hudson's motivation was "to make people laugh and smile." Hudson, who had already gotten a callback when Holidash spoke with her, had been in line outside the Hilton since 4 a.m. the morning of the auditions, and noted with a laugh that her hotel was in "Flushing, Queens, how about that!"

Of course, the job market is in the toilet, and any gig that pays as much as the Charmin Ambassadorship will attract attention from out-of-work actors, attention-seekers, and really, pretty much anyone who is unemployed. However, the concept of hanging out in a bathroom all day seems a bit on the loo-ny side.

Charmin will announce it's 2009 Brand Ambassadors on November 23 -- check their web site for more details, and to see who will be handing out toilet paper in Times Square this year.