waiting to grow up anyway. I might as well grow up on the move and get paid for it into the bargain, then come the weekend I would be able to afford things! I would be able to buy almost anything I wanted, pasties from the pie shop, sweets and pop, tickets to the pictures, space invaders from the arcade—my mind began reeling with the endless possibilities.
I was still only a kid but as far as I could see I would soon be almost completely financially independent. Although I suppose in a way I wasalready financially independent—it was just that I didn’t have any money to be independent with.
All things considered I couldn’t wait to step up to the employment plate for the first time.
Ralph’s shop was the model of efficiency. A huge glass window at the front was full of children’s toys, most of which had been there so long they had faded in the sunlight. As you entered his hallowed premises, to the left there were four substantial greetings card stands, whilst to the right was a beaten up old ice-cream freezer which flanked the sweet counter. The sweet counter itself was myriad plate-glass shelves laden with sixty or seventy jars of loose sweets. There were crisp boxes stacked high in the corner, chocolate bars and penny mix items at the front. Next to a simple wooden drawer which was used as a till were the weighing scales and numerous different-sized white paper bags tied together with string, hung from a series of hooks.
There were two further counters Ralph had managed to pack into his tiny square footage, each a little goldmine of its own. Opposite the sweet counter was a full-time post office, consisting of two teller positions safeguarded behind double-thick glass screens, which were busy for most of the day. Finally there was Ralph’s stage: the mighty newspaper and cigarette counter. This is where the serious money was taken, buoyed by the additional revenue stream of the legendary football pools.
It was in front of Ralph’s counter that I would ask for my first ever job.
‘I’ve come about the paper round.’
Ralph looked down at me, I looked up at him; that’s when I first noticed how miserable he was. My natural reaction was to smile, but this instantly made him feel uncomfortable. He quickly looked to the side before grumbling, ‘Come in seven o’clock sharp tomorrow. Don’t be late, one week’s trial without pay.’
‘Ah, I see,’ a miserable man, a tough man and now most probably a mean man—often the three go together, Dickens had it right. Surely one day of delivering papers would be trial enough. If I couldn’t do it after that, what difference would another several days of ‘trial’ make?
Of course this was simply Ralph’s way of getting a free week out of a new boy but, as I suspected then and as I know for sure now, one should never allow the terms of a small contract to get in the way of a much biggerone down the line—without the rungs at the bottom of the ladder you’ll never reach those that lead to the top.
Besides, if you feel like you’re really being stung, there’s always the potential for renegotiation in the future but not until after you’ve proved your worth. This is when you will have something to bargain with. At the beginning of such situations all the Ralphs of this world hold all the cards, but if you’re any good, from day one, this balance immediately begins to shift your way.
My ‘trial’ week duly came and went, and I presumed I passed as nobody thought to tell me otherwise or asked me to leave. This, I surmised, meant I had got the job and poor old Ralph would now have to revert to his rather reluctant stance of paying another small boy very little, to make a grown man quite a lot.
I took to the world of employment like a duck to water and I especially enjoyed the quiet of the early morning, the stillness of the air which allowed sounds to carry much further than they did during the day. I marvelled at the absolute calm of everything before
I was still only a kid but as far as I could see I would soon be almost completely financially independent. Although I suppose in a way I wasalready financially independent—it was just that I didn’t have any money to be independent with.
All things considered I couldn’t wait to step up to the employment plate for the first time.
Ralph’s shop was the model of efficiency. A huge glass window at the front was full of children’s toys, most of which had been there so long they had faded in the sunlight. As you entered his hallowed premises, to the left there were four substantial greetings card stands, whilst to the right was a beaten up old ice-cream freezer which flanked the sweet counter. The sweet counter itself was myriad plate-glass shelves laden with sixty or seventy jars of loose sweets. There were crisp boxes stacked high in the corner, chocolate bars and penny mix items at the front. Next to a simple wooden drawer which was used as a till were the weighing scales and numerous different-sized white paper bags tied together with string, hung from a series of hooks.
There were two further counters Ralph had managed to pack into his tiny square footage, each a little goldmine of its own. Opposite the sweet counter was a full-time post office, consisting of two teller positions safeguarded behind double-thick glass screens, which were busy for most of the day. Finally there was Ralph’s stage: the mighty newspaper and cigarette counter. This is where the serious money was taken, buoyed by the additional revenue stream of the legendary football pools.
It was in front of Ralph’s counter that I would ask for my first ever job.
‘I’ve come about the paper round.’
Ralph looked down at me, I looked up at him; that’s when I first noticed how miserable he was. My natural reaction was to smile, but this instantly made him feel uncomfortable. He quickly looked to the side before grumbling, ‘Come in seven o’clock sharp tomorrow. Don’t be late, one week’s trial without pay.’
‘Ah, I see,’ a miserable man, a tough man and now most probably a mean man—often the three go together, Dickens had it right. Surely one day of delivering papers would be trial enough. If I couldn’t do it after that, what difference would another several days of ‘trial’ make?
Of course this was simply Ralph’s way of getting a free week out of a new boy but, as I suspected then and as I know for sure now, one should never allow the terms of a small contract to get in the way of a much biggerone down the line—without the rungs at the bottom of the ladder you’ll never reach those that lead to the top.
Besides, if you feel like you’re really being stung, there’s always the potential for renegotiation in the future but not until after you’ve proved your worth. This is when you will have something to bargain with. At the beginning of such situations all the Ralphs of this world hold all the cards, but if you’re any good, from day one, this balance immediately begins to shift your way.
My ‘trial’ week duly came and went, and I presumed I passed as nobody thought to tell me otherwise or asked me to leave. This, I surmised, meant I had got the job and poor old Ralph would now have to revert to his rather reluctant stance of paying another small boy very little, to make a grown man quite a lot.
I took to the world of employment like a duck to water and I especially enjoyed the quiet of the early morning, the stillness of the air which allowed sounds to carry much further than they did during the day. I marvelled at the absolute calm of everything before
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