Child LabourThere is a special part of Hell I'd like to reserve for those arses that order every single Sunday paper. Do you know how heavy that makes the bundle of papers some poor kid (ie me) has to lug around? Funny how your papers always seemed to get mangled in your letterbox...
I loved my paper round, but, looking back, I was getting paid peanuts to ruin my back and cycle around in the cold and dark. How were you exploited as a child?
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chthonic, Fri 17 Feb 2006, 12:05)
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Spanish PracticesI had my first "real" summer job between sixt form and Uni, working in a market garden. Despite being in the deepest darkest yokellish parts of East Yorkshire it was infested by Spaniards. (GYAC, they come over from the Canary Isles, three or four of them club together and buy a cheap caravan, then work the whole season doing 24 hour shifts and make ££££££££ to take back home. Nice work if you can get it)
So, not only did I have to wander through acres of jungle like savage cucumber plants cutting cucumbers, and spray them with industrial Malathion (probably banned now, and I once got drenched in the stuff when a spray gun exploded in my face) and get scratched to buggery and cut my fingers in the process, all in searing tropical humidity, but I had to do it all in Spanish. For six weeks for most of the day I did not hear a word of English spoken... but on the plus side, I DID learn how to say "now we will cut the little cucumbers" in Spanish. A phrase I have never used since in anger.
I don't recall what I got paid, it wasn't much, but I did once start to write a novel about the experience.
(, Wed 22 Feb 2006, 15:33, Reply)
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