My old man's a steel man.
During the school holidays my dad employed me and my older brother - voluntarily - at his steel processing works. Pre-health and safety, pre- European directives about workplace hours. We wanted to earn some dorrar? We worked same as the regular workforce.

Operating heavy equipment? Steel banding gear? Gas-powered fork-lifts? Lift-and-winch gear for 10-tonne (metric) coils of steel sheet? You betcha. Getting close to the precision equipment like the slitters/decoilers/Millgravs? No way. You're menial.

Grumble Grumble 'Gaffer's son can do what 'e loikes', grumble grumble from the workforce. But that was at the beginning. Once they realised we had no special treatment, no privelidge, no perks, and we weren't there to spy on them, there became a bit of grudging respect. It also thickened my Black Country accent a bunch, working with those Stourbridge sods. Plus after a particularly tiring 60-hour week I bought my first bass guitar with the proceeds of my pay packet- despite the emergency tax rate nicking almost half of my gross income.

So. Dad taught us the meaning of hard work. Work got done. Me and my bro got valuable life experience. Didn't nobody die. I also jury-rigged a phone to trigger a strobe light in a noisy work environment (where the sound of a ring was swamped amid industrial noise) which meant folks at the coal face knew when guys up in the office were changing the work schedule, so I like to think I gave a little back.

Nepotism, yes. But done right?
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Mon 13 Oct 2014, 9:50, 2 replies)

Your Dad was the boss, but you did a 60 hour week?
No, that's done completely wrong.
(username failed moderation, Mon 13 Oct 2014, 9:56, closed)

I wanted the £130 to buy my own guitar.
I wanted it that week. I worked for it. I got it.

I also sold it a few years later to get a train ticket to visit my (now) ex wife.

Easy come, easy go.

Fucking Bismillah.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Mon 13 Oct 2014, 10:26, closed)