Today I made my first step into the world of work.
Except it wasn't so much a step as a trip down the stairs.
You see, internet, there's a small cafe that is found in a very small village near where I live. You know the sort- just picture doddery old women gossiping over tea and scones. I went in, fully confident, head held high with determination. Within several seconds I had the attention of a blonde woman who worked there.
'I am looking for a Saturday job, and was wondering how old you had to be to get one,' I announced with the air of someone who knew their shit. Which is a clever ploy when I had no idea what I was doing and thought taking my floppy hat off constituted for looking responsible.
Blonde woman looked me up and down. 'We already have a Saturday girl at the moment, and you have to be 16. Sorry, love. How old are you?' Her tone was slightly undermining considering I was a full head and shoulders over her (her big hair was fooling nobody).
Slightly less confident than I was before, I replied, 'Oh. I'm 14.' Which I'm not, but I will be by next Sunday. As it happens my research into the legal working age (you can work at 14 actually) has proved fruitless because my employment all hung in the balance of the people actually a) having a vacancy and b) letting a 14 year old- albeit a very committed and intelligent one- work for them.
She then told me that I could leave my details with the manager. To which I was thought, and wait a whole two years before you get back to me? I think not, madame, I shall be taking my custom elsewhere. But I just smiled and said 'Thank You' because that's good manners.
That was shortly after 10.30. It is now 12.02 and I do not have a job, nor the means of getting one. I believe that (well, quotationspage.com leads me to believe) Aristotle once said, 'All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.' But Aristotle lived from 384 BC till 322 BC, and evidently nobody had told him that working in cafes staffed by vertically inadequate blonde women earning money was a lot better than spending your weekends sat on you arse doing nothing.
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