It was reported in the Times last week that Hampshire county council has threatened chef Greg Olerjarka with prosecution if he continues to allow his 14-year-old son, Dexter, to help him in his food truck at the weekends and after school. The boy desperately wants to be a chef and hopes one day to work alongside Marco Pierre White. He’s already an accomplished cook and has undertaken a food hygiene course.
Thirteen- and 14-year-olds, for whom minimum wage laws don’t apply, are allowed to do light work; 12 hours during the week (outside school hours) and five and two hours respectively on Saturdays and Sundays. They can work in retail, admin, hairdressing, stables, agriculture, horticulture, and deliver newspapers. In addition, they can work in cafés and restaurants but are forbidden from commercial kitchens. Olerjarka tried unsuccessfully to get round this by not paying his son.
Never mind health and safety, from what I’ve heard about some restaurant kitchens with their culture of ego, temper, bullying and cocaine use, I think we’d all prefer our kids stayed front of house. But a posh food truck with a parent? Surely your average 14-year-old boy is less at risk there than alone in his room on his phone watching the misogynistic rantings of Andrew Tate and porn, or aimlessly roaming the streets, or even, for the tragically unlucky – at school – as recent events in British Columbia and London might suggest.
No one wants to see young people exploited or put in danger but you would think that with general concerns about mental health, councils and parents would recognise the benefits that Saturday jobs have on adolescent well-being. Young teenagers are shy. Growing up is difficult. The adult world can be scary, but in protecting children too much we’ve raised a generation that needs a lift everywhere and requires trigger warnings before studying classic literature. If kids had Saturday jobs which got them away from the malign influence of daft influencers and into the real world, they’d be smarter, more grown-up, better off and perhaps less contemptuous of their elders. When I was a cripplingly shy and miserable 13-year-old living in a post-industrial town in 1977, I needed pocket money. And, for reasons of safety and sanity, I also needed to get away from home as much as possible. I found a job in a hairdressers called Rape of the Lock, not bad for such a deprived area.
I worked there on Saturdays from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. and got paid £3 (about £24.50 now) for the day plus tips. I will never forget the joy of clutching the few pounds I’d earned and rushing to the record shop. But at first it was torture. The boss, Raymond, was strict and grumpy; I didn’t know where anything was or how, apart from cleaning, to do the most basic tasks. I wanted to pack the job in after the first day but stuck it out. Soon I could wash hair properly, hold eye contact and speak to customers without embarrassment, sweep up without annoying the boss, fetch lunch for everyone and take bookings. From customers, I learnt the preliminaries of banter. A month later, I was doing the job well and receiving lots of tips. Contrary to my experience it seemed that life wasn’t just domestic tyranny and horrors on the evening news – or at school, the holocaust and dystopian literature – it could be fun. By the time I left, I was a more confident 13-year-old and a better laugh.
We’ve raised a generation that needs a lift everywhere and requires trigger warnings
Another job was in a supermarket. Those were the days before computerised tills but the work, manually typing prices in, taking money and giving change was easy. One morning the manager, a sweaty, smelly Cyril Smith lookalike, towered over me while I was putting some shopping through and said, without provocation: ‘I don’t like young, skinny, ginger girls.’ Instead of replying that I wasn’t keen on fat ugly misogynistic old bastards and walking out, I ran a one-girl campaign to lose the manager his job and bring down Western capitalism. As a customer approached I’d do a quick visual means test and if I thought they didn’t have much money, put their shopping through with a massive reduction. Wee old ladies were delighted but with extra customer loyalty my behaviour may have increased, rather than reduced, sales and profit.
The last job I had before leaving school was at a cafe near the away entrance of Love St, the old ground of St Mirren football team. After a few months I got my school pal, Julie, a job there too. We made takeaway food, sold cigarettes, sweets and ice cream, and generally larked about, getting paid 50p an hour. On football days we batted off the advances of drunk fans – Rangers supporters were the worst. After one big match went badly, there was almost a riot. I was working the shift with six-foot pregnant Irene, the owner’s wife. She shoved 15-year-old me through the back, pushed 20 angry inebriated fans out of the door, and pulled the shutters down. Impressive and exciting.
No harm was done and I saw a woman tackling a difficult situation bravely. For the sake of our kids, it’s time councils updated their rules and parents encouraged their youngsters to get a job for a few hours a week.
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