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 was already 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 bigger one 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 the rest of the neighbourhood decided to wake up. I realised for the first time what creatures of ridiculous habit we human beings are. I wondered why more people didn’t seize the day earlier and set about their business when there was no one to get in the way or put them off.
In the summer I would have the sunrises all to myself; in the winter the snow was mine to step in first. I would often witness the best weather of the day. It’s spooky how the elements often started off favourably and then grew a little more disgruntled the more people they had to deal with. ‘The world only likes people who like the world,’ I thought.
Back at the shop, I soon discovered that the earlier you turned up in the morning, the more quickly you were likely to get your paper round made up and hence be out of the door and on the road. This was because most of the boys were still in love with their sleep and left it till the last possible moment before they arrived. In their minds this also meant that they could go straight on to school afterwards without having to go home, if they wore their school uniform that is.
Potentially this may have seemed like a good plan, but apart from having to wear stinky, sweaty clothes for the rest of the day, as delivering papers was no walk in the park, these boys often ended up having to wait for their rounds because they all showed up at the same time—a complete false economy as far as I could see. If, on the other hand, you told the manager you would be in early he would try to make sure your round was ready for you. Bosses like employees who turn up on time, even better if they’re early, they also like employees who make their lives easier.
It wasn’t long before I was finishing my round before most of the rest of the boys had even started theirs and it wasn’t long before I was promoted to the heady heights of ‘spare boy’.
The role of spare boy was to be both my first promotion and the first position for which I would be retained. Spare boy was paid an additional weekly fee for coming back after his round every morning in case someone hadn’t turned up. If this happened to be the case, spare boy would rush to the rescue like a paper boy superhero to save the day, all for a bonus payment of course.
There were occasions when I would end up doing not one extra round but two or three in all. If a boy was a no show, I would take on his round and see if I could do it quicker than him. I would sometimes run my rounds—the quicker I delivered, the lighter my bag would be; the lighter my bag, the quicker still I could go. It all made perfect sense to me. I would see other boys trudging their rounds, hating every second, where was their logic? If you don’t like something, either don’t do it in the first place, or get it over with as soon as possible, don’t drag it out, for heaven’s sake.
When old paper boys left, new paper boys replaced them and they in turn would have to be taught their rounds. This was another aspect of the spare boy’s role. In time, I came to know all sixteen of our rounds, something that would stand me in great stead for the future.
The next step up the employment ladder was to get a collecting round. Not only were some people too lazy to get their own newspapers in the morning but some of them, it transpired, couldn’t even be bothered to go and pay their bill once a week.
I found this incredible, I could hardly believe such goofballs existed but more fool them and more money for me. Their lethargy was my lolly.
Being given a collecting round was the first outstretched finger of trust from Ralph to one of his boys. The boys who held the lofty position of collector were considered very much senior to those who did not. Every Friday, after school, the collecting cognoscenti would chase down the same paper rounds as we did in the mornings but this time free of our bulging bags and armed instead with book, biro and a pocket full of jangling coins.
We were each given a two-pound float to take with us in case any customers needed change. Upon our return, we then had to add up our receipts, count out our money, subtract our float from the total and hence, hopefully, balance our books. This was my first encounter with simple but highly effective early business practice. This is how business worked. What could be more straightforward?
The pay for collecting was 10 per cent of whatever you collected, which often turned out to be more than you would get for a whole week of delivering. This was easy street in comparison to the delivery rounds, but you had to deliver to get to collect and the better you delivered the better collecting round you were rewarded with. Ralph was a disaster at social intercourse but he sure knew how to get the best out of his boys. He was like a cross between Scrooge and Fagin.
So, what with my morning round, the hallowed position of spare boy, the collecting round, plus additional evening and the Saturday Pink Final rounds (the Pink Finals were sport result sheets, prepared to arrive half an hour after the final scores had