Thursday, 2nd


August 2018


East Cork


Business Summer Jobs are Good for Kids – Personal Perspectives by DR ROSARII GRIFFIN


Introduction When I asked a secretary


once to type out my CV, she laughed when she saw the range of part-time jobs I had over the years. I was an under- graduate at the time, and was about to embark on the world, seeking full time work.


First jobs My first job was delivering newspapers, bread and other groceries to our neighbours. We lived in a rural village, and my grandmother had the local pub and grocery shop (in one establishment). Saturday mornings I had to do the rounds on my bike, often chased by neighbours’ dogs as I cycled by. Outside of that, the daily chores in- cluded cleaning out ashtrays from the night before in the pub, collecting and washing dirty glasses, sweeping and mopping the cigarette-stained lino floor. It was all part of the daily routine. I was prob- ably about seven years old at the time. Let us just say that the legislation for child labour, and health and safety, were not paramount at that time. It was the family business, so every- one rowed in.


Teens A few years later, we moved


to Midleton. To kill the long summers, I got a summer job at the age of 12 in our local drapery shop. I worked there for three


consecutive sum-


mers, and sometimes during the Christmas and Easter hol- idays. At the end of the week, my grandmother would say, ‘hand your wages over to your mother now’, which I duly did. I got some pocket-money back in return. At the time, it seemed like a win-win situ- ation. But after three years, I wanted a break from this job, so I got work in the local hos- pital cleaning the wards, and


chatting to the old folk. I found the men were good fun. Most- ly, they let me get on with my job, and they enjoyed the cra- ic. The women were more de- manding, making constant re- quests for something or other, which made it almost impos- sible to complete cleaning of the ward on time. Sometimes, I was ticked off for spending too much time talking to the patients, but I noticed they of- ten were just lonely and liked to make small talk. Once this work period was over, I did not want to work there anymore. I found it too overwhelming for a teenager.


Fast Food Next, I worked in a fast


food joint in town. That was hard work. The wages were not great and the hours were long. We would often work into the early hours of the morning. The


cleaning up,


especially, took a lot of time. However, the customers were always jovial, if loud, wanting chips or a burger following a night’s drinking. That job was busy, busy, busy. Again, by the time the night was over, I was wrecked and more than ready for bed. The only good thing about this job was that we were so busy, the time would fly by, and before long, we were switching off the lights and locking up the doors, and saying ‘good night’.


But, in


due course, I was happy to say ‘good-bye’ to this job as well.


France. The summer of my six-


teenth birthday, I decided to go to France to work as an au-pair. I went to a family in Lyon. The reason I wanted to go to France was to improve my French. While it was diffi- cult to understand what every- one was saying, as my level of spoken French was quite poor at the time, I managed to build on the foundations I learnt at school, and increased my vocabulary during this time. Towards the end of the summer, I had a good level of comprehension, and could express myself reasonably well in French with all the cultur- al gestures that accompanied French conversation. I had also learnt a lot about French culture: wine, cheese and oth-


@eastcorkjournal / #eastcorkjournal


er speciality dishes. While the pay was paltry, the experience was certainly invaluable, espe- cially as I faced into Leaving Certificate French the follow- ing year. It gave me a definite advantage.


London On my way back from


au-pairing in Lyon, France, I stopped off in London – much to my mother’s horror (who feared I may never return home). I was conscious I had not earned a whole lot during my time in France, so I stayed in London with a friend’s fam- ily, and got two part-time jobs in London’s suburbs. The first was in the morning selling fresh fruit and vegetables. In this job, the owner would be- rate me if I was overly gener- ous with my weighing of the produce, but I was equally berated by the customers if I was seen to be ‘mean’ with my portions as it was a ‘pay by weight’ system. For me, it was better for business to err on the side of generosity, as the customers were all local and would return. But the owner - a tight-fisted old man - did not see it that way. In any case, I agreed a cash wage with him. That way, I felt I could leave the job once I had earned enough.


Second job My second job in London was bar work in a local pub. It was apparently a rough pub, although it did not appear so to me. I noticed the owner watched me very carefully at the beginning. It transpired the last employee stole bar- rels of beer by filling up the empty ones with water. He disappeared by


the time it


was discovered. A regular cus- tomer reassured the owner, ‘she couldn’t


steal if her life


depended on it’, referring to me, noticing how meticulous I was about handling money. I never got caught with local scams such as ‘but I gave you a twenty pounds my love’. Not on my watch! I grew up in this business, and was wise enough to all the tricks of the trade. The owner was very pleased with me, and was sorry to see me go as I had built up a nice rapport


with his customers. ‘Home is calling’, I told him. eastcorkjournal


He understood, and I arrived back home with money to give my mother.


Objective


achieved. My mother was just relieved to see me home.


Factory Work When I finished my Leav-


ing Certificate, I got a job in a local factory. That was very different indeed. The work it- self was physically demanding, with long hours and boring re- petitive tasks. Its saving grace was that it was very well paid. In fact, I earned more money here than in all my other jobs combined. But what I par- ticularly enjoyed about this job was the local banter and funny comments that went on between employees. The lo- cals were hilarious, with their razor sharp wit. So much so, that I often felt I had landed on a comedy set. Indeed, I had no wit to match, no answers quick or clever enough to re- tort with. The regulars had perfected this over the years. Sometimes, a day or night shift could be a real barrel of laughs with funny comments volleyed over and back at great speed, mounting like a deck of cards, until finally one poor sod would be outwitted or out classed in humour. That was the best part of working in this factory. But it all depended on the combination of charac- ters that you might be on shift work with. Other times, it was not so interesting, and those days or nights would drag by. However, I made some great friends from this period of my life, and I’m glad to say we still keep up the friendship, and still meet up on a fairly regular basis.


New York My next


port-of-call for


summer work was New York on a J1 visa. The first year I landed in New York, I stayed with my brother. Over the course of four months, I worked in many different jobs. The first job was in a busy Manhattan restaurant as a re- ceptionist. The second job was as a waiter in an Irish Diner in Queens, New York. The third was in a pub-restaurant down- town in South Street Seaport, near the Port of Manhattan borough. The fourth job was in a Deli-grocery shop. My


fifth job was in ‘’Over the Counter’ in Wall Street, where local tradespeople would ring out to order their lunch over the phone. The order was passed on to the kitchen, and then the delivery boys would make their way across Wall Street to deliver the order to their offices. This was New York for you, eating on the go. My last job was in Dunkin Donuts which I enjoyed the most. Every evening, I brought home left-over donuts handing them out to the homeless I met along the way, or home to my brother, or his neighbours, until we were all ‘donutted’ out of it! Finally, I returned home at summer’s end, having earned enough money for the following year in College.


New York: Take 2 My first summer in New


York was not great. I went through a lot of jobs as the 1990s recession had hit New York. Foreigners, such as my- self, (though white and Irish), were not made to feel wel- come, ‘taking American jobs’. It was not a nice place to be in 1991. But this was now 1992, and I was back in NY for more punishment. Why? Because I got a ‘Green Card’ and had to return to work in the USA to validate it. I returned to New York with a heavy heart. My previous experience had been traumatic. I was not used to being let go, replaced by some illegal emigrant, usually from Puerto Rica, who would work for peanuts. As I was on a J1 visa, I had to be paid the legal official hourly rate (as I had an IRS number). Despite the fact I was honest, hard work- ing and reliable, that did not count. My brother used to laugh at my disheartened face and say, ‘that is New York for you, they don’t care, so why should you?’ but I did. I was brought up in a value system where people were not so dis- posable. But this time round in NY, as luck would have it, I ended up working for a Jewish dentist in Madison Avenue in the heart of Manhattan, close to Trump Tower. This was the posh part of town. I was treat- ed very well, and paid reason- ably well. This entire summer made up for the previous one, restoring my faith in American


society again!


Boston By the time I was on my


third J1, I decided to spend it in Boston. I had cousins there, so I boarded with them whilst working two jobs again (as one could do in America!). In the morning, from 7am to 1pm, I worked in Burger King on a Drive Thru. In the afternoon, from 2pm to 7pm, I worked for ‘Sunoco Garage’, a filling station. Mostly, the Bostonians loved my Irish accent, and en- joyed either coming through Drive Thru to hear my Irish brogue, or at the gas station, to fill up, and hear an accent ‘from the old country’ or ‘the old sod’. Across from the gas station lay a graveyard. There I found the graves of my granduncles who had emigrat- ed to the USA more than half a century earlier. I wondered did the USA, where they made their home, live up to their expectations?


I wondered if


they had lived ‘the Ameri- can Dream’? Looking at


the


graves, I could not tell. How- ever, it was nice that we were still in contact with the cousins some generations later. That was special. I liked Boston and could see how the Irish wanted to make it their home. Indeed, it felt like a home away from home.


Killarney My next summer job,


fol-


lowing my qualifying with a BA, took me to Killarney. There, I worked in the Gle- neagle


Hotel. Every week


you had the same performers coming to play for busloads of Dublin retirees or American tourists: The Wolfe Tones, Brendan Grace, Brendan Shine or Joe Dolan (RIP). My mother came to hear Joe and, despite herself, she thorough- ly enjoyed his performance. I worked hard that summer. Waitressing is very demand- ing. I remember whilst work- ing there, my graduation photo appeared in ‘The Cork Examiner’.


I remember my


employer, Mr O’Donoghue senior, examining the photo and looking at me, checking to see if indeed we were the same person. It was, but I didn’t tell him. Working in the hotel business is no joke as it is very


leather shoes at


labour intensive. I remember I bought a new pair of com- fortable


the


beginning of the summer for this job, and by the end of the summer, I had actually worn out the soles of the shoes. That will give you some idea of the kind of running around involved. For me, that was enough of this kind of work, from here on, I would engage mostly with more profession- al work related to my studies, rather than the services indus- try where I felt I had served my time!


Professional Work My next jobs were more to


do with ‘head work’. My next post was that of a Research Assistant at UCC. Then in England, I got the job of a ‘Research Officer’ at Oxford University whilst pursing my studies there (though I still did bar work at the weekends to earn extra cash). In Brussels, I worked as a Research Fellow. Then I returned to my career as a secondary school teacher (of English and French) be- fore eventually becoming a full time Researcher and Lecturer. Yet, I believe firmly the years I put down in the service of the public domain served me well. One acquires good com- munication and organisational skills, as well as developing a good work ethic. And more importantly, I was able to sup- port myself throughout my studies whilst learning the val- ue of money and developing good friendships. In any case, these part-time jobs did me no harm, and also taught me about cultural diversity and in- clusion, and perhaps should be encouraged more in our youth today - imparting essential life skills. Life is not easy, or cheap, and there is no better way to learn this than through hard work. As my grandmother (my first boss) used to say, ‘hard work never killed anyone’ and I’m sure she was right.


Profile: Dr Rosarii Griffin is a


Governor, Lecturer and Researcher at UCC, and Fellow of the Roy- al Society of Arts in London. All views expressed herein are her own. Rosarii can be reached on info@ eastcorkjournal.ie or @ro- sarii_griffin. Copyright Rosarii Griffin.


Tel: 021 463 8000 • Email: info@eastcorkjournal.ie • Web: www.eastcorkjournal.ie


info@eastcorkjournal.ie


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