Stacking 18kg water bottles for 12 hours straight

I grew up in a very rural Shropshire village, it was a happy house and I have really fond memories of my childhood. However, we never had any cash, which drove me mad. Pocket money wasn’t something we ever received, and my brother and I were no strangers to being kitted out in hand me downs. I went on holiday abroad once during the first 16 years of my life – we drove to France in our car.

As soon as I became a teenager, I knew that if I wanted to buy something, I would need to work for it. At this stage, I wasn’t concerned about if a job was the right fit for me at all, my main aim was to generate enough income to buy a pair of Nike-Air’s (at that time I was rocking a pair of second hand HI-TEC’s that had a fake air bubble in, that was actually I believe just a hole in the shoe).?And so, I embarked on, what my friends described at the time as, “questionable career choices.”

I stacked 18kg office water bottles off a factory production line in 12-hour shifts. I swept up seed husks (Google it) from the floor in a warehouse as they constantly fell off a conveyor belt, for 8 hours at a time, without a mask. I mowed a 2-acre lawn, armed with only an old push lawnmower, which took an eternity. I cleaned bedrooms and bathrooms in a hotel and always seemed to come across a large volume of concerning stains. I accidentally poured hot coffee over a customer’s designer suit in a café and the dry-cleaning costs were then docked from my wages.

It didn’t really matter what I was doing, I was delighted with my earnings and after about a year, the brand-new blue Nike-Air’s were in sight…

Reflecting on these times in my life, I realise now how important these formative job roles were for me. There are benefits to be found in all experiences, and you need to sometimes look quite hard to find them, but they are always there.

Stacking water bottles helped me build up physical strength for free (which most people now have to pay for this privilege), the seed sweeping taught me about resilience, the mowing allowed me to appreciate the outdoors, the hotel work gave me a fantastic new friendship group and working in the café provided me with a crash course in customer service. The more jobs I did, the more I experienced and of course the more potential Nike-Air’s I could buy.

Looking back though, I can see now that all of these jobs actually taught me a lot about tolerance, determination, respect for others and friendship. They also developed a very strong work ethic in me, to my surprise.

If I could talk to my younger self, I would be confidently reassuring and say, “don’t ever regret where you’ve been or what you’ve done, every experience leads you closer to where you’re going.”