Saturday Job (1980)

Saturday Job (1980)

 School work had improved for Gary since the 0’ Grade
results. He had chosen to take 3 Highers -in French, English and Art. These
were three subjects he thought he was especially good at, even though his
teachers didn’t always agree with his sentiments. Three Highers, which
hopefully would stand him in good stead for his future life, maybe further
education and hopefully, a decent job, maybe in the Oil Industry.

The paper job was very much in the past and his new Saturday
job at, of all places, a fashion clothes store, was quite enjoyable, and an
eye-opener, and a tentative step into the world of work-into the ‘Big Wide
World’ Dad had often spoken about. He and his pal Sandy were very much the
outsiders in this poser’s paradise. Gary with his black framed specs, long
centre parted hair, and lumpish frame, Sandy with his biker jacket, drainpipe
jeans and spiky punk haircut did not really fit the bill image-wise, but they
were there to work, not to pose, unlike their colleagues. The other guys in the
shop wore burgundy and grey clothes and matching shoes, the colours of the
moment apparently, and thin ties, which reminded Gary of the ties punk folk
wore a couple of years ago, but there the resemblance ended.

Gary and Sandy had been introduced to their new colleagues
by a guy called Frank who was probably eighteen at the most but was making
attempts to appear older by growing a sparse moustache. He boasted about
spending all his week’s pay on alcohol each Saturday night and that he had
recently been tattooed. His tattoos indicated his love for his country of birth
and for his parents. Gary found this odd, as he had never met anyone with a
tattoo before, wasn’t its sailors or soldiers who had tattoos, or folk who had
been in jail?

The music of the ‘New Romantics’ was on the radio at the
time, and this and futuristic synthesiser music was often played in the shop
stereo, along with the even worse selections of disco music. Gary and Sandy
spoke of taking in their tapes of heavy metal and punk rock, but these were
swiftly rebuffed, by Rob the manager, a smug floppy fringed individual, who
looked like a boy dressed up in a grown man’s suit. He couldn’t have been that
much older than them, barely shaved and smoked to look older and in his eyes,
cooler. Rob was always boasting to the others of his trips to London to see the
trendiest bands in the trendiest discos, and his encounters with famous people
which were most likely in his dreams.

Everybody smoked, and the tea room was enshrouded in a fug of smoke when you entered and listened to the chatter of the staff who worked there all the time. Lynn, the shop’s cleaner was always flirting with Ray who came to clean the windows once a week, their repartee was like something out of
a Carry-On film, with the sexual innuendoes woven into their bawdy banter.

They were supposed to be having a ‘fling’ as Frank put it,Gary found this cringeworthy as they were both as old as his folks.

The ‘work folk’ as he came to know them were nice enough, but he always remembered his own pals, his school pals, so he always deftly side-stepped invitations to go to the less salubrious pubs and discos after
hours with that motley bunch from the shop.

They got up to all sorts, on their way to the discos, vodkas were downed along with pints, and somewhere along the way someone might have some cannabis, and there was always someone who ended up paying for the taxi home.

Gary spent his money on music, which he described as ‘his drug of choice’. His pay went on tapes and albums every week. When folk from school were getting into music like Bruce Springsteen, The Jam and Specials, Gary preferred the noisier end of the rock music spectrum with favourites such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Motorhead. He liked some of punk also, and even stuff like Bowie and Roxy Music, but that wasn’t something he made too public, music fans were in their own tribes and gangs, the punks, the
metallers, the mods, whatever, and you didn’t admit to liking the music outwith your favoured genre.

Once Gary came home from work on the Saturday, he would often play a song on his cassette player before having supper, ‘to undo the damage that the shop’s music had inflicted on him’.

This was another step nearer the adult world of full-time employment.