Working Class

I flew back to London to figure out what to do next. But first I had some unfinished business to attend to. I felt guilty every time I thought about what I had done in leaving my job at Baskin-Robbins before my shift had ended. Even though it wasn’t that much time, my boss had put her trust in me and I had taken advantage of it. As soon as I returned, I went back to her office, apologized, and even though it was such a small amount, I actually gave her back the money for the time that I had skipped out.

She did tell me how surprised and disappointed she had been that I, of all people, had done what I did. She accepted my apology and then something amazing happened. In England, unlike in the US, when you work for a company, they do your taxes for you. If your company has taken too much tax out of your wages, they will return it to you after taxes have been filed. Little did I know, they had overpaid for me. So after I handed over my pittance for short-changing her, my boss handed me a package with a lot more money. I was extremely happy that I had taken the opportunity to apologize.

On my trip, I had used my new credit card. The problem was, as I was not in London when the bill came, I wasn’t able to pay. I had foreseen this dilemma and had sent a letter to my landlady asking her if she could possibly just pay the minimum for me each month until I got back. Either she did not get the letter or she was insulted by the request. In either case, the bill had not been paid and my first foray into credit ended with my credit worthiness in the toilet. 

I went back to the newspaper classifieds and found the world of the bicycle courier. I thought it sounded like an interesting proposition, riding around London, picking up and delivering packages to companies about town.  It would keep me fit and allow me to see the city…if I survived the traffic pollution and the danger of getting run over. 

Somehow the bank still let me use the credit card and I bought a brand-new, 10-speed bike. The job was in central London so I rode all the way in and back, a good hour or so each way. It was a commission job, paid on what you did. You sat in the office in line behind whatever couriers were there first, waiting until the next job that got called in.

It wasn’t really an even playing field. Some companies were attached to certain couriers and wanted to only use them and the dispatchers also had their favorites. But I got to know the ropes and enjoyed the challenge. I wasn’t making too much money, however, and there were two other major challenges that began to impede.

First of all, cities have a lot of debris on the roads. My bike had very thin tires and they kept getting punctured. This was especially inconvenient when you were on a job which were mostly time-sensitive. The second challenge was that winter was approaching and it began to get cold. One day after yet another flat tire, I decided I had had enough and needed to look for something else.

As much as I loved central London, with transportation costs so high, I decided that I regrettably needed to look for something closer to home. There was an American grocery store, Safeway, not too far from Palmers Green in the area of Woods Green. They were looking for people to stock shelves at night. I could ride the bus, which was closer and cheaper than the Tube. 

Once again, I came across a new variation of the English language. For some reason, most of the other night stockists were from the country of Sri Lanka. At first they didn’t think too much of me. They were very quick and I was a lot slower. Most of them worked alone but they would usually position me to assist one of them. As I tried to work hard and assimilate they began to warm up. One of their phrases I picked up seemed to endear me to them in particular. 

As we were working at night, the doors were all locked. When someone needed to get in they would ring a doorbell. It was a shrill ringing sound but depending on the level of noise in the store, the person with the key could not always hear the bell. So whenever the bell would ring, whoever heard it would yell out “Front door”. But this wasn’t just said in your basic English. It was said with a Sri Lankan accent that came out, “Fruhndooohr” with rolling “r”s. So when I joined in, it gave them a laugh.

We would eat our meal in the employee break room. We were allowed to eat stuff from the store up to a certain money limit each day. I kept it pretty simple with soups and such. The Sri Lankans always brought what I will call their “aromatic” assortment of Sri Lankan food from home.

On yer bike