Part-Time Job Stories: The Fruit Picking Job

Well, as stupid ideas are and always will be, it seemed like a good one at the time. I was young and wanted some money, what was the perfect way - fruit picking! It wouldn't be a hard job to do, and if you were hungry you'd always have something to eat, well that was how I thought it would be.

Living in a village it was easy to find a farm that needed fruit-pickers. On arrival everything seemed fine, it was very informal, the farmers went though with us what to do, but then it all went a bit Pete Tong. After slaving away for hours, yes hours! that felt like days! I had amassed a number of buckets of strawberries, so I took them to get weighed, recorded and to reap my reward.

"They're no good" came the surly reply, "Got the stalks in, can't do anything with them", and away they went and with that so did all my hard toil, trouble and my hard earned money! I didn't get paid for them. The work was backbreaking, crawling round on all fours through the dusty field, turning over leaves making sure the fruit was ripe and all this with a baking sun on my back with nowhere to take shelter, so if it rained I was in trouble. So by the end I was tired, coated in dust, still broke and sunburnt.

All I can say is, if you're thinking about getting a job fruit picking, think hard, the days are long and the pay is low, due to it usually being dependant on how much you pick. So watch out, don't go into it thinking what I did, it might put you off fruit for life, though I still like strawberries.

- Pete