My first part-time job was in a small continental delicatessen at the Ringwood market. I worked Friday nights and Saturday mornings and was paid $2.50 an hour. I was 14 and yearned for something more glamorous than slicing salami and cutting cheese – although I do remember my workmate and I regularly enjoying sharing the inch-thick end piece of chicken loaf that was too small to slice. I wore a blue shapeless uniform and was supposed to wear a hairnet but never did. There was an apron of sorts that we’d wipe our hands down after each customer had left, smearing meat stains and olive brine in patterns on the thick cotton.
The two men who owned the stall were generous with their teenage staff, never minding if we scraped in a few minutes late for a shift or rearranged our hours because of some upcoming party. And at Christmas they’d always tuck an extra $20 note into our pay as a bonus. The day I forgot to put the guard down on the slicer and watched in shock as the front half of my finger dropped into the 100gram order of ham off the bone, they cleaned me up, bandaged my hand and sent me straight to the doctor for stitches.
I must have been more of a liability than an asset.
From there I graduated to a news agency in a major train station hub. Again, I had a blue uniform dress but this one had a Pilot Pen patch sewn on to the lapel. I worked with two other teenagers on Friday nights and we became fast friends, gossiping and chatting in between serving customers. We lived for the weekly piles of unsold magazines because we could rip off the covers to send back for a refund and take the rest home to read. This was how I kept up with all the latest from Hollywood, learned what hairstyles were in and studied pages of fashion that I could never afford to buy.
My third part-time job as a teenager was in a bakery near my parents’ house I rode my bike to on weekends. The shop was always warm by the time I arrived because the baker started early. At the end of each day, the unsold cakes and bread would be divvied up among the staff, and my favourite was the boston bun with the fake white icing. My boss drove a panel van and told vaguely inappropriate jokes but he was as kind in his own way as the owners of the deli, spending hours educating me about the lyrical genius of AC/DC’s Angus Young.
I was always working weekends as a teenager. Trying to save for something or other. A new coat. A pair of skinny jeans. A boom box that still plays. When I wasn’t out with my school friends, I was sweeping floors, scrubbing meat slicers and learning how to count change. Serving customers was at first terrifying but I slowly grew to enjoy it.
My new children’s book, Sonny & Tess, is a tribute to the part-time jobs of my teenage life and to the endless crushes that populated my diary. It’s partly set in a suburban fish and chip shop where Tess and the shop owner’s nephew Sonny work. Together they cry as they slice onions, argue about the correct salting of chips and learn to navigate all those awkward and exciting feelings of your first crush.
Unfortunately, my teenage working years were not so romantically blessed. Instead of meeting cute boys, I had to be content with slicing off my finger, becoming an ardent AC/DC fan and learning which magazine featured the best star sign prediction for a Virgo. I did serve Guy Pearce – fresh from his role in Neighbours – once, prompting my friend and I to giggle so much it took both of us to bag the loaf of bread. The beauty of writing Sonny & Tess is that I could finally invent the sort of gentle romance I longed for when I was 14 – complete with chicken salt, potato cakes and a generous serve of minimum chips.
• Nova Weetman is an award-winning children’s author. Her latest children’s book, Sonny & Tess, is published by UQP
