Doing A Job On Your Holiday

(My family has emigrated to Australia a year or so ago. Currently I am 17 and both in high school and working weekends. We have come back over to visit family over Christmas. So far I have spent a lot of my holiday catching up with old friends whom I haven’t seen in some time. Finally, we have come to the last week of holiday and I have plans to see as my people as I can before I leave. One day I’m watching TV when my mum comes in with a stern look on her face. She puts the phone next to me on the sofa. I’m a little confused at first.)

Me: “Err… what’s this for?”

Mum: “I think you should call [Local Employment Agency] and get some work for the last week.”

Me: “Mum, we have a week left; I kind of have plans with friends before I leave.”

Mum: “Well, I think it would be a good idea.”

Me: “Why? We’re on holiday.”

Mum: “Well, you need to learn how to work.”

Me: “I already work, remember? I work Friday and Saturday evenings at the supermarket back in Australia.”

Mum: “I would like you to call them!”

Me: “But there’s no point. We have a week left.”

(My dad marches in as well sporting the same kind of look.)

Dad: “Look, your mother and I think you should work; you can’t just laze around here.”

Me: “I’m not! I really would like to see to my friends this week. I’m not going to…”

Mum: “Just give them a call and see what they have.”

Me: “But why? WE’RE ON HOLIDAY!”

Mum: “I worked at M&S during this holiday; you have no excuse.”

Me: “Only because you arrived two weeks before me and Dad did and no family was around then.”

Mum: “Well, I want you to call them.”

Me: “So let me get this straight: we have less than week left here and you want me to not see my friends whom I probably won’t see for another year, probably more because most of them are going off to university next year, because you want to me to work, and the only reason you can give is because you say so! Despite the fact I already work back home, which includes working late shifts when I can be out with my friends there, get good grades at school, save money for university, and haven’t caused any trouble. So in the face of that, you still think I need to learn the value of work and responsibility?”

(My mum can see I have a good point but she still seems determined to win here.)

Mum: “Just call…”

Me: “Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

(I pick up the phone and dial in front of her. I ask the agency if A. I can work because I am under 18 and B. Do they actually have anything going? The woman on the phone tells me that I am ineligible as they need people to be over 18 and also they are currently very slow. I hang the phone up and relay the information to my mum.)

Me: “There you go. I called them. Happy now?”

Mum: “Fine; waste your time, then!”

(She marched off in a pretentious rage. I had a great final week seeing my friends before I went back. Years later my mum STILL can’t explain why she was so adamant about that whole thing.)