Two things that I learned working at Marks and Spencer

While in my first year of sixth form college, I applied for temporary Christmas work at Marks & Spencer. I got the job, working on Menswear. 

I lied in the title. There are actually three important things I learned at Marks & Spencer, none of which were taught to me by any member of staff (actually that's a lie, one was, but they didn't intend to).

The first important thing I learned was how to fold suits and suit trousers correctly. I was 16 when I started working there so you could perhaps argue that I should have known by then, but what can I say? I didn't.

Compounding this problem was the fact that when I started, nobody taught me. Given that suits were a pretty big factor in clothes sales at M&S I think it's slightly surprising that no-one bothered to check that their staff could do things correctly, but never mind.

An elderly foreign couple, perhaps Cypriot, came in and bought a pair of suit trousers, navy blue and from our finest range, if I recall correctly.

I placed the trousers quite clumsily in a bag, and the man, rather annoyed, asked me to take them out and fold them correctly (if there is one thing that you become immediately accustomed to working in M&S, it is older people speaking to you as if you're a piece of shit).

Had I been older and more confident, I feel like I would have reacted in a rather volatile manner to being spoken to in this way (whilst I admit it was my fault).

Instead, I sheepishly admitted that I didn't know how to fold suit trousers correctly. Once again the man was angry.
"How can a young man not know how to fold trousers?"

The lady was much more kindly, as is generally the case with the genders.
"Oh, look at him, he's just a young man - a baby"

She smiled at me, and proceeded to show me how to fold trousers so they don't crease up. I apologised profusely and explained I had never been shown how as I didn't own any trousers like that.

The next two things I learned are the original two I refer to in the title, and they are less physical and more philosophical.

Important thing I learned no. 2:

There was a woman who started at M&S about two weeks before me. Her name was Paula. Middle-aged and extremely petite - short and slim, with exponentially curly hair.

Paula taught me something, and I'm sorry to admit because she was very kind, caring and thoughtful, and she was always very nice to me, and we got on well. But she taught me that I was more intelligent than an adult. Because for all her good qualities she was not clever.

It was the first time that I had been able to fully appreciate that I was significantly smarter than someone older than me. Up until that point my only experience, really, of adults in the real world came from my parents, my relatives and my teachers, all of whom are generally smart and world-wise.

So, to me, it seemed like an obvious natural order. I knew I was relatively smart for a young adult - I always got good grades and I was a geek. But it just seemed to follow that adults would have had more time to learn things than me, and so would be naturally more intelligent.

But I knew things that Paula didn't. A lot of thinks. Fairly basic things. After that, the flood gates opened. Upon realising I was smarter than Paula, I noticed that not everyone was as intelligent as I was giving them credit.

The third thing that working at M&S taught me is a bit more obscure. It's difficult to say exactly what I learned. But I'll explain and we'll see where we find ourselves (part of the problem here is that I conceived the idea for this blog a while back, and I now can't remember what I originally believed I had learned from the following experience).

Some back story is required.

My first real best friend was called Daniel H. I've mentioned him before in this blog because the primary influence he has had on my life (more important than being my first best friend, although I thank him for that) was that he introduced me to basketball.

(Note also that once, when asked about origin of our friendship not long after its inception, Daniel told the asker that we had had a fight: if I had won we would not be friends, and if he had won we would agree to be friends, Daniel triumphantly explained that he had won the fight and so we had become friends.

Now, I don't remember this happening and it sounds like a lie, I also recall however that at the time we were I asked I couldn't remember how we had met or why we were friends.

About a week later I decided to test out the theory that he had beaten me in a fight. I suggested a play fight. With compete modesty I can tell you that I completely over-powered him very easily. So I must say that the story seems extremely unlikely.

I also believe that winning this fight is the sole reason for my undue confidence that should I become involved in a violent physical altercation that I would be fine. Fights are something that, to my equidistant happiness and disappointment, have been in extreme scarcity in my life.)

Some years after my friendship with Daniel had disappeared altogether (we went to different schools in years pre-mobile phone or MySpace) I saw in Marks & Spencer a man named Keith R.

Keith had been the husband of Daniel's mum at the main time I knew Daniel, so he was Daniel's step-dad. They had divorced a little time before I lost contact with Daniel (I believe it was their divorce that in sighted Daniel and his mum and sister to move away from Southwick).

So I saw him, but couldn't quite place who he was. To my delight he handed over his credit card and I took a peak at the name. It was Keith's name.

I realised then why I hadn't recognised him completely. See, my memory of him was from about eight years earlier, and to put it sensibly, eight years before I was 16, I was 8, and being 8 makes a big difference to your memory.

My 8-year-old memory of Keith was of a large, heroic man. I recall being told a story by my mum of being he once dived into the road at the last second when Daniel's younger sister (and not even Keith's blood-related daughter) had wandered into the road with a car approaching.

But now as he stood in front of me, I saw a very different man. I was only 16, and hadn't yet filled out my frame entirely, but already I was more broad-shouldered than he. While not slight, I cannot be described as someone with a particularly large frame anyway.

So in that sense he seemed almost scrawny. Thin, almost emaciated, and with rather sharp angular features that I wouldn't have credited.
I asked him if he was Keith R, and he said yes, and that he thought that he recognised me but couldn't recall who I was.

I learned that my memory was hugely subject to my own manipulation due to the stories I had been told.

To this day I don't believe I have seen Daniel or any other members of his family.