My first “pay cheque”, if I can call it that, was R1. It was 1974, I was in Grade 1 and I earned it by picking all the ripe apricots and peaches from the trees in our yard. And it was a fortune for the six-year-old me.
My mother cooked apricot jam for a week. Back then, she had a pantry full of canned fruit bottles and her annual jam ritual ensured that my sister and I would have jam sandwiches in our lunchboxes every school day of the year.
The peaches, however, were preserved in a light sugary syrup, for dessert every Sunday afternoon. Boy, was that a treat.
I must admit, although I enjoyed my little fortune, it was hell earning it. The apricots just seemed to multiply overnight. And for every ripe fruit, there were at least a dozen fruit flies.
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However, when the apricots and peaches got overripe and ended up on the ground, the fruit flies seemed to multiply. Picking up the rotten fruit was also part of my “job”. It was horrible. Touching the slimy, rotten, stinky fruit with my bare hands was beyond gross.
But, looking back, I am eternally grateful to my parents for tasking me with that responsibility. It instilled in me a work ethic, which I have also transferred to my girls.
Having grown up with the realisation that money must be earned, I can honestly say, touch wood (and yes, I am tapping my head as I write this) that I have never been unemployed in my life.
Although we called my earnings “pocket money”, the crux is that it had to be earned. It was not an allowance or a grant.
I am reminded of my first “job” every month-end, when I see thousands upon thousands of people lining up outside the post office and the banks to collect their Sassa grants.
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The only task they have to perform for their “pocket money” is to stand in a queue for a day. They don’t have to lift a finger. No picking up of rotten fruit, no sweeping a street, no filling a pothole, no mowing a pavement… The only task they have to perform is to vote for their grant every five years.
