Throughout my late teens and early twenties, I worked in pubs and bars. I started my first proper job soon after I turned 18 (before that I’d done bits of babysitting for family friends, and briefly had a paper round) after answering an advert posted on Facebook. I told my boss I wanted shifts on Friday and Saturday nights but was sometimes asked to work until after midnight on weeknights – leaving me exhausted in my sixth form classes the next day.
I could have refused, but then I might not have been given shifts at all. As I was on a zero-hours contract my employer was under no obligation to offer me work. I liked earning money to spend on clothes and going out with my friends, so I kept my mouth shut. And when my manager texted me out of the blue on a night I wasn’t working – telling me he had cocaine and champagne and asking me to come to his hotel room – I wasn’t sure how to handle it. Unless I made it clear I wasn’t interested, there was a risk the situation would escalate. But I needed to find a way of doing so without offending him, otherwise I could lose my job.
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