Q. I have been building a small business, so far single-handedly, with a tiny bit of input from my parents. We live in a tight-knit rural community and a couple of unemployed graduate friends, still living at home like me, on hearing that I may be expanding soon, have asked me to employ them. They are far too intelligent to do the only sort of work I would need them for — packing up parcels part-time — but they have suggested they do it anyway and I give them equity in my company as a compensation for paying the minimum wage. I don’t want to do this, and my parents, who are friends with their parents, don’t want me to, but even if I could pay them a good wage, much as I love these friends, I don’t want them bullying me in my workplace.
— Name and address withheld
A. Recruit some local schoolchildren to give you preliminary assistance in anticipation of the expansion — perhaps even the younger siblings of the graduates you mention? Children of school age are allowed to work 12 hours a week during term time and are not entitled to the national minimum wage, but perhaps £2.50 an hour would be reasonable. In this way you will make the point of exactly how menial is the work you have on offer. You can find the red-tape details on www.direct.gov.uk.
Q. Retirement to an idyllic cottage in a Dorset village beckons for a close friend. Both he and his wife have worked in finance, and possess skills valuable to a small community. Their forthcoming neighbours include the somewhat imperious wife of a retired senior army officer who has transferred her talents from the garrison to the village which she now commands. She is determined to put the couple to community use and is not the sort of woman to brook ‘no’ for an answer. My friend is equally determined that his retirement should be just that. However, neither he nor his wife wish to appear churlish. How does he forestall the village gauleiter from pressing him into service without causing offence? He hopes to live harmoniously there for many years.
— J.V.L., London SW7
A. He should smile mysteriously as he tells the gauleiter, ‘I am afraid we are absolutely out of the picture until we have finished writing our memoirs’, and refuse to be drawn as to when this will be.
Q. I am a lifelong admirer and one-time friend of the late, great Sybille Bedford. As everyone knows, her supreme masterpiece is A Legacy. When others refer to it as ‘The Legacy’, how can I correct them without seeming pompous or petty?
— A.B., London W8
A. You can’t, but why not console yourself by reflecting on Carl Jung’s dictum that the problems of life are not for solving, they are for working on?
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