From billionaire salary expectations to drinking jugs of chocolate – this is what happened when three companies left a seven-year-old in charge
WOULD you leave a seven-year-old in charge at work?
A new Channel 4 show, When I Grow Up, sees children being let loose in the world of work for a social experiment.
Three businesses – celebrity magazine Hello!, an artisan chocolate company and an estate agents – have bravely agreed to allow a group of seven to nine-year-olds take over part of their company for a week – with heart-warming and hilarious results.
From bagging a Royal scoop, contaminating a 100kg vat of chocolate and selling a house for significantly less than the asking price, there are plenty of highs and lows.
Including rich kid Constantin, eight, dramatically quitting the show because he can’t deal with his squabbling colleagues.
The three-part series, starting tonight, is inspired by new research on social mobility and aims to see if it can change the way children see their futures.
Show expert Chris Percy explains: "Children can only aspire to what they know exists.
“Giving them a chance to explore different sorts of futures…this is what we need to do."
The children have diverse backgrounds and despite their differences they must learn to work together.
Careers researcher says: “We have thrown together children from all walks of life and this is because when you’re older you often don’t get to choose who you work with.
“ You have to work with people from all sorts of different backgrounds and that can be quite difficult.”
Here, we speak to three of the children – and their parents – from the series, and ask them classic job interview style questions with some hilarious responses…
Harriet went to work at chocolate business Montezuma's in Chichester, West Sussex.
She lives in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, with her mum Bianca Taylor, 41, a primary school teacher, and her 17-year-old sister Grace.
Bianca, who is divorced from Harriet's dad black cab driver Carlos Rodrigues, 46, says: "Harriet's always been very confident and outgoing.
"She is quite bossy and the programme has helped her to see things from other people's perspective.
“I do think it's a great idea to let young children go into the workplace. We're working class and I'm the first person in the family to go to university.
“I've got high expectations of my two girls and I think this has cemented that you can achieve whatever you want if you work hard enough."
Harriet says: "I enjoyed being left in the room with the chocolate. We got jugs and jugs and poured it down our throats. I got chocolate all round my face."
She was chosen to take over as the manager from Constantin after he quit the experiment.
Harriet says: "Before I'd even started some of the boys called me a 'dumb manager'.
"I thought they were joking but then I thought what if they are not and that made me upset.
“The hardest part was having to boss my friends around.”
Harriet's Job Interview
What are your salary expectations?
About £4 billion a month. I need to earn more than my mum does because she's just a teacher.
If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
I'd be a horse because I like to give rises and I'm pretty fair.
When did you last make a mistake?
I'm trying to think because my mum will see this. I left someone out because I was playing with another friend and they got upset.
Could you fire someone?
Yes but it would have to be something really bad for me to fire someone. Like them drinking most of the chocolate. I'd explain if they did it again they'd be in big trouble and get fired.
Isabella went to work for Hello! Magazine in London. She lives with her mum Leigh Greenwood, 49, an administrator, in Middlesbrough.
Single mum Leigh says: "Isabella is definitely not your average eight-year-old. She’s read Macbeth.
"She’s always asking me questions and sometimes I just don’t know the answer, especially if it’s about politics, so she just Googles it.
“I don’t want her to think she just has to be here for the rest of her life. I would like her to see the world.”
Despite the world of showbiz being a world away from what Isabella is used to, Leigh says she is proud of how her daughter took it all in her stride.
She says: “Even when she met Princes Charles and Camilla, she never batted an eyelid, whereas I was like a cat on a hot tin roof. She surprises me every day."
Budding journalist Isabella took along her own paper Isabella’s News on her first day and staff were so impressed they asked her to be the magazine’s Editor-in-chief during the experiment.
Isabella bags a scoop with Princes Charles and Camilla but makes a rookie mistake when she admits she has never heard of Myleene Klass as she tries to pitch a shoot with the presenter to her publicist over lunch at posh London restaurant L’Escargot.
She laughs: "I don’t really watch things with celebrities. Now I know what a big mistake I made.”
And she discovered being a boss isn’t easy either. She says: “Some of the kids were arguing all the time so I told them if you can't get along don't speak to each other."
Isabella's Job Interview
What's your dream job?
To be an MP because it's a really important role and they make good decisions for towns and cities.
What are your salary expectations?
At least £30 a month.
What's your biggest strength?
I can ignore people when I want to. I don't do what people tell me to do becauyse I'm independent.
What's your biggest weakness?
Talking all the time. I can't stop talking.
Charlie also went to work for Hello! Magazine. He lives in Arborfield, Berkshire, with mum Kat, 43, an estate agent, dad Gary, 51, a senior executive for an engineering company, and his 15-year-old brother Cameron.
Kat says: “Charlie wears hearing aids but his hearing loss doesn’t hold him back. He’s adamant he’s going somewhere in life.
“He loves singing and dancing and has based himself on a young John Barrowman. I've no idea where he gets it from. I certainly don't have jazz hands!
"Charlie is quite opinionated and it’s good for any child to realise that others can have just as good opinion and sometimes their opinion works out better.”
Charlie doesn’t exactly make the best impression with his new boss when he accidentally knocks over an office phone on his first day during a meeting with Hello’s Editor-in-chief Rosie Nixon.
He laughs: “I was thinking ‘Oh no!’ but it was also funny at the same time.”
On a shoot with Myleene Klass he clashes with the others on where to take pictures but finds a niche for himself as a stylist, winning praise from her publicist.
He says proudly: “It’s important that I look good and I choose all my own clothes. I’m unique and fashionable.”
Charlie's Job Interview
What are your salary expectations?
A million a year.
Why should you get the job?
I'm a triple threat. I can sing, dance and act.
Could you fire someone?
Yes I would tell them what they had done wrong and say: "You're fired!"
If you were an animal what would you be and why?
A snake because it's the symbol of my favourite Harry Potter house, Slytherin.
When I Grow Up starts on Channel 4 on Thursday at 8pm.
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