Already drawn to books, he got a job stacking shelves at Foyle's bookshop.
Now the girl is leaving home for college, while her brother, always slow at school, gets a job stacking shelves.
In August, Ms. Skipwith, 42, hopes to get a raise of 50 cents an hour at her job stacking shelves at Walmart, which should help make up the difference.
When asked how, without the Lucent insurance, he would pay for prescription drugs and other things not covered by Medicare, he said, "You can always get a job stacking cans at some store".
"I like hard work," he says, noting that he has a day job stacking lumber at a nearby Home Depot and is talking with a Tigers season-ticket holder — a regular beer customer — about going to work as a salesman at his Chevrolet dealership.
Hours of meaningless pipetting have prepared you for a job stacking supermarket shelves or working on a factory production line.
Sir Terry Leahy ended up running Tesco after taking a holiday job stacking tea and coffee, George Clooney once tried his hand at selling women's shoes, while the comedian Sean Lock worked on building sites.
Now he'd have to crawl back and beg for his old job, stacking grapefruit pyramids.
Jobs like stacking heavy boxes or fixing power lines can be dangerous, so why not give some of that work to robots?
And this is why she was now outside the dollar store, hoping to save their jobs with stacks of "Stop the Cuts" forms clenched by clothespins, pouncing on each mall punk or war veteran who passed.
