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"The Hell of My Life"
After H. G. Wells finished his elementary schooling at 13 he had to start working. H. G.'s mother sent him off to be an apprentice in a draper's shop in Windsor. Wells worked as a shop assistant and would clean the shop and run the desk for up to 10 hours a day. H. G. slept in a dormitory with other apprentices and the senior shop assistant. Wells did not like his job and was very absent-minded about it so he was fired.
At 15, after he had apprenticed with a chemist and boarded with a school master, Wells' mother sent him to apprentice at another draper's shop in Southsea. The living conditions in H. G.'s new dormitory were much better than that of his previous draping job and his new boss was very friendly. Even thought the living conditions at his new job where better that the living conditions at his old job, they were still poor. In the winter Wells would freeze and his muscles would hurt from the long days of work that he put in.
Wells worked at the drapers shop in Southsea for two years until it became obvious to him that he would never be a good shop assistant. At 17 Wells nearly committed suicide but realized that it was the easy way out and instead found a job with his old school master in Midhurst. Unfortunately Wells' mother had paid for four years of training and so far, he had only done two. Wells decided that he could not endure another two years as a shop assistant and left to go to Midhurst.