Liam's got issues: March

Mobile rings. ‘Liam, it’s C.’ ‘C who?’

‘CK.’ ‘Who?’

‘CK. You fired me for being a robbin’ little c***.’

Oh yeah. CK.

C was a 17-year-old apprentice at Fifteen when I was CEO. Textbook damage.

Abandoned by smacked-up parents? Tick. Abused in care? Tick. Illiterate? Tick. Drink, drugs? Yep, full set. Quick to anger. Oh yeah.

It went well for a while. He turns up, works hard, keeps the lip to a minimum. And then he nicks a laptop and sells it. Gets caught on CCTV. He cries and begs me not to call the cops. Big softie I am, I ask the laptop owner to meet with him. Confront the impact of his actions. All that. Owner says he will exchange his laptop for a commitment from C to knuckle down and graduate. C – natch – agrees. More tears. Lovely. Next month the little bugger steals the head chef’s knives! So I sacked him.

A year later – 2006  – there is C in my office. Black eye. Bleeding. Been attacked while sleeping rough. We patch him up. Feed him. Phone some hostels. He leaves with a few quid. Death or jail, I thought as he loped out.

And, what do you know, here he is on the blower to me very clearly not dead. Just out of jail for attacking a drug dealer. I’ve really changed, he says. In jail he thought about what I’d said. It is possible – even if things are really, really bad – to change your life. Can I help him get a job?

C counted as an obvious failure in the Fifteen social report. A clear waste of time and money. At the time it seemed like we made a mistake in hiring him. It put extra pressure on the boy and made his life worse. A disastrous social return on investment.

But now? If C’s telling the truth – at last – and does become a taxpaying citizen, how is that to be accounted for? What metrics can capture this change which has taken years? Beats me.

I got C a job in the kitchen of my friend James’s gastropub. Never say never, we agreed. But don’t leave your laptop lying about, mate.

Liam Black is co-founder of Wavelength. Contact him via www.thesamewavelength.com or via Twitter @LiamABlack