Mickey has the gross misfortune to live in a part of the world where unemployment is persistently high and where young, uneducated men like himself have few opportunities in life.

To be sure, Mickey was able to find a job in a factory, but it was a lousy one, with low pay and no prospects. Worse still, it was unfulfilling and repetitive. Mickey would have to stand all day putting cardboard boxes together for hours on end. He really hated the job, not just because of the repetitiveness and low pay but because he was terrified that he'd have to do it for the rest of his life.

And so Mickey quit. But because there was never any alternative employment available, he always ended up crawling back to the factory, where he'd work for half the pay and double the hours. Although the job was still as crummy as ever, it was paradise by comparison to getting nothing but rejections from all the other places to which he'd applied for work.

Edward doesn't understand why Mickey doesn't just go and live on the dole, which in the UK is roughly equivalent to welfare in the United States. He tries to give Mickey some money, but Mickey's too proud to accept and throws the notes to the ground.