June 2011 London
BLOG 65 Looking back: finding work
My mind swings back to those crazy days – settling in – or at least trying to settle in. It wasn’t easy finding my place in this new world, or should I say ‘old world’ for that’s what it felt like. I loved every minute, and looking back, in a strange way, I even enjoyed the embarrassing times, maybe because it gave me something to talk and laugh about with new-found friends in the evenings.
Take the time of my first-ever job in London. I desperately needed a job to pay the rent and also to save up for touring, so I joined St Paul’s employment agency for short-term office jobs, though my aim longer term was to get an art job in an advertising agency. I remember putting ticks in just about all the boxes where you list your skills. I had the attitude “why not? That can’t be too hard to learn!” That said, my first paid employment, admittedly for a pittance, was stuffing envelopes for the UN charity UNICEF. It wasn’t a skill on the list, but I knew it was something I couldn’t fail at, so turned up at the office in buoyant mood. The office was in a lovely olde-worlde building in the heart of Mayfair in London and about ten young women, were seated around a large, polished oval table with various piles of literature and envelopes. The envelopes were supposed to be self-adhesive but often weren’t, so there were a few sticky tape dispensers also on the table. When I entered the room, the low murmur of chat suddenly ceased as they stopped stuffing to appraise me.
I was introduced by a stern middle aged woman, the chief administrator (not a fellow envelope stuffer): “Ladies, this is ArtyMar, newly arrived from Australia” – and then she introduced each in turn: “Arty, this is Lady Caroline, Lady Marianne, Lady Sarah-Jayne . . .” These Ladies, Sloane Rangers in today’s lingo, were doing their charitable good works, whereas I was there to earn a crust. They all knew each other as this was like a club – I was clearly not meant to be a part of it, but it seemed there was some sort of deadline crisis and the material had to be shifted, so, head down, I got to work. After about ten minutes, I felt the conversation had died somewhat and I looked up. They had all stopped their envelope stuffing and were staring at me. I stopped too. What was wrong? Lady Caroline leaned toward me, ever so elegantly, her long blonde hair swinging over her shoulder: “Arty”, she said, her cut-glass accent like little chips of ice “What’s the rush? Do slow down - you’re making us look bad”.
What! How? Then I noticed that in the ten minutes I’d been there, my pile of stuffed envelopes was already twice as high as theirs. Oh dear – so I slowed right down. It was quite difficult to stuff envelopes slowly but I was helped by the fact that the flaps did not always stick. The sticky tape dispenser was at the far end of the table and the gentle murmur of my fellow envelope stuffers was beginning to rise again, so to get above it, I had to raise my voice a bit. I called out “Pass the Durex, please!”
Sudden stunned silence. So I called out again, this time into the silence, so not quite so loudly: “Can you pass the Durex?”
I then pointed to the tape dispenser. (The leading brand of sticky tape where I came from was called ‘Durex’, and just as a vacuum cleaner is called a Hoover, so sticky tape was referred to as Durex.) Slowly and deliberately Lady Caroline leaned toward me again and whispered delicately into my ear. The table erupted in titters while I turned as red as the red flowers on my dress.
I never did fit into that little circle.
My first job was meant to last a week – I’m not sure I managed a full week, but the next job was already on offer by St Paul’s so I wasn’t too worried. I’d ticked a box saying I could ‘touch type’ and so I could – sort of –
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. . . to be continued . . .usually posted on Thursday
