A well-known adage, I’m sure, and one which I’ve suddenly
found has come true. It’s happened: I’ve turned into my mother.
Not literally, of course. I haven’t become a middle-aged
woman overnight. (Not that I think of mine as middle-aged. Until she stops
running around after all of us, which probably won’t be for at least six years, she’ll be ageless.) But
having left education, I find myself living at home, working as a temp, and
driving my father’s automatic Volvo estate. Which happens to be just what she
did. It’s funny how things pan out, all the patterns and similarities.
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| This thing is two years older than me and probably works better than I do... |
Perhaps I’ve led you all on. I’m not about to write an essay
on whether daughters become their mothers. I have a lot in common with mine,
but I’m no expert on the subject! Instead it’s really a bit of an update and a
few thoughts on life right now. My official title is Customer Services Advisor,
with a bit of moonlighting as a receptionist on Mondays and Tuesdays, and so
far it’s been 100% more interesting than anything else I’ve ever done in an
office.
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| Obligatory bathroom pic. Trusty Looks-Like-Chanel jacket right there. |
Previously, most of my time has been spent doing monotonous
data entry, filing, and waiting around to be given something to do. While I’m
always grateful for employment, it’s quite hard to enjoy work when a quarter of
your day is spent twiddling your thumbs.
Now there’s almost no time to thumb-twiddle; instead, there are orders
to process, customers to ring, and, when I’m working on reception, the tannoy
to use.
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| #WerkFace |
Meanwhile, my multitasking skills have developed beyond belief. I used to think that stuffing envelopes whilst writing emails was talent, but now I can write emails, sort the post, answer the phone
and welcome visitors, all whilst eating an ice cream. Ok, not literally. No one wants to be greeted by a receptionist stuffing her face with a white magnum. But eating ice cream whilst answering the phone is definitely acceptable.
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| Work = money = spend it on tea. Investigating the correlation between packaging aesthetics and taste. |
Customer services isn’t quite my calling in life I don’t think, but
it’ll do nicely for now. Of course, when you proudly tell friends that you haven't seen in four years that you've actually managed to find a job, and then one of them tells you that she's been given a job in marketing for MAC, it doesn't seem quite as impressive. (Lucie might have let me down by not being my personal barrister, but at least I can get discount make up. That's what friends are for, right?) But so far, I've yet to get the work-dread, let alone the Sunday Night Blues. And when I do, I'll tell myself that this is just a stop gap, that this is what has to happen before I can escape and travel the world. It's a pretty good incentive, I think.
