Gainful Employment II

…. (continued from previous entry)

So when another agency called and offered me a job I practically ate the phone in my eagerness.
“Rumtumtugger, something’s come in and we were won-“
“YES! Yesyesyesyesyes. Yeeeeeeeessssss. Anything. For any money,” I shouted down the phone, “Where? When?”

Where turned out to be a small company just five stops down the London line from me, and when transpired to be now, that instant, as soon as I could get there.

The job was data entry, which you’ll be amazed and surprised to hear that the recruitment consultant didn’t exactly make entirely clear in her phonecall. But nevertheless, it was a job. And for at least two weeks.

So I went there. And I entered data. And I entered more data. And it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good. And the bloke I was working ‘for’ nominally was always out of the office, and I was never entirely sure who he was. But the other people there were nice, and you get tea twice a day delivered to your desk, and instead of treating me like some people treat temps, people said things like, “It’s rumtumtugger, isn’t it? How are you getting on? How are you finding it? It’s a bit boring isn’t it – why don’t you have a quick break?”

After my job had been extended a couple more weeks, Jack was asking me whether I thought I could stay longer, and I said to him a little sadly, “It’s not really the kind of job where you get the chance to do anything very impressive. I can’t tap in numbers in such a way that will encourage anyone to give me a job writing stuff for them. I’ll just go with it for the moment…”

You know when you make a comment to someone you don’t know, and after you’ve made them you wish you hadn’t? I did that in the kitchen one day. Was drinking tea to escape from the database and someone walked in and started talking to someone else about an event he was planning, with invites and a faxback form. I piped up, all full of beans,
” A fax back form? Sounds like a load of faff. Have you thought about having a web form?”
Stranger and conversation partner both went, “Huh?”so I continued, in my usual faintly irritating perky manner,
“Yeah. It would be great. You could give people the URL and set up a web form where people enter their details, and it gets automatically sent to you or entered into a database.” Stranger looked at me quizzically.
“Can you do that?”
“Erm- no.” I dropped my glance into my tea rather shamefacedly, started to feel rather stupid and shuffled out of the kitchen as fast as I could.

But from such strange beginnings, whole careers are made. Would you believe me, dear readers, if I told you that on the strength of that conversation, and what he described as ‘a feeling that you were quite bright’ I was then offered three months work, and now a permanent job?

You’d be quite within your rights not to believe me, to be honest- I didn’t quite believe him. But ‘stranger’ in the kitchen turned out to be none other than my boss, the Communications and Publicity Director, and conversation-I-was-a-bit-ashamed-of-butting-into, turned out to be a complete turning point.

“Yes,”he said to me enthusiastically, when he took me out for lunch to suggest that I stay for three months to do a really interesting job for much more money than I was on as a temp, “when you said that thing about the web form, I was really impressed, because I really want someone I can bounce ideas off….”

So there you have it. This was a month ago. I am now a Communications Assistant, and the company in question have just deposited what I consider to be an outrageous amount of money into my bank. And all this for having fun! Somehow, it seems almost too good…

I like my job. I am appreciated at work. People say things like, “Thank you, rumtum” and “Good work- why don’t you go home, it’s nearly 5pm” and “Have you finished that already?” whereas last year they used to say things like, “Resign!” and “Can you explain to me why you’re so corrupt?” and “Why don’t you all do your jobs better?” And I get paid almost twice as much.

When I first set out in London I saw my job as a way of paying the rent and nothing more. I wanted my main life, my main time, to be concentrated in the evenings: writing, and spending time with Jack. But being in this job makes me think how nice it would be to pursue a career with a capital ‘C’, to concentrate on getting promotion, to work on getting more responsibility, to impress people, to gather the experience I need to move on in double quick time.

“Good grief, rumtum….” said one of my friends, “From data entry to this? How long until you’re running the place?” I just laughed it off, but what I was thinking was,
“Watch This Space….“

with love,
a gainfully employed and suddenly scarily careerist,
rumtumtugger
xxx