This page updated: 05/01/05
Part I – written May 2002
I’ve been working in various secretarial, clerical, admin and PA jobs since 1996, shortly after I graduated, mostly as a ‘temp,’ or ‘temporary operative,’ hired out by various agencies of mostly cold-hearted and/or peculiarly inefficient women who attempt to make money out of the fact that I’ve no idea what I want to do with my life but am well-spoken and reasonably presentable a with a stupidly large amount of IT skills and a fairly high typing speed.
I have developed such un-CV’d skills as learning names (or at least a skill at hiding the fact that I know no-one’s name), office block geography, entrance codes, computer passwords, photocopiers, switchboards and filing systems in short order. I can pick the locks of a dozen types of desks, decipher all sorts of handwriting, know more about photocopiers (using, abusing, fixing and different makes and models) than I wish I did and would be a Grand Master at Minesweeper if such a thing existed.
The more places I’ve worked the more I’m convinced that simultaneously there are very, very few types of people and that human interactions are infinite and of a dazzling variety. I’m also pretty good at spotting ‘happy’ offices. I’m very good at spotting unhappy ones.
All this has given me a probably-not-very-unique-nowadays viewpoint on the world, and specifically on the world of work. Work is not, to me, something I invest in emotionally. The longest-term job I ever had grew from a temping assignment and lasted about 18 months. I only stayed on because my mother was ill and it was a source of stability, predictability and, most importantly, money in my life. When it became a source of irritability and violent fantasies involving my boss and heavy metal objects I decided to quit and do freelance work. The last long-term temping job I had was for 8½ months; when they terminated my contract I was given a choice of finishing that day or the end of the week (this was a Wednesday afternoon). My emotional/otherwise commitment to subsequent workplaces (all temp, of course) has been even more sketchy as a result. Anyway, work is not something I am but something I do, and I find it hard to believe or imagine that anyone could have a vocation, a desire for a career in an office-based job that has no vocational/useful-to-society context. I find myself confused as to whether my lack of commitment to a career is my ‘fault,’ a natural result of my work experience, or just a way of being. I find it even harder to decide whether this attitude is something that I should attempt to change or not.
I did consider writing a book or something based on my experiences, then bought a novel called The Temp, a tragically funny, well-written, many-layered joy of a book about a recent graduate working in a series of offices in London which absolutely sums up what it means to be ‘temporary’ in modern society. What it means to be stuck in a rut of having no rut. It was by a fantastic writer called Serena Mackesy. Bitch.
Part II – written January 2005
And now I’m in Milton Keynes, working in Milton Keynes College as, simultaneously, a psychology teacher, ICT teacher, personal tutor, and project officer for the Aimhigher Project.
It’s both completely different from and occasionally eerily similar to everywhere I’ve ever worked. And I love it. For the first time I feel able to define myself by what I do for a living. Almost grown-up, eh?!
I’ve now taught:
Ø AS Psychology
Ø ICT foundation level to teenagers
Ø ICT skills to adult peers
Ø ICT Level 2 to teenagers
Ø Basic Skills (reading and writing) to Category A prison inmates (let me tell you: weird, but not as scary as the teenagers)
Ø Basic British Sign Language to Tesco employees
Ø Singing techniques to a variety of people in a variety of circumstances.
Next step: well, who knows?!
This page updated: 05/01/05