17 Mar 2014
It’s the first time in almost a decade that I’ve travelled into town to sit behind a desk, and now I’ve settled in, it’s time to reflect on the changes this has brought to my life.
Usually, my morning routine involves showering, ingesting caffeine, and yelling: “get off your brother’s head!” for an hour, before flinging the kids in the vague direction of school, and dashing home again to wake up.
These days I have to get dressed (in proper clothes! with matching socks!) and put on makeup and brush my hair, so that I can go straight to work. This “getting ready” has met with mixed success, depending on how late I’ve left it to get out of bed. Alas I am now of an age when a slick of lip gloss and a shake of the mane will no longer suffice; these things take the kind of time I just don’t have. As a result I’ve managed to turn up to work on more than one occasion with a face and outfit closely resembling that of a sad clown; and at least twice I’ve boarded my train and then had to check whether I was, in fact, about to turn up in pyjamas.
Fortunately for me, the people I work with are extremely nice (a far cry from the bankers I used to work for), so they’ve been too kind to mention my haphazard grooming. But whilst they are lovely, for some odd reason, they are also concerned that my employment should be “fulfilling”. I’m fairly sure I caught at least two of them trying to make it “intellectually challenging”. This is alarmingly thoughtful compared to my previous employers, but is entirely misplaced. I do not have an intellect capable of being stretched. My brain took leave of my body after my second child was born, and these days I consider it a personal best if I can order the right coffee at lunch time. If I could get away with staring at a blank screen all day, I would go home reflecting on a job well done. I fear this is not, however, what they’ve got me in here for.
Luckily I am a gifted liar, and so spend quite a lot of my time faking a serious, intellectual look, pretending I know exactly what they are asking of me. If colleagues have noticed this, they are all far too polite to mention it, although I may have given the game away last week when I was asked to cut out some shapes and colour in their borders, and almost wept with joyous gratitude. Finally, something for which I truly am well qualified.
Perhaps things will improve – after all I have the excuse of being new, and by the time my newness runs out I will most definitely be groomed, organised, and back in the game. Raring to go. A leader of men.
