What I want to know is, how come I was told to wear a suit to my temp job today, when there was this one woman in the office walking around all muffin-topped, her too-small T-shirt riding up over her torso all day so that the tattoo etched into the small of her back was on show for all and sundry?
Because I am a Professional, people. And hot damn, even after all my whining about Smart Casual, I got a white button-down shirt at the Gap the other day—and today, when Nai was showing me how to eat on the cheap among the throng of LSE students, I looked pretty okay waiting in line for a lunch-hour sandwich.
Today till Friday I am updating a company’s staff directory with each employee’s personal information that’s been changed over the past year. Data entry, it’s a funny thing. Well. It’s really not. It’s really mind-numbingly mind-numbing. But you get into a state of Zen—and wasn’t that some famous book?—Zen and the Art of Data Entry?—and then somewhere in between the left-clicks and the right-clicks, the employee numbers, 8006725 and 67382 and 519973, become Bela and Allan and Linda, and the Matrix appears.
They live all over, in storybook towns, Sunny This and Something-on-Sea and Thingummyshire. A surprising number of women have “Jane” as a middle name. Over the past year, someone’s mum died—and the call-in-the-case-of-an-emergency number changed. There were divorces, marriages, people moving out. Where someone once listed a wife as next-of-kin, it is now a brother. Hyphenated names become non-hyphenated, and “Married” becomes “Separated/Left”. But it is not all dire. “Widow” became “Married”. “Fiancé” became “Husband”. One man wrote, of his relationship to his next-of-kin: “Partner for 25 years”. One woman said to call, in the case of an emergency, Fiona, “my friend for more than 30 years”.
There was this one guy: thirty-one, a doctor, French, single. I entered his e-mail address. I wished the forms came with photographs.
Another guy wrote, in response to “Do you consider yourself to have a disability?” : Yes, sometimes I lose my balance. I know what he means.
In other news, so far this week I have been rejected from three jobs. Two I didn’t care about; one I did, very much. This means one rejection per day of the week. (And I’m remembering now that one of those rejections began: “Dear Name”. That’s cold.) Damn, no, FOUR jobs. Which means I’m overdrawn, doesn’t it? Or that I should have a job credit somewhere down the line? Something. Man, I never got into Economics. I took that one class at Uni ’cause I had to—and I made sure I took it with Mark Witte, ’cause he was cute.
Because I am a Professional, people. And hot damn, even after all my whining about Smart Casual, I got a white button-down shirt at the Gap the other day—and today, when Nai was showing me how to eat on the cheap among the throng of LSE students, I looked pretty okay waiting in line for a lunch-hour sandwich.
Today till Friday I am updating a company’s staff directory with each employee’s personal information that’s been changed over the past year. Data entry, it’s a funny thing. Well. It’s really not. It’s really mind-numbingly mind-numbing. But you get into a state of Zen—and wasn’t that some famous book?—Zen and the Art of Data Entry?—and then somewhere in between the left-clicks and the right-clicks, the employee numbers, 8006725 and 67382 and 519973, become Bela and Allan and Linda, and the Matrix appears.
They live all over, in storybook towns, Sunny This and Something-on-Sea and Thingummyshire. A surprising number of women have “Jane” as a middle name. Over the past year, someone’s mum died—and the call-in-the-case-of-an-emergency number changed. There were divorces, marriages, people moving out. Where someone once listed a wife as next-of-kin, it is now a brother. Hyphenated names become non-hyphenated, and “Married” becomes “Separated/Left”. But it is not all dire. “Widow” became “Married”. “Fiancé” became “Husband”. One man wrote, of his relationship to his next-of-kin: “Partner for 25 years”. One woman said to call, in the case of an emergency, Fiona, “my friend for more than 30 years”.
There was this one guy: thirty-one, a doctor, French, single. I entered his e-mail address. I wished the forms came with photographs.
Another guy wrote, in response to “Do you consider yourself to have a disability?” : Yes, sometimes I lose my balance. I know what he means.
In other news, so far this week I have been rejected from three jobs. Two I didn’t care about; one I did, very much. This means one rejection per day of the week. (And I’m remembering now that one of those rejections began: “Dear Name”. That’s cold.) Damn, no, FOUR jobs. Which means I’m overdrawn, doesn’t it? Or that I should have a job credit somewhere down the line? Something. Man, I never got into Economics. I took that one class at Uni ’cause I had to—and I made sure I took it with Mark Witte, ’cause he was cute.
posted by stellou at 7:07 PM
8 Comments:
Hang in there, Stellou! I'm sure you'll find a job soon. We are both in the same boat (but I get to be skipper cos I want to wear the cool hat). There's no job security for doctors here either. So far I've sent 50 application forms and got back zilch. No interviews, nothing. So I feel your pain.
I hear you. It is a tough market out there, and I've haven't had much luck with finding anything. I think I am at that stage where I will settle... because in a few years we be moving somewhere else and I'll have to start all over again.
Witte wore a bright yellow super tight turtleneck...ewwwwww! you DO remember that don't you? good luck stelly! let me know if i can do anything, ok?
tscd: wait, which one's the skipper? like, the captain, is it? you can be the captain, but can i be the other skipper? i have a pink skipping rope!!! hahaha
also--there's a story in the observer today (23 october) about getting more women into fishing. do you care about fishing? i care about fishing like i care about horse riding, which is to say: theoretically. i have tried neither, but i believe both will happen eventually.
+ + +
saffron: oh, that stage of settling. sigh. that is a tiresome stage. i would like you become a cook and a food writer. then you will settle for nothing, plus you will ROCK IT.
+ + +
kk: uhhh... wah. i really don't remember the bright yellow super tight turtleneck--even though that seems like the kind of thing that would be BURNED into one's memory. hahaha. maybe i was too busy gazing into his eyes lah! eh, you want to get me a job at a publishing house, don't be shy lah! :-p
No, you can be first mate, which means you get to wear the scarf round your neck and look dapper. Looking dapper is only good for girls who are tall enough to wear broad brimmed hats without looking like mushrooms. Small girls like me who try to look dapper end up looking like a Lady Penelope marionette with strings and joints that can bend the wrong way.
Fishing is not a good sport for me. I would get bored and wander off chasing dragonflies and the fish would pull the hook, line and pole into the water and that would be the end of it. Do you have the patience?
but i am SO not tall enough! and also, i don't have a head for hats. i have tried, i tell you, truly i have, and i fail at every juncture.
also--i am SO not patient--
is all this making you imagine a mushroom running around, wild?--
i am SO not patient, but isn't the point of fishing, like, not necessarily to fish? like isn't it supposed to be a nice day out on a boat, floating, floating, silent but for the water lapping, and watching the sunlight in rainbows on dragonfly wings?
The last time I went "fishing", I spent most of the day asleep on the boat and had a splendid tan. There was no dapper hat and certainly no dragonfly. I didn't even set up a fishing line. But being lulled to sleep on the rocking boat was worth it all.
i like the part where you didn't even set up a fishing line. hahaha. you are my HERO.
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