Paperjam

Letter from ... Employment Hell

Rant // Vanessa // 20th May 2004

So, I’m finally working. Not in the glitzy world of public relations as I had hoped on my optimistic return from my lengthy (and now pining for) honeymoon. My fortunes have whisked me off to Colchester, into the fast-paced (yes, I’m being sarcastic) and challenging world of magazine journalism.

Now don’t get me wrong. This job isn’t bad. I work for trade magazines which took me to the Swiss Ambassador’s house and Anthony Worrall Thompson’s west end restaurant within my first month. And I am in freebie heaven. Yes, free food comes flooding through the doors almost every day and manages to keep me in high spirits. But bloody hell do I miss being bored at home. I knew the day would come when I would be mourning the loss of my scummy unemployed status, entitled to other free things and allowing me the finances to catch up on those Hollywood blockbusters I missed when I was oh, so happy in Oz.

But now I’m back into the office routine, with some really nice people and writing as I’ve always wanted. But it’s not exactly CNN and although I knew magazine journalism was going to be a lot more relaxed with a lot more time on my hands to research delicatessens and the Slow Food movement on the internet, things take so long that I will have perfected the art of falling asleep with my eyes open by the end of the summer. But to reiterate, I do like the job and I love the subjects so I am very lucky to have found it – after all, it was my lifelong ambition (since starting my established career in journalism) to work for magazines.

Take last week for instance, I was trusted to go to the Swiss Embassy all on my tod, to cover a Swiss Food and Drink Show. After popping into a delicatessen in Sloane Street as part of my research into who my target audiences are, I trundled off to the show where 20 Swiss traders with chocolates, wines, champagnes, cheeses and lots of other things, were trying their hardest to generate a bit of interest among the British importers. After speaking to a few traders, I was so laden down with bottles of fruit juice, chocolates and later on more chocolates and coffee (no bugger would give me a free bottle of wine would they?!), I felt like a right pillock dragging bags across the floor because they were full to the brim with free stuff. I did receive more than one snide comment from people asking if I’d come shopping. But what am I supposed to do when people are literally giving things away? Thankfully, I was able to hide my loot in a cloakroom while I attended the workshops about Swiss agriculture, quality assurances for Swiss cheese and a ‘lively’ debate about changing British lifestyles and whether fine foods are worth the money you pay for them. Oh, and someone was going on about how Britain is becoming an increasingly obese, lonely, single but rich society. Yipee! Something to live for then.

And then I go home. I switch on the tele and find some lucky bleep bleep on a house show trying to buy a house in Australia, a program about scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef and walking in New Zealand. And I seethe with envy. The thought of just saying sod it, giving up the chance to meet Swiss ambassadors and eating free food, and going off to find my own place in the sun (with frustrated husband – now he’s another story) are appealing. But I know that’ll never happen. I am actually destined to live out my life just like everyone else, working nine til five (or five thirty as the case may be here and no late working thank god!), hoping that one day I can afford to buy a nice little house with a garden and maybe have a couple of kids.

But until then, I’m living with my in-laws, who are still lovely but on holiday in Spain I have to add, finding it very, let me emphasise that, VERY, hard to get back into reality. But at least I don’t hate my job.

PS: Note to my boss: If you’re reading this, don’t sack me, I do like my job, honest.