On my first day at my last job, I was shown to my desk by my boss, who switched on the computer, opened the program within which we chiefly worked, then without further ado, walked off and left me, with no explanation whatsoever of what I was supposed to be doing or how I was supposed to do it. It was 20 minutes before I realised he probably wasn't coming back and timidly asked my adjacent colleague how precisely I was supposed to do my job. Thanks to my boss's ideas of training and developing his staff, I would spend the next few months bending my colleague's ear. To his credit he was a perfect gentleman about it.
But today I started my new job. And my feelings about it, if you can do your best to imagine me as a scruffy ginger orphan, are best summed up thus .
This morning, the morning of my new job, I arrived 45 minutes early, which was a merciful frame of time in which to transform myself from the withered, perspiring wreck my journey on the tube had reduced me to into something a little more deserving of working in an office as awesome as I remembered it to be.
Slightly more pulled together, I walked into the gorgeous building, lit up with soft spectrums of light, filled with brightness from the atrium stretching all the way to the 11th floor. Waiting in line for the reception desk I watched all the suited, the non-suited, the fashionable girls, the people arriving in exercise gear and wondered how exactly I was going to blend into all this bustling urbania of humanity and not stick out like the obvious loser we all know I am. I don't think I made a convincing show of blending in as, when it was my turn for the receptionist, she returned my smile and she hadn't been smiled at all day. But on that occasion I don't mind being the sore thumb. I made a mental note to smile at that girl whenever I see her.
Temporary pass collected, I squeezed into the lift, emerged onto my floor - my floor! - and was promptly greeted by my new boss. Who I think is lovely - she's invited me to come drinking with the team tomorrow to celebrate my joining them, she's delightfully informal, and we've both discovered that we share a profound love of saying "Huzzah!"
The work isn't bad at all - I think I'm managing to crack on nicely with it. As I'm in charge of the puzzles section in the magazine, part of my job is to sit there and actually complete the puzzles, to check they're all correct and make sense. I'm doing crosswords, writing semi-smutty copy to accompany the inexplicable half-naked man plastered all over the puzzle pages - and getting paid for it. I know !
At around lunchtime, I was taken up to the staff restaurant on the top floor. I've been on dinner dates in places less nice. Of course that's as much a reflection on the men I've been on dinner dates with as well, but I digress. I am now on a personal mission to sample absolutely every morsel on sale in that place.
I can't believe places like this actually exist, much less that I get to work in one of them. I feel like the plebian serving girl who discovered she's actually the rightful ruler of the kingdom, and she gets to dress in luxurious gowns and jewels and waft around a glittering palace all day.
Of course I won't pretend that I'm not still totally intimidated by the place and loathe to touch anything lest I break it, but on the whole, I love it and I can't believe that one of these elusive magazine companies, which I've been pursuing for three years now, has finally relented and said "Oh sod it, come and work for us,". The day absolutely flew by, we got cake at the end of the day (editor's birthday), the man who took my picture for my ID pass offered to re-take it if I wasn't happy (in sheer dumb gratitude, I went with the first one he took, which makes me look as if I'm having a stroke).
I'm here. I'm here and, what's more, I can do it. I can't wait to go back tomorrow.
And, on second thoughts, the song in my head is going a little more like this .
And as if this day couldn't get any better, I'm spending this evening indulging in my latest alcoholic creation - the divine Strawberry Margarita. Please, please indulge - it's not so much a drink as a reason to live.
250g strawberries
1 tbsp caster sugar
Juice of 2 limes
150ml tequila
55ml triple sec
12 ice cubes
(2 tbsp sugar. I tend to leave this out, as I like mine to have a bit of a kick, but if you prefer yours sweeter, add the sugar)
Blend/liquidise the icing sugar and strawberries
Add rest of the ingredients, blend
Sit back, sip and whimper in a post-orgasmic fashion
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