Am I a Job Tart?
I got chatting down the pub with some friends the other night - as you do - and somehow we found ourselves on the subject of jobs. Throughout my working career I've been called many things, but on my annual appraisals it's usually professional, reliable, committed - in the non institutionalised sense - and, subsequently, I've always been remunerated for my work, or promoted so they have an excuse to give me more. Which is why - in a City where not having the latest mobile phone means you're past it, The Apprentice has taught your peers that back-stabbing is a shortcut to success, and graduates are queuing up to do your role cheaper, faster, and with fewer worry lines - I thought I was doing well having only worked for four different firms in my time.
Not so it seems. I ended up on the higher end of the How many jobs have you had? scale amongst my friends. They even played dirty, and reminded me that since leaving the City I was now a writer and a self confessed househusband which made my total up to six. I wasn't convinced, and fought back by demanding everyone list all the jobs they'd ever had; whether part time, full time, seasonal, or just weekend work when they were school kids. I added, "Working for your dad doesn't count - unless it involved a company car, and I don't mean washing it."
I was confident the job count would average out around the table. In the end it turned into that restaurant scene with Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral - where they discuss the number of partners they've had sex with - only it was me who turned out to be the one putting it about in the job sense. Here's what happened when it was my turn to 'fess up.
"Let's see...I suppose my first paid job was a potato picker," I said.
"What was that like?" asked my friend, Andy, who was keeping tally of everyone's score on a beer mat.
"It was messy, and I didn't enjoy it much. Too repetitive, and it killed my back. I was only eleven at the time."
"What's next?" asked Andy.
"I was a cleaner, but that doesn't count as I was working for my mother - she ran a block of holiday flats in Scarborough."
"Yes it does," said Bob, another friend. "You said, 'Working for your dad doesn't count.' But she's your mum." Andy smiled his agreement and added another tick to his beer mat.
"Fine," I said, wishing I'd been as pedantic on Bob's turn earlier. "Next I was a general assistant - which meant general dogsbody - at Hinton's supermarket."
"Never 'eard of 'em," said Bob.
"They became Safeway," I replied. "I worked there in the summer of 1981 every Friday and Saturday. To be honest, it was a bit of a doss. Well it was after I got a rollocking off the manager."
"What do you mean?" asked Andy.
"The first week I worked really hard. I stacked more shelves than a librarian, collected more trolleys than the local lake, and swept more floors than a celebrity competing in Dancing on Ice."
"So why did he give you a rollocking?" said Andy.
"Because the manager was only a few years older than me and his handbook said you had to shout at your new staff after a week to make them work harder. I thought he was having a laugh - as I'd done more work than anyone there. When I realised he wasn't, I thought 'Why bother.' And took it easy from then on."
"What happened?" asked Andy.
"The manager took me to one side the next week and said he was really pleased with my work. Even though I'd spent half a day having trolley races in the warehouse with a mate, and I'd accidentally slit open ten cans of coke with one of the blades we were given to cut through packaging. It was like Niagara Falls in the drinks aisle that day."
Andy made another tick and said, "What next?"
"I suppose my next job was sort of a catering assistant. Although it was the job equivalent of a one night stand for me."
"What do you mean," asked Bob.
"Well...I'd heard some gossip, but I ignored the bad reputation, and went for it anyway. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew I was in this filthy hell hole with someone I didn't like wondering how to make my excuses and leave."
Bob looked confused. "Are we talking about a job here?" he said.
"Yes," I replied. "It was in a chip shop on the sea front, but the guy who ran it thought hygiene was something you shouted to the woman who ran the amusements next door. I left after two hours."
Andy checked his beer mat. "You've got four so far," he said.
"Next, I was a grain quality assurance officer."
"What's one of those when it's at home?" muttered Bob.
"I was paid by a farmer to walk his fields with a sack picking anything that didn't look like wheat. While all my mates were out sowing wild oats, I was picking them."
"Five," said Andy.
"I also did some bar work as an undergraduate."
"Six."
I paused as I tried to remember my next role. "Oh yes, next I was a council worker."
"What, visiting depraved homes and stuff?" said Bob with a look of incredulity on his face.
"I think you mean deprived," I said. "No. I was a road sweeper. It was well paid though. I did it one summer after I graduated. I had my own barrow and brushes, and if I kept my patch clean I got a 25% bonus every week."
"You got a bonus for sweeping up litter?" said Bob.
"Yep. And dog muck. In my last week, the foreman even asked if I would stay on in Autumn to sweep up the leaves."
"What did you say?" asked Andy.
"I said I'd got to go back to college to do my doctorate in physics. He said, 'There's no need to be rude,' and walked off. The next week I went back to college to do my doctorate in physics."
Andy added another tick to the beer mat then said, "Next job, please."
"Lab assistant in the physics department. Not much to say on that one. Watching students doing experiments while they're hungover isn't that exciting. Except when they're sick over the Van Der Graaff generator."
"You're doing well," said Andy, "That's eight so far."
"Now we're onto proper jobs. I was a management consultant for three years."
"How can you be a management consultant straight out of college?" asked Bob.
"Simple," I replied, "You work for Andersons or, in my case, Price Waterhouse. They always charge your time to clients at full rate, even though you're barely qualified to carry your boss's briefcase, and you're told to consult your manager whenever a client asks you a question. Hence, you can call yourself a management consultant."
"Yeah, right," said Bob before taking a swig from his beer glass.
"Which leads me to risk IT manager for three years, then nine years as a credit risk controller, followed by one year as a data management specialist. And before Bob says it, yes they were all in finance so technically I was a bit of a banker."
Bob looked disgruntled at being beaten to a pun. He mumbled, "So that's why the economy's in such a state."
"Then househusband and writer," said Andy adding two more ticks to his list.
"Househusband isn't paid work," I said, keen to claw back a job count.
"Yes it is," said Bob eagerly. "Sending your wife out to work is indirect payment."
I glared at Bob as Andy asked, "Anything else?"
"I'm doing a bit of teaching work at the moment, but that's it. Finito." I paused while Andy totted up. "What's the total," I asked.
Andy smiled, turned the beer mat round for us all to see and said, "Steve Barley has had an impressive fifteen paid jobs in his lifetime. Which is virtually double his nearest neighbour at this table and officially makes him a job tart!" I received a round of applause and a few funny looks from other customers.
So there you have it. I have been told I am a fully fledged job tart because - according to my friends - I flit from one role to the next, avoid long term commitments, and flash my CV at the slightest opportunity. Personally I call it work re-invention.
My only consolation is that I've also done unpaid work out of the goodness of my heart. Bob hasn't, so by extrapolation that must make him a job prostitute. I'll give him the good news at our next get together. I'm sure he'll be delighted.
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