Features and blogging

I recently attended an event that began with an ice-breaker where we were asked to talk about quirky roles we’d had. I couldn’t come up with very much. Only later in the day, long after the Zoom windows had closed, did anything pop into my head. Turns out I’ve more than a few stories to tell.

The first job that came to mind was in the summer after my A Levels, when I worked in a series of north London betting shops on the tills. That taught me nothing about horse-racing but it did sharpen my addition skills, as you had to be super quick at putting bets through. Also, everything in those days was cash and there was no time to fiddle with a calculator. Sadly it didn’t improve my academic maths mastery, but I can check my change under timed conditions.

During uni I had a summer job at an art shop in Goodge Street with, and thanks to, my bestie Debs. When we girls had nothing to do and the shop was quiet, the manager (who had anger issues and was impatient with everyone, including the customers) would make us polish all the pens. Every single one. Imagine how many pens there are for sale in an art shop. They were very clean.

For my very first graduate job I enrolled as a typist with an agency, probably Reed or Manpower. I was dispatched to a factory in Ponders End, where the old manager needed someone to type letters in the macho office of his macho factory that made macho things. He had a barking voice and zero warmth, and I was required to make all his phone calls for him. Rather, to set them up. He would show me the number and I would dial it, ask for Mr [name], inform the listener that my boss wanted a word, and then hand the receiver over while the person on the other end of the line waited with a silent question mark. So odd. My boss then strode around the room talking loudly, seemingly only able to conduct calls while standing up. Who knew what else he could only do vertically? Fortunately, I didn’t stay around long enough to find out.

Then I got a proper job in a press agency, first as a typist then as a writer working on all sorts of topics for regional newspapers, including antiques and gardening. I even wrote a monthly horoscope. I wasn’t an expert on any of those topics and the Internet hadn’t reached us in terms of research, so who knows how I found out about everything. For the horoscopes, however, I simply based all the star signs on family and friends. For instance if I was writing one now, here’s what I’d attribute to Scorpios:
“This month sees challenges on both career and home fronts that you can no longer ignore. Working as a team will speed the process, but be sure not to cut corners as this will only produce short-term gains. Upcoming travel plans – however brief – will reward your hard graft.”

For the same press agency, I edited a monthly singles pubilcation called One4One. This quirky, low-quality subscription magazine held content designed to sit alongside the lonely heart ads. Every issue included profile stories, and the weirdest person I interviewed was a woman who said she wanted to meet a bus driver. Just a bus driver, no other profession. I never did find out if she got her man.

Famous People I Have Interviewed? For a post-grad journalism course, I chatted with film director Mike Leigh. I nabbed the interview because he happened to be a friend of my aunt and had a new film out (which he point-blank refused to talk about). A truly terrifying experience. I had a much better time of it when we met years later at a family event. By then I was on a brief career pause with a small baby. He asked me what I did and I said I was on maternity leave, and he told me that was the most important thing I could be doing. Cheers, Mike, a much nicer exchange.

So many stories from emap elan, as the crowd will no doubt agree. Naps in the fashion wardrobe, gongs and incense at Here’s Health Magazine, fun spa trips for Slimming Magazine (and here’s Debs again, joining me for a stay in a quirky hotel with a powder pink corner bath). A standout of my time at emap was joining a press trip to Reggio Calabria with The Body Shop’s Anita Roddick, who was launching her new bergamot range. After leading a tour of the fragrant fields, she held court to 40 journalists sheltering from the Italian rain in a large shed. In my notes, I underlined the best quote she gave, in my opinion, which was about the myth of anti-ageing products:
“You simply cannot turn back time”
Whatever her flaws, I loved her for that.

Come on, then, what’s the best – and worst – job you’ve ever ‘ad?

[Which calls to mind naughty Derek and Clive, and the Jayne Mansfield sketch. Oh never mind, Debs will know]