Some days you get lucky.
Some days you accidentally meet the man who changes everything.
Some days your life pivots and sends you off down a completely different path.
Such a day was 25 years ago today.
Thursday, June 07, 2001
The rest of Britain remembers this day as the first General Election of the 21st century. Tony Blair was defending his first term legacy against the combined onslaught of William Hague and Charles Kennedy, and the outcome was never in doubt. But I remember it as the day I kickstarted my escape and everything got better, not that I realised at the time.
To set the scene I'm living in a Suffolk village and two years into Job 3, my penultimate career option. I've been doing it for two years and am not really enjoying it, indeed of late it's become increasingly untenable. I only took the job because a relationship necessitated it, and since splitting up have been trapped somewhere I didn't really want to be doing something I didn't really want to do. Finding a way out is an increasing priority.
Job 3 involves three things I don't particularly enjoy - feigning expertise, being judgemental and driving. It's bearable because it pays well, the hours are unusually flexible and my colleagues are great... or at least they used to be. Two months ago my wonderful boss retired and his replacement, who's from Lincolnshire, is alas an obnoxious bell-end. He grins enough that most people really like him but he's also lazy, unreliable, full of bluster and prone to offloading work at a moment's notice. Last week (for example) he organised a two-day residential for the team, failed to turn up until mid-afternoon and then waffled late into the evening while handing out tasks he'd concocted on the hoof. "What the hell am I doing here?" I now keep thinking, and I'm not the only one.
My first task this Tuesday morning is to walk down to the tinroofed village hall and cast my vote. It's my fifth General Election and the sixth time I'll have voted for someone who wouldn't become my MP. It's also county council election day and so rural is my ward that there are only two choices, one with a blue rosette and one with orange. I then face a long drive west because today is entirely atypical, I'm sneaking off from my actual job to get paid cash in hand for helping to run a conference near Cambridge. Sssh, not a word to the boss.
Friday, May 11, 2001
Zipping back a few weeks, this was the first time I agreed to do the private conference thing. I wasn't terribly comfortable with the idea but my colleague Jean who was organising it assured me it was fine and everyone else had agreed to do it too. It went well, the audience liked me and a few of them said I should come over to their place of work and they'd pay me off the record for that too. Perhaps not.
When I eventually got home I found a job application form on the doormat. I'd requested it over a week ago, leaving my address on an answerphone and hoping it'd arrive soon. It didn't and when I saw the envelope I realised why. Whichever berk had transcribed my address had ended it IPSWITCH SOUTHWARK, rather than Ipswich Suffolk, and the Royal Mail had clearly been somewhat bamboozled. This left me hardly any time to complete the form before the deadline so I dashed it off fairly quickly, assuming they were bound to invite me to an interview. They didn't, and that was my one chance to get Job 4 in London totally blown.
Back to June 7th, and a long drive down the A14 to meet my colleagues before the conference kicks off. We are already gossiping about how much we dislike the boss. I have two sessions to run this morning and one this afternoon. The first is about seasonal issues and endangered animals. The second is about Job 4 and includes a lot of my own in-depth analysis. The third is more of a stretch but I manage to keep the audience on side. And the day rounds off with a talk from a special guest who just happens to be the boss of the team where Job 4 was... and that's where I get really lucky.
The pivotal moment turns out to be the mid-afternoon break. Jean gets a phone call from the boss saying he's noticed she's running a conference without his permission and perhaps she'd like to think about resigning. Much spluttering and eye-rolling ensues. But Jean still finds time to nudge me over towards the special guest and suggests we have a chat. I liked that session where you did the in-depth analysis of the work we do, he said. I applied to your team last month and didn't get an interview, I said. We had 40 applicants and your form lacked depth, he said. But give me a ring at the office because there might be another job going.
At the end of the day the special guest dashed off and we sat in the lounge and discussed the boss's angry explosion. Four letter words were used, all our preconceptions of his bastardness confirmed. But there was also uncertainty because those of us who'd only spoken rather than running the conference didn't know how much trouble we were in, so we took time to get our stories straight. I had a lot to mull over on the long drive home... an increasing desire to quit my job, an impending fear I might get pushed out and the inkling that I might have the means of escape after all.
I still had work to do when I got home, also phone calls to field from concerned colleagues. But at 10pm I switched the TV on and caught the exit poll, seemingly another thumping majority for Tony Blair and very little change since 1997. I only managed four hours sleep and yes, when I woke up it was indeed another landslide. I took time over breakfast to ring Job 4 and request an application form for their latest role, one rung higher than I'd applied for before, taking special care to enunciate my address really carefully this time. It worked.
Friday 8 June: Watch Big Brother, the first eviction of the series, unaware that within three months I'll be living just round the corner from the footbridge Penny just walked across. Monday 11 June: Jean resigns. The boss calls me in for a grilling, all smarm and sneer but thankfully with zero long-term consequences. Thursday 14 June: Take the plunge and ring the London office about Job 4, and my next boss advises me "what to write next time". Saturday 16 June: The form arrives and this time I spend the weekend filling it in very carefully. Operation Escape From Ipswich is underway. Thursday 28 June: Yay I have an interview next Thursday! Thursday 5 July: Yay I have a job! In London!
...and I would not be here now had I not bumped into precisely the right special guest at a conference I shouldn't have gone to 25 years ago today.
