Corporate girly

Lime bikes, 9 to 5s and ctrl+v

me be like

Not one like on my LinkedIN update. Not one.

I have just passed the six-month probation at my first ever corporate 9 to 5 as a girl who copies and pastes things in exchange for monthly money. I’ve since determined that all jobs are some variation on copying and then pasting, staring earnestly at whatever you just pasted and discussing meal prep (you made how much couscous?).

For the first few weeks, I found the copying and pasting really overwhelming. At 5pm every day, I would leave work hot-faced, clutching my lanyard, holding back tears. Luckily, I work near the London Eye, so it was always relatively easy to join a throng of Richard Curtis fans ogling at an American couple’s wedding proposal. I could then pretend that I was crying because I am an empath rather than because I am easily provoked by Google Sheets (Excel for the oldies). If you ever see a viral flash mob proposal, chances are I am in the background, sobbing whilst doing the stanky leg.

a genuine email from my genuine job

There is one perk to having a real adult person profession. As the only ever twenty-ahh year old girl to ask herself the daily question, who am I? My job has thankfully given me a new identity. I am, in fact, my worst nightmare: a commuter. Not only that, a cyclist commuter. Even worse, a cyclist commuter who loves to tell people all about the benefits of cycling- you thought you knew the city before but trust me you didn’t know the city!

For a while, I refused to succumb to the inevitability of this lycra reality. Instead, every morning, I would join the flocks of mindless NPCs in grey suits, iphone 13s clutched in hand, shuffling towards green blinking beacons, only to find that their piss stained steed complete with a basket filled to the brim with scrap metal and liquids(!?) had been snatched by another player and was already halfway enroute to JP Morgan. Lime bikes have turned London mornings into Grand Theft Auto with fewer guns (yay) and more clothes (boo).

To be honest I have no clue if that reference makes any sense. If you can’t already tell by the number of times I insist on calling myself just a girl, I am not familiar with video games - other than the regrettable hours I clocked watching my ex-boyfriend play Fifa - yaaas king no I am definitely still watching yeessss I’m so proud of you babe shoot that shot into the thing you’re so handsome this is a super use of my time and brain capacity and I don’t find it icky at all!

Eventually, I surrendered, and found a bright blue performative little lady’s bike on Facebook Marketplace. She was a total steal, in that she was almost definitely stolen. The man’s listing read: WOMAN BIKE. so easy to ride. the easiest ride. I thought, perfect: like mother, like daughter. I named her Cecily (truly she actually is such a Cecily, and I’m not just saying that) and immediately started telling people how transformative cycling can be for your mental health. Turns out the best way to start the day is not with a cup o coffee, but with the feeling of superiority.

Cecily posing like it’s her first day at school x

Not that like I even care or anything, but the worst part was that I started my LinkedIN post with a supposedly ironic, ‘The long awaited LinkedIN post is finally here!’ No crying laughing emoji from Joan in HR, no ‘So proud of you girlie’ from an obviously more successful frenemy, who works in commodities (what does that mean?). Turns out, the only person who was long awaiting my linkedIN hard launch post was… me.

It may scare you to hear that I applied to 78 jobs before I got this one. A few people have told me that they use me as a story of inspiration! Resilience! Perseverance! Many more have lovingly informed me that they use me as a nightmare tale of the horrors of the job market. Hopeless! Desperate! As always, I’m just relieved that people are talking about me.

I blame my lack of success on three factors. Firstly, my ambition (delusion). How was I to know that Coordinator is a higher position than Officer which is a higher position than Assistant? Either way, why not whack in an application for COO, with a name that whimsical? If pigeons do it, why can’t I? Secondly, as a person who places a large amount of their identity on the fact that they don’t know who they are, it took me a long time to realise what job I had actually qualified myself to do. Surely my trendy shag haircut has far too many layers to slick back into a bun and adorn with a large velvet scrunchy. I couldn’t possibly work in… marketing? Thirdly, the job market actually is a horrible rancid place to be right now (meaning it was totally not my fault, I swear).

me be like

The long awaited LinkedIN post is finally here! I’m so absolutely proud and honoured to say that I have spent the last six months working as the Literature & Spoken Word and Public Programmes Marketing Assistant for a well established London arts venue. I can’t wait to keep working across such an exciting and diverse programme of events 😍💕

Not. one. Like. It is an unfortunate shame that there is no such thing as ‘success’ in a vacuum.

As someone who tends to date people who ‘read’, and then use them as my personal SparkNotes so that I don’t need to ‘read’, it is somewhat ironic that I now have a job in literature. To be earnest for one awful moment, I do feel lucky to have a first job working with a lot of lovely people on interesting projects, that also conveniently happens to make people I’ve dated respect me more (jealous), even if most of what I do consists almost entirely of CTRL+C and CTRL+V.

Me in my office toilet pre-cry x

I have stopped crying about work now (personal crises only!). My last tearful moment was after one fateful morning atop Cecily, adorned in high-vis, when a cyclist (you’d think, a friend with all we had in common) shouted at me: who the fuck do you think you are?

When I got to work, I discovered the V button on my laptop had stopped working and I was left totally incapable of doing anything and I once again thought who the fuck do you think you are?

At 5pm, like clockwork, I was stood on Millennium Bridge, staring melancholically out at the Thames. People with actual places to be pushed past me whilst lone wanderers on their quest for a Lime that still has both it’s pedals shot me looks of despair. The app says there might be a free one in the river, should I jump in and check?

As one lonesome tear trickled down my face, looking across the London skyline as the sun set, I thought, who the fuck do you think you are? Bridget Jones? And I was cured. Yes, I am dramatic, but I’m not written by Richard Curtis dramatic. That being said, here’s a poem:

Google sheets n giggles

My boss loves to compliment my spreadsheets,

What a clean looking sheet,

The first man to ever value a clean sheet,

I am beyond gassed,

I show him my to-do list next,

Colour-coded!

He is beyond gassed,

You shouldn’t waste those talents here he says.