2015 Update

It's officially January - the month of making promises to yourself that you really, really mean to keep this time...but probably won't. For me, one such resolution was to dust off this blog. I was amazed to discover that, in spite of it being well over a year since I last posted anything, I was still logged in. I was also relieved because frankly, I've forgotten my password.

I've found gainful full time employment since my last post, so that's the big news. In October 2013, I successfully interviewed for a job at a company that provides 'Brand and Colour Management services' as a 'Quality Assessor'. What that essentially means is that a client will send us a bunch of information about how they want their packaging to look and what it needs to say. We then take all that information, check it against what the printers can and can't do, make sure it matches the client's general brand guidelines and conforms to legal requirements, change it if it doesn't, then send the client a file to approve, and if they like it, it gets printed.
It's essentially really convoluted proofreading...if proofreading involved a stage where you had to make sure that not only was everything spelled correctly, but you also had to take into consideration the potential binding methods of the book once printed. And you also had to make an educated guess as to whether or not the font used was in actual fact the font the client wanted, or just the first one that their design team had to hand, and then wonder whether you're going to get the blame for the cock up if it isn't.
It's...well...it's a decent paying job? I'm not happy doing it, but I think I've got that in common with 99% of the workforce. I've also met some absolutely brilliant people doing it, so it will always have that in it's favour, and having money is just brilliant, so I won't complain too much. It'll certainly do.

I'm still living with my mum and sister while I save up to move out, but we've had an addition to the family in Freddy, our french bulldog puppy (and the absolute light of my life):

Only Andrew Garfield has more effective brown doe eyes than this fucker...

He's transformed me into an avid dog lover faster than I could say 'Who's a good boy, then?' and I talk about him waaaaaaay too much. And yet I can't stop myself. 

(His birthday is February 14th - I kid you not, he's literally so adorable that he had to be born on Valentine's Day. And that is the first fact of many that I will be sharing over the coming months...)

I turned 24 last October, which was sobering, because I'm now less than twelve months away from being considered by the X Factor as equivalent to pensioners in terms of age category. 

I also did my very first pub crawl for a work friend's birthday last year. That doesn't sound like much but I cannot tell you the extent to which I have not partied in my life (crippling social anxiety - just what every teenage girl needs to suddenly develop when her peers are discovering alcohol!) so the fact that I a) went, and b) really bloody enjoyed myself, was pretty monumental for me. 

That's just about it, I reckon. I've found all my old drafts from when I actually wrote on this thing, so I'll polish those off and post them at some point. In the mean time, there's more New Year's resolutions to get started on, one of which is learning to drive. Oh, lordy...

In which our intrepid blogger experiences street harassment...

Today I got honked at as I was walking home from the high street. It was not awesome. I would even go so far as to say that it was uncool. Because it genuinely scared the crap out of me and I was left feeling jumpy and on edge for the rest of my journey home. I haven't felt like that in my home town for a long while. I hated it.

So yeah, I just experienced street harassment. And it's a reality for a lot of women, every day. And it made me mad because this is not my first introduction to the charming world of strange men scaring the bejeezus out of me because my being female and in their general vicinity apparently gives them the right. 

I first got cat-called when I was about 15 years old. I was walking down the very same road I was walking on today, on my way to the high street, and I was wearing knee-length denim shorts. (I know. Sexy.) 

Suddenly a lorry driver thundered past and wolf-whistled at me. I know it was me he was whistling at because I was the only person on that path, and once I'd stopped jumping out of my skin at the sudden loud noise I remember feeling this heady rush of flattery, because I didn't really get an awful lot of male attention as a teenager and at the time it felt like validation. All I wanted was to be attractive and it felt like I finally had proof that I was (and god just remembering this I want to shake my past-self by the shoulders and scream at her naivety I really do).

After that it would happen a couple of times a year, usually in summer (although not always) and that first time was the only time I felt flattered. After that initial exposure it felt like exactly what it was: an aggressive demand for my attention. Because cat-calling from a moving vehicle is not a compliment. I don't feel complimented when my heart's in my throat because some douchebag just screamed something unintelligible at me from a van window, or honked his emergency horn right in my goddamn earhole, and then continued driving past while I figure out what the hell's going on. When that happens I feel scared, because that's the natural response to sudden loud noises. And even if it is meant as a compliment (and it's not, it's really really not. Re-evaluate your definition of the word 'compliment' if you think that's the case) then I don't care. 'It's a compliment' is a blanket statement used to cover a multitude of sins because it makes us look ungrateful for objecting and I'm sick of it.

My sister works at a local pub that has a widely acknowledged, unspoken policy of only hiring good-looking bar staff. She took that as a compliment when she got the job. I took it as a sign of how the management there sees their employees - as little more than meat. Sure enough she's regularly trussed up in a variety of titillating outfits, ranging from 'Sexy Santa Shot-girl' to 'Booby Girl In Football Kit' - all in order to 'get the punters in'. She's regularly groped by colleagues and customers. The other night a guy backed her into a corner, tried to kiss her and shove his number into the waistband of her skirt, all after he and his mates had grabbed hold of her at the bar and refused to let her go until the bouncers stepped in. She is encouraged to dismiss all of this as 'banter' or 'just blokes being blokes'. And she does, because she considers herself one of the boys and she just wants to fit in. She doesn't want to seem like she can't take a joke. She doesn't want to be labelled as the bitch who ruins the party for everyone else. 

And that's how we're made to feel when we speak up about things like street harassment or workplace harassment, or any kind of harassment. Because these guys are only bothering us because we're pretty, right? And we're supposed to appreciate that, aren't we? After all, it's just a bit of fun.

Well, no, actually. It's not. It's a deliberate act of intimidation, and I'm sorry but I'd rather feel safe walking around my home town at eleven thirty in the fucking morning than be considered attractive by the kind of moron who hangs out of his car window like a baboon while his mate honks the horn. It's not funny, it's not flattering, and it just makes the world that little bit worse to live in. So kindly fuck off.

Bitter coffee

Job hunting is hard.

I can't imagine it's ever been particularly easy, but right now the odds are definitely not in my favour. I'm in competition with an average of forty applicants for every position I apply for, and the first class degree I earned in July means absolutely diddly squat to most employers without any actual work experience to go with it. It has been, and continues to be, a very frustrating situation, and after just over six months of unemployment I'm finding it hard to stay positive.

The most disheartening experience happened last Saturday. I'd responded to an ad for a local cafe and, despite admitting that I had no experience, I was invited along for a trial day to see how I went. I was so excited. I love that cafe, and I was so sure I was going to do well. The prospect of learning how to use an industrial coffee machine in front of paying customers was daunting, but I was confident in my ability to not be too much of an idiot and had been given the impression that the owners were prepared to train me up. More fool me.

I turned up early with a big smile and a stomach full of nerves. My first job was replenishing the milk supply, and that went off without a hitch. Then came time to make the staff their morning beverages, and I was walked through a grand total of two drinks before customers started trickling in and I had to help deal with them. Obviously, I still didn't know how to make various coffees without double-checking I was doing it right, and I didn't know the menu so it took me a while to price up orders. Once the customers started coming in, they didn't stop and the first hour flew by in a rush of stress and confusion. I was struggling, and it was showing. Then someone ordered a cappuccino and as the owner watched me steam the milk, I failed to check that the jug was hot enough by touching it (which no one at any point had told me to do), and this was apparently the final straw.

'You know what, this isn't for you,' he said, 'Go and help the girls with the clearing up instead.'

And with that, I was dismissed. To my horror, I realised that it was only 12 o'clock. I'd agreed to work until 5, and now had to get through to the end of the day with the stinging humiliation of knowing that I'd failed to impress. It was awful. All I could do was throw myself into the tasks I had been deemed capable of, and so I cleared tables, served tables, washed up and mopped up spillages until I was dizzy. I kept myself as busy as I possibly could without getting underfoot, because I was so mortified by my own ineptitude that I was desperate to prove I wasn't a total waste of space. There was also the tiny hope that if I worked hard enough I'd get a second chance, but that wasn't the case. They wanted someone to do the job immediately to their specifications, and I needed too much teaching.

I did get paid £50 for my work, and the owner said that even though he couldn't offer me a job as a server, he'd keep me in mind if he needed anyone to help out in the kitchen but honestly, I think he was just saying that. I'm ashamed to say that when I left, I was so disappointed and angry with myself for not being good enough that I cried the entire way home. It felt like a monumental set-back in my quest for employment, because who the hell wants to hire a girl too stupid to work in a cafe? It had taken me six months to get this close to a job - let alone a job I wanted - and I'd blown it. I was clearly useless and hopeless and doomed to be unemployed forever. I was absolutely pathetic.

Now, obviously, I've picked myself up since then and shaken off the drama-queen self-pity. My confidence is still pretty shaken but I'm getting there, because of course I'm not useless. Of course I'm not stupid for not picking it up quickly enough. They were expecting too much of me! My sister works in a pub that offers a range of coffees just as varied and complex as the ones in the cafe. Serving coffee is one tiny section of her job and her managers still set aside an entire day to teach staff how to do it, where they practiced until they got it right because it takes more than an hour and a half to master. It's not my fault that the cafe owners were either unwilling or unable to give me that time. It's not my fault that I didn't instinctively figure it out like I'd just plugged into the Matrix and downloaded the 'expert barista' programme. It's not my fault.

One day I am going to be successful in getting a job and I am going to thrive in it. I just have to keep trying, no matter how much it feels like I'm bashing my head against a brick wall. Failing at one thing does not means I'm a failure, and I'm going to be okay.

In the mean time, I'm going to be happy with my very first set of wages. That's a trip or two up to Colchester that I couldn't afford before :)