After leaving University, I spent 8 years working in a
walled town for Miserable Finance Limited. Although my colleagues all had the
most outstanding drinking skills and senses of humour, the daily grind was
about as electrifying as counting grains of rice whilst wearing a blindfold and
ski gloves. I think the only thing that actually stopped me from committing
suicide during those long 8 years was the social gatherings that took place
whenever someone clever passed an exam, or someone saw the light and had a
leaving do. These social gatherings took place in the pub across the road from
our offices at a very prompt 5.30pm. On some occasions you only knew that you
had definitely attended, when you woke up the following morning in a strange
house, still wearing your suit and your wallet was empty.
Good times.
I have to admit that I did enjoy composing the company’s unofficial
quarterly newsletter and found that I had a genuine flair for producing
nicknames for the senior management. I’m not sure the partners in the firm ever
saw my well-written handiwork and so they may be unaware that the partner who
suffered from the most calamitous outbursts was nicknamed Captain Caveman and the
one with slightly frizzy hair was known as Pube-Head. I thought these nicknames
were only known to a select few in the firm until the day I walked into the
Typing Pool to find the typists trying to decide if the name “Wanky Pants” should
be hyphenated.
Anyway; I digress.
During those days, I despised the smug VAT Inspectors and
once I even had the misfortune of accidently helping one to get a coffee from
the machine in our office. I was completely taken in by his nice smile and
slightly crumpled suit and it was only later in the day when I saw him in the
Board Room with a set of client’s records scattered across the enormous table
that I realised I had served a coffee to the VAT man.
I was livid with myself.
Towards the end of my career with the financial miseries,
I was based in the IT department which came as a bit of shock after spending
the previous 5 years in Accounts and Audit. The IT lads talked in a language
that I didn’t understand and got very stressed when any of the servers chose to
fall over for no apparent reason.
The IT lads also loved the internet surfing control software
that the company used. My neighbour, The Aigle Welly Wearer once asked me to
research a sausage making machine so she could buy one as a surprise for her
husband. During my lunch break (obviously) I typed “sausage making” into Google
and 3 seconds later the head Techie poked his head around my office door and
with a wry grin asked if I was “looking for something for the weekend”.
The IT department revolved around cans of energy drinks
and food. The Techies brought bacon and egg McMuffins in for their breakfast,
ordered pizza for their lunch and if we had to have an early meeting in the
department, the IT Manager would appear with a huge bag of hot sausages from
the Co-Op’s hot counter for us all to share. This is perhaps why I was a stone
overweight when I finally left for a new job in the summer of 2005.
Along with a diet that would rival that of a Shot Putter,
the whole of the IT department seemed to have a small issue with timekeeping
and so to remedy this problem, we took to parking our cars on the street, right
at the office door. This saved a good 5 minutes in the morning although we then
had to run the gauntlet with the bastarding Traffic Warden. I had honestly
never seen the laid back IT lads move quickly until the day when one of the
partners (The Plate Spinner) came into the IT suite and said he had just seen
the Traffic Warden at the bottom of the street.
So there you have it, the 2 jobs I could not do under any
circumstances are VAT Inspector and bastarding Traffic Warden.
Until just over a week ago.
I collected Britney (not her real name) from school a
week past Friday and was suddenly faced with the reality of home schooling.
Not a problem, I thought. I have friends who have home schooled
their children and although these friends are much cleverer than me, surely I
am more than capable of home schooling Britney.
Well it turns out that no, I am not capable of home schooling
my own child.
The first day went quite well, possibly because Britney
was excited about the whole working from home thing, until she realised that
she was actually expected to do some work.
We went to our desk clutching our travel mugs (rhubarb
and custard fruit tea for me, raspberry and elderflower juice for her) and set
to work. During our grammar lesson I had to sneakily Google what a frontal
adverbial was and even after I had read about where and how it should appear in
a sentence; I still didn’t understand it. Basically the grammar that Britney is
doing in year 6 is what I was doing at A Level, so after Grammar, Spelling and
Punctuation we moved on to Maths. I faired slightly better at this until
Britney suggested that I have a go on Times Table Rock Stars, where you have to
complete as many multiplication calculations as you can in 60 secs.
This is possibly the most traumatic thing I have ever had
to do in my life.
A last-minute submission of a VAT return at 40 seconds to
midnight is positively relaxing compared to this. Britney was most disappointed
that her response time had dropped from 2.9 seconds to 2.16 seconds. I was
disappointed that I couldn’t remember what 7 x 8 was.
From this high-octane Mathematics, we moved swiftly on to
art which involved decorating one of our new bee houses. PE consisted of a game
of football in the garden and a walk around the field that borders our garden
and Personal and Social Education involved a cuddle and reassurance that we
would absolutely go to Newcastle and have pizza for lunch once this was all
over.
Day 2 didn’t start quite as well, possibly because Boris
had ordered us all into Lockdown the previous evening which meant that Other
Half was also at home making it feel a bit weekendish.
Once we discovered that Google Classroom was currently
lying in a darkened room, Britney played more of the hellish Times Table Rock
Stars while I silently practiced my 8 times table. She then read some of her
new Goosebumps book about Horrorland and wrote a synopsis of the story so far.
We learnt about light refraction in science and ratios in Maths. We even
ratioed (in its simplest form) the number of empty crisp packets to Kit Kat
wrappers in the log basket. Result.
I read an article on the Daily Mail online (so it must be
true) about the pressure of home schooling on parents. One Dad and this was on
day 2 of home schooling; commented that his children were so much better behaved
being home schooled that he was not going to send them back to school when it
re-opened.
Oh my god, laugh? I thought my pants were never going to
dry. I want to speak with this man in a month’s time. In fact if I wait 3
months, I could perhaps snatch a quick word with him as they wheel him out of
his house in his straight jacket to the waiting square-wheeled ambulance.
So just to clarify, I don’t hate Teachers like I loathe
and despise VAT inspectors and Traffic Wardens.
I don’t hate them at all. I even have friends and family who
are teachers and frankly, I am surprised that they don’t receive a carrier bag
of Tramadol and Diazepam every month from the Government free of charge. Is it
a job I would ever want to do?
Not in a million years.
For JP.
