One of the important things to bear in mind upon arrival in Canada, we kept being told, is that you must be willing and adaptable. It’s no good expecting, for example, that the ideal job awaits you right away. You’ve got to be prepared to have a go at anything. You’ll soon find your feet if your attitude is right.
And so, keenly, willingly, adaptably, I began to read the Sits Vac. The best thing to do, I decided, was to apply for just about everything. Well not quite everything. I didn’t feel quite adaptable enough for ‘Lusty farmer seeking well-built, companionable female help under thirty’.
But, since one of the nice things about Canada is that all local telephone calls are free, I armed myself with pencil and newspaper, took a deep breath, picked up the phone and started working my way down the column.
By mid-morning I had an appointment at a mysterious CIA-type offshoot of the US army, a ‘Come on over’ from a large department store and a ‘Glad to see you any time’ from a temporary manpower agency.
The army place was very smart, with richly purple carpets and potted palms. The only thing makeshift was the table on which I had to fill out my application form. It wobbled wildly, especially when the girl opposite hit a tricky question on her form, groaned loudly and flung her head down in her hands.
Pacing myself between these outbursts I managed Section I without too much difficulty. By section MXVIII, however, I began to join in the groans and head flings. I simply didn’t know my maternal great-grandmother’s place of birth. I did feel fairly confident that she hadn’t taken part in any sort of Communist uprising and that, ethnically speaking, all our lot are Anglo-Saxon but I did worry a tiny bit about that uncle of mine who once had a holiday in Czechoslovakia – and liked it.
At the department store I discovered a door marked Staff Enquiries, flung back my shoulders and strode in. Two ladies behind typewriters were describing how ill they felt.
‘Well I’ve got this searing sort of pain that runs right down here and along here and back up here,’ one was saying. ‘Well I can’t raise my arms like this without my wrists going all funny like this,’ the other was replying.
‘I’ve come about a job,’ I said, catching Funny Wrists’ eye and feeling uncomfortably healthy and out of place. ‘I’ve had heaps of experience at selling, including …’
‘Yes, well never mind dear. Between you and me it doesn’t make a scrap of difference. Just fill out your name and address and this medical section here and we’ll be in touch.’
Gamely I listed chickenpox, measles, influenza and a few assorted funny turns which seemed to please them. I noticed them studying it, heads together, as I left.
‘Try this typewriter,’ said the flinty lady at the temp agency, ‘and as soon as you’re sitting comfortably I’ll start timing you. Here’s your test card. OK?’
‘Fine,’ I said, nervously wriggling down into my seat and eyeing, with growing horror, the machine before me. I learned my typing the hunt and peck way and, although moderately fast once I get steamed up, I had so far been used to manual typewriters. And here I was, face to face with the biggest, widest, most jet-propelled electric model I’d ever seen …
‘Are you ready?’ called the supervisor, stop-watch in hand. It was the moment before take-off. ‘Go!’ she cried and, reaching out a sweaty finger, I pinged bravely at a likely-looking button. It certainly pinged all right. In fact the paper shot straight up out of the machine, zoomed out of the doorway and was heading steadfastly out of the building altogether when I finally caught up with it.
‘Er sorry,’ I gabbled to old Flinty Eye as I raced back to the typing room. For some deeply apologetic reason I conducted all this paper chasing bent double at the waist, but even the sight of a nervous female Groucho Marx impersonator failed to add a spark of merriment to the proceedings.
Wordlessly she whipped my finished effort from the machine and began to count. ‘Hm, nineteen words in five minutes,’ she said, inscrutably. ‘Well, I suppose you’d better complete the interview. Come through into my Office.’
And that was the last I ever heard from the agency, or the department store, or the CIA. Which didn’t really matter because shortly afterwards, I heard I’d got my present job with a magazine for the Canadian Scout Movement.
‘There is a certain amount of typing involved,’ said the editor. ‘Do you have any approved typing qualifications?’
‘Well actually, I’m fast hunt and peck,’ I gabbled. Now I don’t know whether the strangeness of my English accent, falling on Canadian ears, gave the impression that ‘Fast, Hunt & Peck’ was some kind of Better Business Bureau of the typing world, but his expression brightened and I got the job.
And I’ve still got it, thank goodness, after a lovely, hectic, fascinating, colourful six months in the assistant editor’s chair. During which my great-grandmother’s ethnic origins haven’t cropped up once. Nor my lack of really interesting medical history. I’ve even come to a happy arrangement with my great big clever IBM typewriter. I will shampoo its little golfball head once a week and be more gentle with its p’s and q’s if it will stop making those moaning noises and adding its own private little hyphens all over the place.
Willing I certainly was to have a go at anything Canada might have to offer. But happy I definitely am to have found my ideal job at last.