part0005

I could actually walk to work from my new home in about fifteen minutes and I fully intend to once I’ve settled into my new job. But today I’m going to take my car because obviously, I don’t want to arrive on my first day wind-blown and looking like a scarecrow from the gusty March wind.

I give myself a final check in the mirror; not bad though I say so myself. I’ve gone for the office not office look. I want to look business like and professional but not as if I’m trying too hard, so I’m wearing a smart grey dress with a black jacket, black opaque tights and a pair of comfortable heels. I can take the jacket off if it’s hot in the office as there’s nothing worse than being red faced and sweaty - or keep it on if it’s a bit chilly. I do have a suit but I think that would be a bit over the top, a bit too much.

Yeah, and it’s too tight says the Beccabird, who has been strangely silent over the weekend.

Okay, it is too tight but I wouldn’t wear it anyway. So there.

My new life starts here - I’ve got over the shock of seeing Jonathan, the Beccabird has given me a good talking to and for once I’ve listened and Jonathan is now dead to me. I have a fabulous new home and soon to be new gay best friend when he spends a bit more time at home. Imagine the jolly evenings we’ll have when Steve comes round, two new gay best friends. Also, it looks like I’ll be going to Australia on holiday.

Keys, check, handbag, check, new life, check!

Atkinsons is huge . I knew this already but the enormity of it hits me again when I arrive in the car park – it’s so massive that they have a multi storey car park all to themselves. It’s much bigger than the Atkinsons in Westchester but Frogham is the head office so I suppose it has to be the biggest and the best.

I notice that all of the other parked cars have bright orange parking permits stuck in their windscreens but no one in HR mentioned this when I came for my interview – they called it an interview but I’d already got the job as it was a relocation – but I’m guessing that they’ll sort me out with one when I’ve had my induction. I’m not too concerned about it because we had parking permits at Westchester and no one took any notice of them. We were supposed to renew them every year but mine was at least two years out of date and it wasn’t a problem and some people didn’t even bother having them at all. And as the parking barrier was up when I drove in I’m guessing that they don’t bother checking them here either.

I’ve parked on the fourth floor and there’s an entrance right into the building from the car park that comes out onto the third floor stairwell. Once I get inside out of the wind I rummage around in my handbag until I find the letter confirming my starting details. Retrieving it from underneath my purse and make-up bag I pull it out and unfurl it from the crumpled ball it’s become and brush the handbag detritus from it. Oops, it seems I was supposed to call in and collect my car parking permit before I started today. Not important, I decide, I’ll sort it later.

Slapdash! shouts the Beccabird, who it seems has well and truly returned from her holiday.

No, not slapdash, just not important; a triviality that can be dealt with later. The letter says I’m to report to Reception so I trot down the stairs to the ground floor. I take it slowly because I have plenty of time and I don’t want to trip up and go flying and ladder my tights or get all hot and bothered.

I arrive in Reception without incident and feel rather pleased with myself, I have a good feeling about today.

‘Hi, I’m Rebecca Templeton,’ I announce as I present myself at the reception desk. ‘I’m starting work in Sales Administration today.’ I give the receptionist my friendliest smile.

‘Good Morning,’ she says icily as she looks up at me from her keyboard with a tight lipped, closed mouth smile that never reaches her eyes. I don’t think she likes what she sees at all.

‘I’ll let them know you’re here.’ She picks up a clipboard with a list of names on it and runs a manicured finger down it then lifts the telephone receiver up and efficiently stabs the numbers and waits. She does all of this without making eye contact with me and after a few moments she whispers into the phone. How can they even hear her? I feel a bit deflated and wonder if my friendliest smile was a bit manic.

‘They’re on their way,’ she says as she replaces the phone. ‘I’ll give you a temporary pass for now but you’ll have to visit the security office sometime today to get your permanent one.’

‘Thank you,’ I say brightly.

She stuffs a piece of paper into a plastic wallet and clips it onto a lanyard. She holds it out to me .

‘Great!’ I say, taking it from her and looping it over my head.

She sniffs and puts her head down and resumes typing.

Am I annoying? Dislikeable? I wonder this because I quite often get this reaction from people and I don’t know why. Maybe I try too hard.

You do , agrees the Beccabird.

Well I’m not going to let it spoil my first day, I decide. I move to one side as someone else comes up to the desk.

‘Good morning, sir, how may I help?’ The receptionist beams up at the middle aged, suited man and gives him her full, smiling attention.

So it is just me. This confirms it. I am annoying and most likely dislikeable as well.

I don’t care. Bitch.

‘Rebecca?’ says a voice from behind me and for one awful moment I wonder if I’ve spoken aloud. I spin round to see a smartly dressed, very glamorous blonde lady smiling a proper smile at me.

‘Oh, hello, yes I’m Rebecca. Becca.’

‘Hi, Becca, nice to meet you. I’m Trina from Sales Admin.’

‘Hi, Trina,’ I say.

‘We’ll go in the lift,’ Trina says, ‘Cos we’re up on the third floor.’

‘Great,’ I say. Is it really great? Is it? asks the Beccabird sarcastically.

I follow behind Trina and we get into the waiting lift where the doors have conveniently just swished open. I smile nervously and try desperately to think of something to say.

‘Did you come into the office when you had your interview?’ Trina asks as the doors close .

‘No, only into HR, I never saw the manager because he was on holiday.’

‘Oh, right.’ Trina nods thoughtfully. ‘I didn’t think I’d seen you before. Okay, well I’ll give you the heads up before we get there. Firstly,’ she lowers her voice in case someone overhears us although we’re the only people in the lift, ‘Ed is the Manager and he’s a big softie and absolutely lovely but whatever you do, don’t cross the Assistant Manager because she’s the real boss and what she says, goes. The power behind the throne.’

‘Oh, okay, I’ll make sure to remember that,’ I say.

‘I would if I were you. So. There’s twenty-eight of us sales admins, well twenty-nine with you, and I’ll be the one showing you the ropes. Because we’re the old ones.’

Old? I’m only thirty-four!

‘Obviously,’ Trina hurriedly adds, ‘You’re much younger than me, what are you, thirtyish?’

‘Really? I thought you were younger than that. I’m fifty-two but as far as the rest of the team are concerned we’re both practically dead.’

‘Yeah, they’re all in their early twenties.’

‘Oh.’ That seems to be all I can say.

‘And,’ Trina says as she steps out of the lift as the doors swish open and we arrive at the third floor, ‘As far as they’re concerned we’re a couple of has beens because they’ll all be having much better jobs than this by the time they’re our age.’

‘Okay,’ I say as we stand outside the door into the office. ‘So apart from the bossy Assistant Manager and everyone thinking we’re past it it’s a great place to work?’

Trina laughs, a honking, donkey bray of a laugh that is totally at odds with her ladylike appearance.

‘You’ve got it,’ she says, pushing open the door. ‘Come in and meet the team.’

The office is big and open plan, the desks seeming to go on forever. It’s a bit of a culture shock after my old place; there were only six of us and I was the youngest in there. I look around at the people seated at the desks and I feel ancient because everyone looks so young . Thank God Trina’s here otherwise I think I’d just turn around, go home and go and get a job in Foodco. I also feel hideously overdressed in my smart dress and jacket because everyone else seems to be dressed much more casually. I watch as a size six girl struts past me in sprayed on jeans. She doesn’t notice or acknowledge me.

‘I’ll take you down to Ed’s office and introduce you to him and then we’ll get you settled in. Okay?’

I nod dumbly. Get a grip, you don’t want to start with the nodding again, the Beccabird reminds me.

I follow Trina for what seems like miles towards a glass partitioned office in the distance. I notice that Trina’s dressed in a smart skirt and blouse as I follow behind her trim figure and I start to feel a bit better. It’s all about standards, I tell myself, some of us have them and some of us don’t.

After two hours – okay two minutes - we finally arrive at Ed’s office. I feel self-conscious marching behind Trina but I don’t know why because no one is taking the slightest interest in me. Trina taps on the glass partition and we go in. A man who I assume is Ed is seated behind a huge desk on one side of the room and opposite him is a slightly smaller desk which I guess is the Assistant Manager’s.

‘Hi Ed, this is our new starter, Becca.’

Ed looks up at me from underneath the bushiest eyebrows I’ve ever seen, which combined with his curly brown hair gives the impression of a big teddy bear.

‘Hello, Becca, good to meet you at last,’ he says, standing up and holding his hand out.

‘Hello, nice to meet you,’ I say, as he envelops my hand in a big paw. We shake enthusiastically and just as my shoulder’s starting to ache, he lets go.

‘Sorry I didn’t get to meet you before you started but welcome to the team, you’ll find us a friendly bunch. Trina will show you the ropes but I’m sure you’ll be fine as it’s pretty much the same as the Westchester branch, just on a bigger scale. But if you have any problems just let me know.’

‘Thank you.’ I can see what Trina means; he seems like a nice guy.

‘Trina will fill you in on booking holiday, absences and all of that sort of thing...’ he looks over my shoulder, ‘Ah, here she is, my indispensable right hand woman. This is who you’ll mostly be reporting to...’ He throws his arm out towards the woman who’s just sitting down at the desk opposite him. ‘Becca, meet Em.’

I turn around and give Em my friendliest smile.

Em. Aka Emily-whose-flat-I-said-I’d-move-into-and-then-lied-to.

My face is frozen in a grotesque smile as Emily stares at me.

‘Hi Em,’ I thrust my hand out towards her. ‘Nice to meet you.’

Emily unsmilingly raises one eyebrow as if to say pretending are we?

‘Hello, Rebecca, nice to meet you.’ She looks at my hand with distaste. ‘I’m afraid I don’t shake hands.’ But you already know that .

I let my hand drop and stand staring at her like an idiot.

‘Well, we’d better get on.’ Trina nudges me.

‘Yes, of course,’ I say as Trina turns and leaves the office, I give Ed and Emily another grimacing smile which is returned by Ed, but not by Emily, and trot to catch up with Trina.

As we march down the office I’m sure I can feel Emily’s eyes boring into my back. She knew I was lying when I texted her to say I wouldn’t be taking the flat – in fact she knew who I was when I viewed it. Talk about rotten luck; I’ve been here less than an hour and I’ve already managed to make an enemy.

Who just happens to be my boss.

We arrive back in front of Trina’s desk.

‘You’ll be sitting here.’

I look at her blankly, are we sharing a desk? I’m just about to ask and make myself look like a complete basket case when I realise that she means the desk opposite hers. I feel relieved that I’m going to be sitting near her – I have a feeling that we’re going to get on and I don’t fancy sitting with lots of twenty-year-olds who make me feel ancient.

‘Great,’ I say, pointlessly.

‘But before we get into boring work, how about we get a coffee?’ suggests Trina.

‘Sounds like a good idea,’ I say. Trina and I are definitely going to get along.

‘I’ll show you where the restaurant is and the toilets at the same time, part of your induction.’ She marches off briskly and I follow her back through the door where we came into the office,up a flight of stairs and through double swing doors into the restaurant.

It’s humungous; several large shiny stainless-steel counters are arranged in a circular fashion at the front of a vast hall and I can see lots of tables and chairs behind them. They seem to have counters for everything; hot drinks, salads, hot meals, there’s even a baguette station. I follow Trina to the hot drinks counter and fumble in my handbag for my purse but Trina puts her hand up and stops me.

‘My treat, you can get them next time.’

‘Thanks.’ Seems to be all I can say.

We order our coffees and wait while a barista wearing what looks like a beige nurse’s uniform very slowly and carefully makes them; I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone make a coffee so slowly. When she finally finishes I pick mine up and follow Trina to a table and we sit down opposite each other. Quite a few of the tables around us are occupied and a queue is slowly forming at the coffee counter.

‘Do you come up here every day before you start work?’ I ask Trina as I stir my coffee.

‘God, no. I couldn’t afford to do this every day. I usually make one in the office kitchen ‘cos it’s free. I thought we’d come today with it being your first day and everything, have a bit of a skive. Also, no nosy parkers earwigging.’

‘So, what did you think of Ed and our Em?’

‘Very nice,’ I lie.

‘Really?’ She raises an eyebrow.

‘Ed seems really nice and to be honest, I’d already met Emily. Em.’

‘What, when you came for your interview?’

‘No, I only met HR. I met Em when I viewed the room she has to let.’

‘No!’ Trina starts to laugh her donkey bray laugh again and several heads turn our way. ‘Oh my God, imagine sharing a house with the ice queen.’

‘It’s a flat,’ I say, ‘And to be fair, it’s a very nice flat. ’

‘Don’t tell me you’re going to live with her?’ Trina looks at me in horror.

‘No, I’ve got a place somewhere else.’

‘Christ, that was a lucky escape. Imagine house sharing with your boss.’

Trina looks at me quizzically so I tell her the rest of the story, the gentleman friends, the lying text, the lot. When I’ve finished she’s laughing so much she’s almost crying although the donkey braying has calmed down a bit.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, wiping her eyes, ‘...shit, my mascara’s going to run if I laugh much more. I shouldn’t laugh, it’s just... gentlemen friends...’ She can’t even finish the sentence for laughing.

I sit impassively and watch and eventually Trina manages to compose herself.

‘Sorry, you must feel really awful, talk about bad luck.’

‘Tell me about it,’ I say. ‘Story of my life.’

‘The good thing is that you won’t have to have too much contact with her; she only really gets involved with us admins when there’s a problem. We’re pretty much left to our own devices.’

‘Really?’ I say hopefully.

‘Definitely. You’ll only see her at meetings, and booking holidays.’

I look at her hopefully.

‘And if you’re off sick,’ she adds.

‘Yeah, she does the back to work interviews. Take my advice and come into work even if you’re dying and pray that they’ll send you home because the back to work interview is worse than being ill. It’s like being interrogated by the Gestapo.’ She pulls a face .

‘Okay.’ I swallow the last of my coffee. ‘So apart from booking holidays, meetings and back to work interviews I’ll never have to see her.’

‘That’s right, you won’t.’

I mentally promise myself to never have any sick time or problems that will involve ever having to speak to Emily. Em.

‘Except,’ Trina looks around to check that no one is listening, ‘If she’s got it in for you. Then she won’t leave you alone.’

The rest of the day passes quite quickly and luckily I don’t see Em again. I spend the afternoon arranging my pens and pencils and trays on my desk and familiarising myself with where everything is. The sales admin system is exactly the same as the one at Westchester, the only differences to my old job are the different people and places that I have to deal with.

Mid-afternoon, Trina and I have another skive up to the restaurant for a coffee, which I buy this time. Trina is very easy to get on with and I thank God she’s here because I don’t think I’d last five minutes on my own because everyone else completely ignores me. After a very long coffee break, Trina takes me down to the security office to have my photo taken and my security pass and parking permit issued.

The security guard makes a bit of a fuss to start with because I should already have my parking permit and he says it’s a lot of extra work for him to do it now. I think he’s lying and just wants to feel important but I play the game and smile sweetly and beg. After a lot of exaggerated opening of cupboards while he looks for the correct permit, he finally agrees to do it.

I have to have my photo taken for my pass and I’m made to stand against the wall while he takes a head shot of me with his mobile phone. We then wait while he prints out my plastic pass, complete with photo. I’d done my smiling not smiling face; which means the corners of my mouth are slightly upturned so I don’t look old and miserable and hopefully not deranged.

After a lot of lip pursing and tutting he silently hands the pass and permit over the counter and makes me sign in a book that I’ve received them. He then walks over to the corner of the office, settles himself down in a battered swivel chair, picks up a crumpled copy of The Sun , gives it a shake and proceeds to read it. Trina says he sits there most of the day and doesn’t really like to be disturbed; apparently, he gets a right strop on if he has to do anything which is probably why I’m getting the silent treatment.

I unclip the temporary pass and loop the new one onto my lanyard and look at it in shock. I wasn’t expecting it to be a good photograph but my God, do I really look like that?

Yes you do , sniggers the Beccabird.

He obviously took the photo either before or after I did my smiling not smiling face and I look miserable, old and my face looks about three foot long.

‘I look like a convict.’ I show Trina the pass. ‘Please tell me I don’t look like that?’

‘No, you don’t.’ She laughs. ‘I reckon he’s got a special app that stretches and distorts all the photos. Revenge for having to get off his fat arse.’

‘It’s awful, I look like a horse – my face isn’t that long.’

‘You should see mine, he managed to cut off the top of my head and I look like I’ve got a massive moon face.’

I feel a bit better; Trina is so petite and pretty that I can’t imagine it’s possible to take a bad photo of her .

‘So, let’s see.’ Trina looks at her watch. ‘It’s four o’clock now so I’ll give you a guided tour of the building so you know where everything is.’

‘By the time we’ve finished it’ll be nearly time to go home so we need to pace ourselves. I never work too hard, just hard enough, have to tell myself to slow down sometimes because those youngsters spend more time yapping than they do working and I’m not doing more than them when most of them are on more money than me.’

‘How can they be on more money if they do the same job?’

‘Sucking up, that’s how. Favouritism. They make sure they get given a special project – which is basically a load of old tosh – and then they get a pay rise.’

‘Can’t we get a special project?’

‘You have to be a favourite and I’m not and you won’t be either.’

‘Another of Em’s jobs - giving out the special projects.’

Our guided tour consists of going down to Reception and looking at the different departments on the building map followed by a long chat while we sit in the comfy seats for visitors in Reception. Trina has a clipboard in front of her to make it look business-like but actually has a piece of paper on it with a list of last year’s Grand National runners. The snooty receptionist greets Trina warmly but totally blanks me.

By the time we get back to the office it’s ten to five and I can tell by the way everyone’s sitting at their desks gazing at their screens that most of them are surfing the internet. I sit down at my desk and push a few bits of paper around to make it look as though I’m doing something although no one’s even looking at me.

At a couple of minutes to five there’s a mass exodus and the office is emptied in seconds; I’ve never seen a roomful of people move so fast. I grab my coat and bag and Trina and I head out of the door and into the stairwell.

‘What floor are you parked on?’ asks Trina.

‘Good thinking, I’m on the next one down. This is the most popular floor but I never get in early enough to get a space. How did you find your first day?’

‘Good,’ I say. ‘I’ll be alright once I’m settled, it just feels strange being the new person.’

‘Give it a week and you’ll feel as if you’ve been here forever.’

‘I hope so,’ I say, laughing.

‘Have a good evening, I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She gives me a wave as she carries on down the stairs.

I emerge onto the fourth floor of the car park with relief, thankful that the worst is over. It wasn’t a good start finding out that Em is my boss but the day has passed uneventfully and nothing else has gone wrong. I can go home and relax knowing that the worst is over.

I rummage around in my bag and pull out my car key and click it to unlock the door. I open the door and am about to get in when a flash of yellow catches my eye and the day does get a whole lot worse.