Making Something of my life

Stacey's got a decision to make, but can she follow her dreams and stick to her ethics?

Celia paused, her bombshell statement hanging in the air. She shrugged, “but we think you’re someone who can get stuck in and turn things around.”

I closed my eyes. Did she mean what I thought? “Thank you.”

“I’ve not finished,” she snapped. “And because I think you have exactly the skill set we need I’m not going to make you go away and wait for a telephone call. I don’t have time for that and I’m sure you don’t want the hassle. I’m going to offer you the job right now, on the spot. What do you say?”

“Good call,” Derek muttered under his breath in an aside to Celia. He clearly had no idea she was going to offer and wasn’t bright enough not to make it obvious.

My palms were dripping now as I tried to work out what to say. I was delighted to be offered the job but I wasn’t delighted by the prospect of working with Derek and Celia. Were my concerns enough to destroy the image I’d created in my mind of GoFAR, or the new life I’d imagined for myself once I got that all important new job?

“Hold on,” I said. “I’m not even sure I can do this. I’ve never worked in the welfare to work industry. It’s all new to me.” I didn’t want to talk myself out of the job, but I also didn’t want them to hire me without giving me much of an interview.

“It’s just recruitment,” Derek said wrinkling his nose again and shaking his head. “But with all the no-hoper candidates your manager warned you about.”

Celia tried to stifle a laugh. “Have you ever heard the phrase you can’t polish a t**d?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Well this job is a doddle, as long as you have a lot of polish.”

I sighed. I really hated that saying. It’d been a favourite of my first ever manager in recruitment. I’d been told it countless times, every time I’d taken a chance on a candidate who didn’t quite have the skill set the job specification requested. I ignored Celia’s comment. “But don’t you teach your jobseekers, like in classrooms? You haven’t asked me if I’ve ever taught. And I’m sorry to tell you this, I haven’t.”

“Ah whatever,” said Derek, waving his hand at me. “It’s not teaching, it’s crowd control, no one ever got a job because we taught them how to write a CV. You get people jobs by selling them into employers and by getting the lazy jobseekers to see the benefits of a pay cheque once a month.”

My jaw dropped. I’d started to realise there was a lot I didn’t know about unemployment. I genuinely thought teaching people how to apply for jobs was the way to get people back into work. I wondered which of us had it wrong because we couldn’t both be right. Whatever the truth in the situation, I still had a job to accept or reject.

“Can I think about it? I want to make sure I’m making the best decision for my career.”

“Of course,” Celia said. Smiling, she clasped her hands in front of her and leant forward. “But don’t take too long with your thinking, because we don’t have time to waste.”

After the interview I boarded the busy tube back to North London, finding a hole between commuters. I played the interview back in my mind over and over again. I didn’t like Derek and Celia Smythe. I didn’t like their brusque self important manner and I didn’t like their attitude towards the jobseekers. Weren’t your jobseekers your customers? Your customers and your product; without them you had no business, however many might be approaching you daily. Besides, who knew where a disgruntled jobseeker you’d treated badly might reappear.

Derek and Celia didn’t seem to like their staff either. That didn’t bode well for me becoming an employee. In my mind team members were like cogs of a wheel, each one as important as the other. Besides, employees who value their contribution work harder. I’d always believed that. I’d learnt it on a training course.

Were these attitudes so different in the welfare to work sector, or were the Smythes’ attitudes specific to GoFAR? It didn’t look like GoFAR was going to be a great company to work for. The question was whether that mattered. Whatever I thought of the company and its directors, it was down to me. I had a job to accept or reject. Should I follow my dreams and take the job, or follow my instincts and tell them where they could stick it?

*****

Arriving back in Holloway my mind was a whirlwind. I stepped out into the traffic, a motorbike swerving to avoid me. I sighed, it was back to reality. Tonight as usual, the traffic on the Holloway Road was gridlocked. There were very few hours in the day it wasn’t, it was one of the busiest roads in London; not to mention one of the dirtiest.

When I bought my flat the estate agent told me it was in Tufnell Park. I’d met him at the station early on that Saturday morning and we’d walked down together. I’d been impressed by the tree lined roads of 1930s houses with their big bay windows, it was leafy North London at its best. The side road where my flat was situated was a little too modern for my taste but it looked like a nice area. I was single and on a middle income, if I wanted to live in London I could expect to choose between a nice flat and a nice area. I was ecstatic to think I could have both. I’d been so impressed I hadn’t bothered to research any further. Once I moved in I realised my little North London back street was right behind the Holloway Road.

I unlocked the communal front door. My bag was buzzing; I let the door slam behind me as I dug out my mobile.

My flat was spotlessly clean and expensively kitted out, but no double glazing could block out the noise of the traffic. Worse than that, at night when Holloway Road moved faster than its daytime stop and start five miles an hour the buses raced past at such a speed they shook the building.

“Hello,” I said holding the phone to my ear as I made my way up the stairs to my top floor flat.

“Well?” the voice said making no attempt at small talk, in fact not even making an attempt at greeting me. “Mum! I only just got back. I’m not even through the door yet.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

I sighed. I was one of three siblings and my mother constantly played the game of good child, bad child, ignored child. Everything we did she judged on the basis of how it compared to what her other children had done recently. I was usually the ignored child with my brothers alternating between good and bad. That day I had a feeling the roles were shifting, like a football manager my mother was about to shuffle her squad. My brother the human rights lawyer had just been through a messy divorce. That was unforgiveable in my mother’s eyes. Her second son and my younger brother was a stock trader. He was smart, attractive and rich; the perfect boast. What a shame he’d been responsible for the credit crunch. There was a good child vacancy and my mother hoped I’d done something worthy enough to fill it.

I collapsed into my leather sofa, “It went well. In fact they’ve offered me the job!”

“Aaghh!” my mother screamed. I nearly dropped the phone. “Good on you girl! Good on you! I knew you’d make something of your life in the end.”

My heart sank. There was only one person in the world that could turn good news into something to berate me with. Like a dying balloon I wished I’d kept quiet. “I have made something of my life! I’m a manager. In fact, I’m one of the best performing managers in my company.”

“Of course you are dear,” she said an absent minded tone creeping into her voice.

“Besides, I haven’t decided if I’m going to take the job yet. I have a few concerns.”

“What?” Mum said her Caribbean accent along with her indignation making the word much longer than it needed to be. “You’ll never get a chance like this again. How else will you ever get a job working for the government? You’ll be finding people jobs, making their lives better. How can you even consider saying no?” She kissed her teeth in disgust at the very prospect.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her I hadn’t been offered a job with the government; instead I’d be working for a private company with a government contract. It was a long way from the civil service, and anyway how rude did she want to be? I already found people jobs and made their lives better. How could she have so little understanding of my life that she didn’t know what I did day in day out? Sometimes I really hated being the ignored middle child.

She kissed her teeth again. “Stacey, think about it this way. If you died now, what could you say you’ve achieved in your life? I mean, really achieved. What will they write in your obituary? If you take this job the sky is the limit! You’ll be making a difference. What’s more, you’ll be making history. When the TV says the unemployment figures have gone down, you’ll know it was all your hard work!”

I stifled a laugh. My mother’s logic left a lot to be desired. She made it sound like the television companies sat and counted the unemployment figures, releasing them like a weather report. Even if they did, I was sure no one would remember a solitary welfare to work centre in a sea of others. Why did she even care what my obituary was likely to say? I hoped when my time on earth eventually came to a close she would be long dead. Was she planning on berating me in death as she did in life, her ghost rattling copies of the Daily Telegraph obituary page instead of chains?

“And just think Stacey, you can buy a house now instead of that tiny flat.”

I pulled at my tights creating a hole. She’d been desperate for me to own property, I’d moved out of a flat share I was happy in to fulfil her hopes. What she wanted, not that she would ever admit it, was to tell her friends how well I’d done; how successful her daughter was. She clearly didn’t see my current career as worthwhile. Well thanks mum. Recruitment involved selling and cold calling; that much was true. People often moaned they were hustled by well-meaning recruitment consultants desperate for new business. My industry was one people loved to hate, I knew that. But what she forgot was I made a lot of money. I was good at my job; so good I’d been promoted to manager. Of course it didn’t sound as worthy as being a human rights lawyer and my job title didn’t make me sound rich like a stock trader, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t making something of my life too. It could be far worse; I could be working in a shop.

That’s right, working in a shop. One day I’d remind her she was just a lowly retail assistant when she was my age. Of course it wouldn’t embarrass her at all because she’d already have her retort planned. You see, when she was my age she already had a brood of children, three in fact. I had none. And I had no hope of getting any either.

I concentrated on the hole in my tights, giving my mother increasingly monosyllabic answers. Eventually she gave up and let me get on with my evening. I was back to thinking about GoFAR. I had my concerns and rightly so, but they were the leading brand in the welfare to work sector. They were to coin a phrase… going far. Admittedly I’d had no complaints at all about my current job until I’d spoken to head hunter extraordinaire Amy Watson. But as soon as I’d been offered the golden ticket out of recruitment I’d realised my career desperately needed some excitement injecting into it. I’d not really done anything new in my job for the past three years. I hadn’t even had any new members of staff in my team since my trainee Greg started two and a half years ago. He wasn’t a trainee any longer, far from it. I’d made that unforgivable mistake of just coasting. It wasn’t very ambitious of me. But hey, I’d just been offered a new job. I’d been head hunted into the interview and the employer had liked me so much they’d gone ahead and offered me the job, right there and then before the interview had even finished. Go me!

But how could I trust anyone who was so desperate to fill a job they couldn’t wait an hour to offer it? My shoulders slumped as I realised I couldn’t take it; there were too many question marks. My mum would just have to be angry with me. I had too much to give up for the sake of a dream.

I grabbed my iPad and tapped out an email.

“Hi Amy,

Thank you so much for recommending me to GoFAR. It was lovely to meet with them this evening. I regret to inform you that despite their offer I will not be taking this application any further. There was something that didn’t feel right.

Regards,

Stacey”

I frowned. The ‘job offer’ had been verbal and had no salary or terms attached to it. Part of me wondered if I’d misunderstood. I winced as I hit the send button worried I’d made the wrong decision.

Minutes after I’d sent the email my mobile rang, the flashing number told me it was Amy Watson. She was going to be livid; I was doing her out of a hefty bonus by refusing this job. Manager jobs don’t come along very often. I took a deep breath and answered.

“Well done!” Amy simpered.

I sighed, “Did you see my email?”

“No,” she said, “What did your email say?”

Rubbing my forehead I realised she was going to play that game. I knew she’d seen my email, why else would she call at eight o’ clock at night? “I can’t take the job Amy,” I told her, “It’s not going to work out. They aren’t really my kind of people.”

Amy paused. This was a trick too. I didn’t let it phase me.

“Are you still there?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What made you apply for it in the first place?”

I wanted to say ‘you’, but instead I said, “I’ve been in recruitment a long time now and I don’t feel as though it’s really ‘me’. I’ve got a Sociology degree, I wanted to work with people, wanted to be in the charity sector. I thought I could make a difference; right now I just make money.” And that was what I would be doing at GoFAR too.

Now Amy sighed, “What would you say if you were talking to one of your candidates?”

I frowned. I’d say anything to make them take the job and give me my bonus. That’s all she was doing.

“I think you’re worried about moving out of recruitment,” she continued, “It’s a big step doing something less corporate. I don’t have the guts to change my life. If I did maybe I would be working for a charity too. You know how these things work; you’ve got to take the little steps to make the big changes. This isn’t a charity but you’ll be working with some of the poorest and most deprived people in London. Now that’s all good experience for when you decide to look for a charity job in a year’s time.”

I bit my lip. Maybe she was right. No one just walked into a charity job. Could I work with the Smythes for just one year?

“Celia was very impressed with you,” Amy continued.

“I didn’t get that from her.”

“Well no, she was interviewing you. But you won’t have to work with her anyway; you’ll be in your own centre managing your own staff.”

I wondered how often I’d need to go to head office; once a month maybe, if that? They might even skip a few supervisions if I was making target which I almost certainly would do. “They didn’t even give me a salary offer,” I said.

“It’s two thousand more than you are currently on…”

“Oh,” I interrupted, “I thought it would be more.”

“But…” she continued, “You’ll get fifty per cent of your centre’s profits every month you’re on target. Fifty per cent!”

“That does sound good, but what if I don’t make target? The centre is currently underperforming.”

“If you don’t make target you’ll be out on your ear.”

I sighed, “I can’t take the risk. It might take me three months to turn things around and all that time I won’t be getting bonuses.’” My credit card bills were huge, I couldn’t dream of taking a hit in salary.

“Look, I understand. What if I get them to up it to four thousand more than your current salary and add a guaranteed commission for the first three months?”

I let out a breath, “Well it seems unlikely, but go on. If you can get them to agree to that I’ll definitely take the job.”

I didn’t think Amy Watson would be able to negotiate such a great deal and it made it feel as though the decision wasn’t down to me anymore. Once again fate had a hand in my future. If I was meant to go to GoFAR they’d agree to my demands. If I wasn’t it wouldn’t be because I threw away a fabulous opportunity, it would be because it wasn’t going to work out and if that was the case I could look my mother in the eye and tell her how truly sorry I was it didn’t happen. Either way, I knew what I wanted for my future and I was going to do everything I could to get into welfare to work. It was time I followed my heart not my bank balance.

******

“I can’t believe you’re leaving!” Ann Marie exclaimed for the twentieth time that evening. Clutching a cocktail glass which threatened to jump out of her hand at any moment, she draped her spare arm across my shoulders. This was partly out of affection but mostly for balance, the combination of alcohol and high heels making her wobbly.

“I almost can’t believe it either!” I said looking at the faces of my old team. Every single person out of the six I supervised had made it out for my leaving party. That wasn’t a surprise; we made an effort to socialise together as much as possible. The venue, decorated in red velvet and dark wood, was our favourite post work haunt, standing room mostly with a few tables dotted around and a dance floor to one side. Happy hour had long passed but we were lucky the company expense account had agreed to pay for our drinks.

“Are you going to miss us?” Greg asked.

 “I can’t even begin to imagine how much I’ll miss you all!” I would miss Greg the most. I didn’t tell him that. It didn’t seem appropriate; me being his boss and all. “I’ve been here four years now and never once have I woken up and not wanted to come in to the office.” That was unlikely living in my lonely flat anyway.

Greg smiled, “Well we’re going to miss you too, me more than anyone.”

He’d said it. I looked at the floor, shuffling my high heeled feet. Despite his revelation, I still couldn’t say the words echoing through my mind.

 “I mean it. I’ve learnt so much from you. I don’t know where I’d be if you hadn’t taken me under your wing.” His earnest eyes met mine.

“Rubbish,” I laughed, “your success was all your own making; I just pointed you in the right direction.”

“It’s true,” Ann Marie said. “You’re one of the hardest working consultants in the company Greg mate! Yeah I know you struggled to start with, it took you longer to learn the ins and outs than it did the others, but look at you now!”

Greg ran a finger down his glass.

“And look,” Ann Marie continued. “You’ve been the biggest biller three months in a row now! Its hard work and determination that got you there; you never gave up.”

“I never gave up because Stacey never gave up on me,” Greg said, a fuchsia blush forming across his pale face. “Seriously! I could never be one to give it the hard sell or turn on the charm and flirt with the clients. I tried to emulate those techniques and fell down flat. You showed me a different way, ignoring the traditional methods. I guess they took a chance on me, being a fundraiser and not a salesman, but your hard work paid off.”

“Well,” I said, “It was all you. Your clients trust you completely and they refuse to go elsewhere. They even panic when you’re on annual leave, only Ann Marie can get them to give up the jobs when you aren’t there.”

Ann Marie threw her head back laughing, “It’s true! They try and save them all up for when you get back!”

Whilst I told Greg he’d kept his job because he was a hard worker, I knew it wasn’t true. He’d been dead weight. I’d continually defended him to the directors. They wanted him out on his ear before he’d even had the chance to start performing. He didn’t have the personality, they said. And it was true he didn’t, but he had something. Winning trust and building relationships takes longer than hard selling, but ultimately Greg’s method is the way you become biggest biller.

Greg touched my arm, “Well thank you.”

I wished my mother was here to see his gratitude. To see I was already making a difference to people’s lives and I didn’t have to work for the government to do so.

“I need to thank you too,” Ann Marie said slurring her words and waving her empty glass at me like a weapon.

I grinned, “Of course! Congratulations are in order for you! This is a double celebration. You deserved that promotion”. And she did.

She looked at me through her eyelashes, “Well you know. It’s partly because I already know all the clients in the division.”

“Exactly! You know them because you’re always the one covering other people’s work when they go away; you even bother with Greg’s fussy ones!”

“I can’t let the business go elsewhere now can I, even if it means working to eight o’ clock to get it all done.”

I nodded, “There you go! That’s why you got the job. One eye on the prize money at all times, even if it isn’t your own pocket it will go into.”

“If I’m half the manager you are I’ll be ecstatic. I mean it Stacey mate. I’ve had some good managers, but you’re the best I’ve ever worked for.”

I held a hand to my chest. “Well I hope it hasn’t all just been luck and I’m a terrible manager when I move companies.” Part of me wasn’t joking; part of me really did wonder just how lucky I’d been. I had an easy team. Could I have the same success with a more challenging set of people? My new employees were going to be more difficult, after all, they weren’t making target.

“It’s not just luck,” Greg said. “But Stacey; I’ve been waiting to ask you this since I saw you leaving work early in your best suit four weeks ago. Why are you leaving?” His big eyes had a beaten puppy look, as though I were leaving him not the job, as though there was something else he could have done to make me stay.

“What a thing to ask!” I said. But it was a fair enough question; I just wasn’t entirely convinced I had the answer. I took a deep breath “I’ve reached a plateau in my career here, but more than that, I guess I always wanted to be a good person; someone I could be proud to be.”

Greg raised an eyebrow, a perfect dark and brooding eyebrow. “And you can’t be that here?”

“Recruitment doesn’t give me that. Not completely. I have to make questionable decisions to make my targets. We all do.”

“I don’t,” said Greg. I knew he was right. He never compromised his ethics and his refusal to do so had become his trademark, one of the reasons for his success. But I wasn’t as strong as him. I did ignore my morals and I didn’t want to carry on doing so.

I threw my hands out, “I want to make a difference.” I’d told my mother I was changing lives, but deep in my heart I’d known I could be doing a lot more.

 “I hope welfare to work turns out to be what you’re looking for,” Greg said. “Although you will still need to make questionable decisions to make your targets; being a good person comes from what you refuse to do as much as what you do. When I worked in the charity sector I had to make far tougher decisions.”

“I understand,” I told him. But realistically I didn’t. I let his words wash over me and ignored them. The political climate had fast become polarised and I was afraid I’d find myself on the wrong side. I wanted to be part of the team that said the bankers were scum and the austerity measures put in by the government were a tax on the poor. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who thought people who didn’t work were lazy, and immigrants were ruining our country. I believed the job at GoFAR would put me firmly in the ‘good people’ camp.

 “It’s not going to be easy,” I told my super-efficient former team. “It’s going to be a lot of hard work. I’m taking over a team who aren’t making target and I’ve been brought in to turn things around. I’m excited to have that kind of challenge.”

Greg shrugged, “I’m glad you think that way, but I’m afraid you’ll find the welfare to work sector is very different to what you imagine. You’ll have tough targets, way tougher than you do now, and you’ll be working with some difficult people. It’s not all empowering lives; it’s mostly the opposite in fact.”

I sipped my ten-pounds-a-glass-cocktail and undid the button of my Hobbs blazer. I saw myself as some kind of knight in shining armour riding in to save the day with my endless enthusiasm and my new commercial ideas. As if I’d ever have to make difficult decisions and compromise my ethics whilst working in such a worthy industry. Greg was wrong. Wasn’t he?