X: Work experience

Piglet's office story reminded me of these times. Strangely I don't
remember making a single cup of coffee, or arranging any
biscuits.

I cast my mind back to the summer of 1986. I was sweet sixteen. I had
just finished my O'levels and my school had instructed us that we all
needed to do four weeks' work experience before we broke up for the
summer. Everyone was returning for A'Levels. My school was like
that.

I went to quite a posh school. Only a couple of people had done a
Saturday job. Most of us had not worked at all. My parents had always
said that a Saturday job would distract me from my studies. Personally
I think they were worried about the independence that it would have
given me. The confidence boost would have been immeasurable.

Anyway, the school wanted to know where I wanted to do my work
experience. Geography was one of my favourite subjects and one of my
chosen A'Levels. I was trying to think of a career that might be
related to Geography. I quite liked the idea of this thing I'd heard of
called "Town Planning". My mum, ever eager to control every aspect of
my life, found a lady in her badminton class who worked in a Town
Planning Department. I was signed up to four weeks' voluntary work.
Travel expenses, however, would be paid.

Still with my childhood pudding-bowl haircut, but nevertheless managing
to begin to look a bit pretty, I travelled every day from Richmond to
High Street Kensington by tube. I dressed in my nicest smart-casual
clothes and walked along to Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall, Planning
Department.

I had never been in an office before, let along worked in one. I was
given a desk. It was next to a lady who always wore a white cardigan
and sandals. I forget her name. I think there was a chap called Bob on
the other side of me. I think he was short and balding. One day he
phoned in to say he couldn't come in as he had to hold his finger on
the wall to hold the water in where he'd tried to put up a picture into
a water pipe. The phone used to ring, as it does in an office, and I
would absolutely freeze. Someone would look at me and gesture "why
don't you get that?" and I used to cringe with embarrassment and say
"Oh, no, I can't. Please would you get it. I'll just listen and
learn".

Seeing as I was too shy to answer the phone they had a job to think of
what to give me to do. Sometimes I was introduced to other people for
them to show me their work. I soon realised that town planners didn't
actually plan anything. They had no power but to look up the rules in
one of their hundreds of files of rules and codes relating to rules.
Getting through the day without dying of embarrassment was my main
objective. This really was not helped by the fact the lady from my
mum's badminton class kept calling out from the other side of the
office:

"Gay? Gay? Would you like to come and have a look at this Gay?"

Gay? I was mortified. My name was Gail. I didn't dare to correct her. I
put up with "Gay" for the whole month. It didn't get any easier.

There was a tall man, called Mike I think. I think he might have been
Irish. He had a big beard and made people laugh. He took me out to some
of his site visits with him. We went in his car and he kept saying he'd
take me out for coffee. I was both flattered and a bit wary. He kept
asking me if I had a boyfriend yet and I kept blushing trying to
pretend I had when really it was just some guy I had a crush on. He
used to massage the shoulders of some of the women in the office. I was
thankful he never tried it on me.

They decided to give me jobs outside of the office. It was a hot
summer. They always told me to take my time, not to hurry back, but I
was a conscientious young thing. I never dawdled except once when I
popped into Chelsea Girl to look at some shoes. I was sent out to tie
up planning notices onto buildings. The trouble was, many of the
buildings already had some work started on them and that meant one of
my other fears, BUILDERS. Now builders knew how to send a shy little
sixteen year old girl running. I would run up to buildings and try to
frantically tie the planning notice onto the railings and run off
before anyone made any comments. A single wolf-whistle would crucify
me. I had to take a planning notice to the tube station once. I was
collared by a security guard asking me if I had permission to affix it.
I stammered and left. I think I threw the copy of it into the nearest
bin so I didn't have to confess that I'd failed in my mission when I
returned to the office.

I went on visits to clients' houses with other members of the team.
Lots of the houses had dogs and I was really scared of dogs. We visited
one house with a doberman. They gave me the choice of going up a steep
ladder to stand on their roof to view where they wanted to put a dormer
window, or to stay alone with the dog. I went up the ladder, stood on
the tilting roof, smiled politely, said thank you very much, and nearly
got my bum bitten off by the over-excited doberman on the way
down.

I enjoyed one task I had of arranging photographs on sheets of coloured
paper and sticking them on with blue tack. I was sent out to buy the
paper beforehand. I made a nice display for the office. That was
something I could do quietly on my own without any embarrassment. I
suspect the task was created to give me something to do.

One Friday lunchtime they all decided to go for a long lunch at the
pub. As I was coming along later they asked me what drink they could
order for me. I was just beginning to go to pubs. Pubs were grown up
and cool. I wanted to order an alcoholic drink to be one of the grown
ups, but I didn't want anyone to get into trouble. I knew I didn't look
eighteen. I ordered a shandy. They asked me "lager" or "bitter"? I
hadn't a clue. I didn't know the difference.

Anyway, in the end I survived and live to tell the tale. I decided that
town planning was really pretty boring. It goes like this:

1 Someone writes or phones in asking if they can put an extension on
their house.
2 Planning officer checks a list of boring old codes to see if they
comply.
3 Planning officer rejects, or accepts as applicable.
4 If accepting, neighbours on either side and opposite are written to
for any objections.
5 Gail or a. n. other sent out to affix notice of work onto
building
6 Work commences
7 Planning officers check work is going according to plan and extension
isn't 3 x the agreed size.

Now before I started the work experience I imagined a town planner
planned towns. Silly that isn't it?
I thought they got a big sheet of paper and said "right, here's how we
want our town to look". I imagined they drew up the plans for
buildings, fountains etc. I wanted to make it all look pretty and have
ideas about it.

Thankfully I was saved from a career in town planning. It's a shame I
never drew the nice towns that I planned in my imagination. Maybe I
will write about them someday.