Who’s counting?
This time fifty-four years ago I was eagerly getting ready for my first proper job. A full-time trainee Secretary opportunity with BAT lured me to the ‘big smoke’ on a promise of £61 each month and free lunches! I lived in Southeast London and travelled by bus from West Norwood to Westminster with a change at Brixton. The journey was part of the excitement at the time although I can’t think why. It just felt ‘grown up’. I didn’t want to be a Secretary and set my sights on something more glamorous like PR or creative like advertising, but it was ‘a start’ and now I’m beginning to sound like my Mum. Obviously, I fought back although because I couldn’t fund myself at Art College, shorthand and typing won.
After a family holiday in East Sussex and looking appropriately tanned I felt surprisingly ready to begin my career. Well momentarily at least. Five minutes later I was in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, knee through a glass door and pouring with blood – ouch! My Dad yelled out from the other room, “whichever of you two kids has broken that glass can pay for it’ – ouch, again! My ‘grown up’ pride was shattered, along with my gorgeous yet broken new brown sandal (the cause of my fall). That day didn’t end well. A visit to the local cottage hospital A&E department found me bandaged from thigh to ankle and in agony. Dad was mumbling that he was only joking about the glass and Mum was upset. It was time I flew the nest.
I was the brave Working Girl now at just sixteen although the film didn’t come out until 1989. My leg was still bandaged (oops but not in 1989), and I was grateful that midi-skirts were as fashionable as their mini-skirt cousins. I spent my first week learning to file the mountains of paper from distant shores. I was assigned to the Leaf (Tobacco) Department under the watchful eye of the departmental filing clerk. Without thinking, I tried hard to assure my mentor that I knew my alphabet and could work much faster than the handful of papers assigned to me. And then I dared to ask why the Stationery Cupboard was labelled Stationary – surely everyone knows it’s ‘e’ for envelopes, except my mentor.
Things got a tiny bit better when the Training School term began in September and my next rotation was to Staff Records. Rows upon rows of buff-coloured files lined up alphabetically by geographical region then split between men and women. Learning to type or take shorthand in the mornings, interspersed with RSA bookkeeping and ‘office practice’ skills some afternoons. I was still learning my craft when a vacancy became available in the Personnel Department.
It seemed like everyone smoked in the office except me. The HR Director’s PA always had one of those gold-rimmed cigarette holders on the go. She was very grand. And that’s how I became the most junior member of the team working as Secretary to the Female Personnel Officer and assisting the Male Personnel Officer with his recruitment accountabilities! My HR career had begun although I shouldn’t have used the word ‘team’ – this was some hierarchical set up and I knew I had a way to go to succeed. Yet here I am today still a Recruitment groupie although I’ve achieved lots in between. Isn’t it time we worked together, Let’s chat
