Ironing.  Do you know how much ironing two weeks holiday produces?  A lot.  I mean, a RIGHT lot.  Slaving over a hot ironing board isn't exactly what I envisaged in my new 'wife' role.  Hmmm, will have to do something about that - burn clothes instead of ironing them, maybe.  ("Wife, where's my shirts?"  "Burnt them, darling."  "Where's my trousers?"  "Burnt them, darling."  "Why are there no clothes in my wardrobe?"  "Because from now on we're only buying drip-dry bri-nylon, darling."  Followed by heavy clunk of iron being thrown into kitchen bin.  Yeah, sounds good.)

Good news is, no work tomorrow.

Bad news is, I'm doing jury service.  Again. 

Oh joy.

[Totally forgot it was April Fools Day!  What fun I could have had ringing up friends and relatives to tell them I was pregnant and that we were calling it Jesus! (with an exclamation mark).  Or telling New Hubby that I'd changed my mind and wanted an annulment, or showing him a photograph of a really hairy man and saying it was me 8 years ago.  Darnit.]

Jury service.  Sigh.

Well at least I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn.  I know this, but I still wake up at the crack of dawn and get ready for my usual time, which means I have to hang around the house for half an hour idly watering plants and chatting with the budgies.  I didn't know the kids were on schools holidays this week either, so the anticipated journey into the city only took 30 minutes and I had to hang around town like a hooker for another 30.

I'm just not used to having time, having been chronically deprived of it for years.

Jury service.  Dullsville.  Waiting in a huge waiting room full of 200 complete strangers.  9am to 1pm.  No smoking (argh!).  Just sit and read.  And sit.  And read.

12.55, we're released for lunch.  YAY!  Freedom.  I leave the court building, light a cigarette.  Call Hubby.  Chat.  Walk across the road and sit in the middle of an island where Tony Hancock is, light a cigarette, inhale smoke and exhaust fumes.  Look at watch.  1.10.  Jeez.  I'm only used to having 30 minutes for lunch, what the hell am I going to do for another 50 minutes?

Wander into a kitchen shop.  Me, in a kitchen shop!  Try to muster up some enthusiasm for eggcups, play with egg timers for a bit, almost buy a baby cheese grater just because it looks cute until I see the price tag (obviously made of solid silver).  Wander out again.  Look at watch.  1.20.

JEEEEZ!

Thank God for Music Zone is all I can say.  Looked at pretty much every DVD title they have in stock and bought a splendid birthday present for my dad.  Asked woman on the till the time because my watch had obviously stopped.  She tells me.  It hasn't.

Wander back to court early because I don't know what else to do with myself.  Read book.  At 3pm, excitement.  15 of us are put on a case.  Taken into court.  Sworn in.  Vaguely recognise the surname of the dodgy looking character in the dock.  Get sent home.

Day 1, done.

Just dozing off in bed when I'm hit by one of those blinding flashes of clarity.

Oh berluddy 'ell!

Tuesday 3

Get to the court early and tell the bloke at reception that I need to speak to the Jury Officer.  "Is it about the case?" I'm asked.  No, it's about my bunions, waddaya think! 

I'm told to write a note to the Jury Officer.  I don't personally know the person in the dock or the people in the gallery, I wrote, But I suspect I know the family, who are my neighbours. 

"Why do you think they're related to your neighbours?" I'm asked. 

"Because its an unusual surname," I tell him.  He looks.  He nods.  He says he'll deal with it.

I sit there, in the jurors room, feeling nervous and a bit of an idiot (again!).  An hour later we're called into court.  Only I don't want to go into court.  I think I know the family of the bloke in the dock.  If my neighbour turns up to support his relative, not only will he recognise me but, more importantly, he'll know exactly where I live.

"Did you get the note I sent you?" I blurted to the Jury Officer, across the heads of my fellow jurors, who all suddenly look at me like I'm contaminated.

"No," he says.

Argh!

I rush off to the bloke at reception and blurt, "What did you do with the note I gave you?"

"It's sorted," he said.

"How is it sorted?"

"I can't tell you," he said.

What?

So I'm led into court thinking, I don't want to be here, I shouldn't be here.  We're sat on benches next to the jury box and the fearsome judge looks at us - or, more specifically, he stares straight at me.  When I dare to glance out of the corner of my twitching eye, it seems everyone in court is staring at me too. Can I be 'sent down' for having a crap memory?

We're told there's been some kind of "legal glitch" (aka dopey juror alert) and we're all dismissed.  Oh phew!  The relief!  We're led out of court with my fellow jurors peering accusingly at me.  Hey, it takes years of practice to become this stoopid, there's whole sections of my brain that have never been used.

Back to the waiting room, to wait.  And wait. 

At midday I'm dismissed.  Which means I have to go back to work.

Damn.

Wednesday 4

At court 10am.  Dismissed until next Wednesday at 10.30.  I’m trying not to take all this rejection personally.

Get into work and check my bank account online because, having had a holiday and got married, the funds are now pretty bloody desperate I can tell you (read this).

I haven’t been paid!  My bank account is an arid desert with the skull of an unknown animal languishing in the corner.

I immediately ring my agency.  They say they’ll look into it.  I ring them later to ask if they’ve looked into it.  They haven’t.  Later, they call me to say that, because I was on holiday for two weeks they’d taken me off the payroll (!).  They hadn’t received the timesheet I’d faxed through to them (for which I received confirmation) and assumed I was still on holiday.

“But I spoke to you last week,” I told the agency woman.

“Did you?” she asked (agency policy is clearly If In Doubt Deny Everything).

“Yes,” I said, “To tell you I’d got married and changed my name.”

“Oh,” she said.  “Well, I’m afraid we can’t pay you until next week now.”

Great. 

“Can you manage until then?” she added as an afterthought.

“I’ll have to, won’t I,” I snapped, “But I’ll be spending lunchtimes out on the streets begging for change.” 

I refrained from asking if she could lend me a tenner.

Please send food hampers, cigarettes and whisky to Mrs F Jones ...

Thursday 5

Back to the old routine of getting up at the crack of dawn again, sigh.

I let the budgies out for a fly in the mornings while I’m getting ready.  Before I leave, I put a bowl of seed in the bottom of their cage and they all fly in for breakfast.

This morning, bowl of seed in cage, nothing.  They all sat around the room glaring at me defiantly. 

“Come on,” I hissed, “Breakfast is ready.”

Pete steadfastly clung to the The Billy Boys.  Poo sat atop a statue that he thinks is another budgie (worrying), while Pea sat on top of a stereo speaker.  Their beady black eyes peered down at me, the little sods. 

I glanced at the clock.  5 minutes to get them in their cage before I officially became Late For Work.  I nudged them a bit.  They flew circles around the ceiling like miniature helicopters, but positively refused to go back to their cage, where Puff (who can’t fly) sat looking through the bars at the chaos.

I eventually resorted to using the blanket I cover them up with at night, managing to grab Pea in it (did he scream!).  The other two landed on top of the cage and I held up the blanket to encourage them to Go Down, but they flew off, chirping or laughing I wasn’t sure.

I spent 20 minutes chasing them from one side of the room to the other – God knows what the neighbours thought of me flitting backwards and forwards in front of the window waving a blanket. 

Eventually, knackered and starving, the birds relented and dropped down to breakfast, having had a jolly good time with the silly cow who feeds them.

“I’m late,” I gasped, dashing into the office, “It was the P’s that did it.”

“The P’s?” asked the receptionist.

“Yeah, Puff, Pea, Poo and Pete.  Wouldn’t get back in their cage.”

I left her with a rather confused look on her face as I raced to my desk.

Friday 6 – BANK HOLIDAY

A bank holiday, yay! 

Unfortunately, The Husband has to work so I’m Home Alone.  Which is great!  Having spent the last few weeks in the company of many (including a two week holiday with 3 men, and hours spent in the company of fellow jurors) it’s fabulous to have some Time To Myself. 

Sometimes I have the need to be reclusive.  Inside there is a hermit struggling to get out … or stay in.

An impromptu spring clean, primarily because the sunlight coming through our windows was a muted pearl colour - you actually had to clear a space on the glass in order to see out.  As Hubby was home, he said he'd do the outsides while I did the insides.  Great, I thought.

A woman's tools for the job - bucket of hot soapy water (with splash of vinegar), two cloths (one to clean, one to buff).

A man's tools for the job - the jet spray out of the shed, a bucket of oversoaped water, a 'special' squeegee thing on a stick, a stiff piece of leather and, apparently, a quick change into window-washing shorts.

So, while I cleaned the living room window with my wet cloth and buffed it with my dry cloth, Hubby jet sprayed the outside.  He squeegeed the water off and used the sponge part to shift a mountain of bubbles across the glass (deftly avoiding the corners).  Another hose down.  Another squeegee.  Then a wipe over with the stiff leather. 

While he was labouring with his Man Tools and ancient scrap of cow hide, I cleaned the insides, vacuumed behind the chairs I'd moved to get at the window, did all the windows in the porch and hallway, wiped down all the paintwork and cleaned 2 enormous mirrors.

Hubby's 'enthusiasm' was eventually beaten into submission and he washed the car instead, whilst I surreptitiously wiped away the artistic smears he'd left in his wake.

But at least we have clean windows now.  Ooooh, the pride.

Just as we'd finished and stood there, hot and sweating, to admire the outside world, Sis turned up.  We both seem to be suffering from attacks of hormones lately (must be our ages, Sis is only 18 months younger than me).  I'd just experienced a day where I could do nothing right, where I dropped everything, broke everything, forgot everything, where the slightest movement of bird, beast or Hubby was Supremely Annoying ("Can you stop breathing so loud!" I yelled at the poor man, quickly adding, "Ignore me, I'm practising my Hormonal Bitch from Hell routine," to which he replied, "You don't need to practice, you've mastered it to perfection, darling."). 

Sis had been to the health food shop and arrived with bagfuls of pills and tablets and nuts to help with PMT.  We scavenged amongst them on the floor, Sis crying, "Oh these are supposed to be really good!" as we swallowed a couple and me crying, "Oh have some Kalms, they're life-saving!"

Hubby sat silently on the sofa, not daring to move among such a frenzied gaggle of Hormonal Harridans.

Hey!  Look at this! 

The much-anticipated final chapter of Da Brummie Code is coming soon, watch this space ... IT'S THERE, GO LOOK!

Monday 9

Having watched Gardener’s World the night before (sad, isn’t it, when the programmes your parents watched that once sent you into a coma now fill you with enormous enthusiasm) I was determined to do the garden today, to wake it up, brush it down and get it ready for growing stuff .

Hubby got out his power tools (of course he did).  I cleaned the greenhouse and was attacked by a monster of a frog (“ARGH!  HUSBAND!” I screeched, drenching myself with the hosepipe as I waggled my hands like a right girlie, “COME QUICK!” – yep, tough independent woman, me). 

Babysat granddaughter for a couple of hours whilst sweeping and shifting and lifting (multitasking!).  Found a forgotten gourd with a tough outer shell, its shrivelled innards rattling inside.  Kept picking it up and shaking it, crying, “Oh my gourd!”  I was the only one who found this remotely funny, but it didn’t stop me doing it, repeatedly.

Cut.  Swept.  Dug.  Chopped.  And voila!  A functional garden again. 

Now, every time we look out of the kitchen window we both sigh, “S’good, innit!” 

We’re ready to grow!

Tuesday 10

Cough cough sniff sniff.  Feel a bit grotty.  Also, can barely move after yesterday’s marathon workout.  Hubby (who worked Friday) has today off, so the enthusiasm to haul myself into work when he’s lounging on the sofa wanes drastically – I don’t try to fight it.

I hate phoning in sick, so I go the coward’s route and send an email instead, I’m not proud. 

Drove into Birmingham’s famous Jewellery Quarter to choose gold wedding rings to replace the aluminium can ones we wed with in Africa.  Always fun watching the blood drain from Hubby’s face as he struggles not to utter that immortal Yorkshire saying “How much?!” in a really high pitched voice.

Still deathly pale and with me as agile as a corpse, we hobbled round a garden centre (sad gits) followed by a quick drink in a country pub because I suddenly developed an irresistible craving for gin and tonic (which I never drink because, basically, it tastes crap). 

Home, and some feverish activity in the study where Hubby did the pics for my website (which I hate doing) and I ploughed through a mountain of papers (I may be the epitome of efficiency at work, but at home I’m a slob).

So, a much more productive day than simply going to work.

Wednesday 11

Checked bank account online.  Blow me, the agency haven’t paid me again!  I’m so broke now I’m cooking budgie seed for food. 

Ring agency ready to Let Rip Without Restraint.  They cheerfully tell me that, because of the Bank Holiday, pay day is tomorrow.

It better be!  Budgie seed can get quite boring after a while.

Turn up at court. The jury room is heaving, there aren’t even enough chairs for everyone (ie me) to sit down, and there’s a lot of chairs in that jury room.

Stand uncomfortably and fidgety and annoyingly until a bloke finally cracks and offers me his seat.  Still in the same anti-social mood as last week, I struggled not to get caught up in other people’s conversation (though eavesdropped shamelessly).  I just couldn’t be bothered, not like me at all.

Sat.  And read.  And made like Greta Garbo (I vant to be alone).  Trundled up to reception for a rollcall when my name was called (my old name not my new one since I haven’t told them my new one because all the documentation is in my old name – hell, even I’m confused).  Sat.  Read.  Ignored everyone.

Called up to reception again, and released, for good!  My (brief and uneventful) jury service at an end!  How fab! 

Raced across town to the office, where the temp who’s supposed to be covering for me isn’t because she hasn’t turned up this week. 

Become a feverish blur of activity as I struggle to catch up with everything.

Thursday 12

Work.  And lots of it.  Then, just before I left for the day, my boss calls me into a meeting room and gives me The News.

Would you berluddy believe it, I didn’t get the job I’ve been doing for the last 8 months!  I’m well peeved.  The newly appointed Head Secretary is replacing all the PAs with ‘her own hand-picked team’, no doubt in an effort to surround herself with sycophants who will, unlike me, be impressed by the endless comments about her lavish lifestyle and her house (the location of it, the size of it, the length of the driveway up to it and the contents of it … yawn - bitchy?  moi?  pah!).  My bosses have fought to keep me but failed miserably against the force of The Ego - a clear case of the inmates running the asylum. 

I am no longer required.  I am ‘surplus to requirements’.  Eight months of diligent work down the drain.  What a waste of time and effort.

I storm off in a huff, go home and ring employment agencies begging for work.

I’m temping again!  Argh!

Pure panic sets in when I realise I ‘no longer have a job’, that I’m ‘without work', that I’m now unemployed - I hate it when that happens.  Hubby patiently listens to my ranting and raving as I tell him how we’ll end up poor and starving on the streets with me selling my body for (not much) money to buy food and him leaving me because I’m selling my body and because I’ll be a bit smelly by then and then I’ll be left all alone and homeless and hungry and …

Agency rang.  Repeatedly.  Definitely no shortage of jobs out there then.

Might not be so bad after all.

Friday 13

Following the advice of that old adage ‘drowning ones sorrows’, woke up with a stonking hangover this morning, could barely see straight.  Took me two and a half hours to get my brain cells in order with the aid of about 15 pints of orange juice, then wandered idly into work.

Yep, into work, to pack up my desk.  If the buggers think I’ll cover the job until they find a replacement they’ve got another thing coming.

Deleted all emails.  Deleted all personal items on the computer, and everything I’d created to make life easier so as not to assist my successor (and good luck to her).  Quietly told a couple of people I was leaving and the gossip that suddenly poured from their mouths was astonishing – it seems everyone’s fed up of the place and on the verge of handing in their notice!  It has gone a bit funny lately, what with all the office politics and back-stabbing that's taken hold in the last couple of months. 

Said goodbye to my mates and they were stunned.  Tears were involved, mobile numbers swapped, plans to ‘do lunch’ were made, even the IT department (bless their little cotton socks) got involved.

And then I was gone.  Never to enter that building again.  And I was surprised to find that I actually felt relieved, not upset at all.  Yeah, it paid well, but all the ‘nice’ people had left and the work was deadly dull.  And there were no girlie lunches, a sure sign that people aren’t getting on.

So, onwards and upwards, to new and (hopefully) better things. 

Or else crash and burn into abject poverty.

Saturday 14

So I’m free from the shackles of employment again.  It’s scary, but at the same time rather exciting too.  I get to choose what I do next.  I've spotted a niche in the local market and might start up my own little business (the thought of not catching buses every day or enduring office politics ever again is incredibly appealing).  Or else temp for 3 weeks and then have a week off to develop other things (like writing and gardening and budgie training).  Or give up completely and become a lady of leisure (“I’ll have a meal on the table for you every night,” I said to Hubby, and he gasped, “Oh God!”).  Or I could start a campaign of begging letters.

Ooooh, decisions, decisions.  Have I become jaded by city life, or am I just going through a bit of an ‘off’ period?  Would I miss the hustle and bustle of office work, or am I ready to lay my furry pinstripe suit to rest?

Answers on a postcard, please.

Monday 16

Agency keep ringing up with assignments but I told them (rather rashly considering my financial circumstances) that I was taking the week off to recover.  In the last month I’ve:

• Been to Africa
• Got married
• Lost my mother-in-law
• Lost my job
• Endured jury service

I think I’m due a little down time before my brain implodes. 

Tuesday 17

The budgies are moulting, all four of them!  The living room is awash with feathers, it looks like a bomb went off in a chicken plucking factory.  I could easily start up my own duvet stuffing business (to run in conjunction with my other venture maybe).

They’ve all got bleeding foreheads where the old feathers have come out or the new feathers are growing in, and this has made them irritable and antagonistic beyond belief.  So not only are there a multitude of multicoloured feathers all over my carpet, I also have to put up with the little buggers scrapping all the time.   There’s a lot of face wobbling and head banging going on.

Pete has taken to dive-bombing my head when I’m sitting innocently on the sofa, as if the whole feather falling thing is my fault!  A budgie coming at you like a small green missile is quite a shock I can tell you.

Pea has started screaming like a woman who’s just found a tarantula in her knickers – for a tiny bird he’s got one hell of a gob on him.  Poo has gone all sulky and miserable (a small grey teenager).

Poor Puff, who can’t fly, is forever being knocked off the cage during their frequent spats.  I hear a pfffff and there he is, in the middle of the carpet, looking a bit stunned and waddling around like a jaundiced penguin.  I put him back and five minutes later, pfffff, he’s there again.

What with the constant vacuuming (there’s nothing in the Dyson expect spinning feathers), the screaming, the head banging, the fighting, the dive-bombing and the incredible cacophony of noise, I’m absolutely exhausted.

They’re cute though.

Wednesday 18

Just happened to glance at the calendar hanging in the kitchen this morning - the one that I never take any notice of – and saw I had a hospital appointment at 10.30am. 

Argh!  Completely forgot about it.  Had to dash around like a mad thing getting ready, left conditioner on my hair (forgot to wash it off in the shower) so turned up in greasy-grunge mode (or unemployed secretary look).

Check up for the minor op I’m having in a couple of weeks (the joy just never ends does it!).  Got measured (phew, haven’t started shrinking yet then) and weighed (“No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know!”).    Then a quick chat with nurse.

“Do you know what you’re having done?” she asked.

“I’ve a vague idea,” I said.

“Shall I tell you what the procedure involves?”

“Not if you want me to show up on the day, no.”

She handed me some explanatory leaflets, the same leaflets I already have at home which I’ve hidden at the bottom of a drawer.  I so do not want to know.

“Any pregnancies?” she asked.

“Not recently,” I replied.

I had to produce a urine sample.  Honestly, the mere mention of the word ‘urine sample’ makes my bladder retract into my rib cage.  The toilet was in a busy corridor and it had a gap down the side of the door you could have put your hand through.  It’s terribly boring, sitting on a loo, staring at the wall and hoping the bladder will produce at some point while half the hospital walk by mere inches from your naked posterior.

Blood was drawn.  Good policy is to always make sure the nurse is ‘on your side’ to reduce the trauma, so I cracked a few jokes and considered asking her out to lunch.  She couldn’t find a vein (they were all probably wrapped around my quivering bladder).  She slapped one arm around (quite fiercely, I thought), then attacked the other one. 

“You’re a bit stingy,” she said, as I listened to the gurgling of the syringe as it struggled to extract blood. 

I asked for tea and toast afterwards (to aid recovery) but she said I hadn’t given enough to justify a glass of water, which was disappointing.  But I did get an impressively large ball of cotton wool taped onto my arm.

Thursday 19

It’s quite interesting being unemployed, you see people you don’t normally see, like your neighbours and people who aren’t wearing suits (I’m obviously chronically institutionalised).  There are people out there who have never experienced corporate stress, how amazing!

Job adverts are also rather interesting.  Thursday is Job Vacancies day in the Birmingham Evening Mail, and one major company had listed their website incorrectly.  When I hunted it down they didn’t have the position I was interested in on their vacancy page either, which doesn’t bode well does it.

I'm only half-heartedly job hunting anyway, I quite like the idea of starting my own business and working from home (bliss), but its hard to give up the security of a ‘proper job’.  But then, when you’re temping, there isn’t much security anyway (as perfectly demonstrated by my last temping assignment – pah!).  So I’ve been doing both, looking for a job, fending off agency assignments, and researching my new venture.

I’ve been checking out other small business websites in the area, potential competitors, although there aren't as many as I thought there would be.  Surprisingly, quite a few advertise their ‘expertise and attention to detail’ with spelling mistakes.  Another notes that it has taken her months to notifying Companies House and hire website and logo designers to get herself up and running as an ‘lifestyle management service’ (“Yeah, well, I was good at sorting out a holiday for a friend and thought I’d go into business reminding people about birthdays and stuff.” - !).  One testimonial says she managed to track down the right shade of lipstick, impressive.

The criteria for my venture consists of three simple things:  (1) Earn enough to pay the bills; (2) Never have to catch another bus into the city ever again; and (most importantly) (3) Escape corporate slavery before I lose both my humanity and my sanity, although I fear its already too late for the latter.

And there’s always my infallible Back Up Plan - begging. J  (Do get in touch if you wish to contribute to the Save The Secretary fund ... )

Friday 20

What do you do when you’ve got no job, no money and a whole load of bills to pay?  Apart from buy whisky in bulk, that is.

You buy a new toy.  Not normally my way of dealing with a crisis, I’ve always found that whisky works best, but I’d seen something that I wanted and I thought, Bugger it I’m having it.

An all in one fax, scanner, copier and printing machine.  Just what every unemployed and destitute person needs.  Its for my new venture, I didn’t just think, Ooooh I want a fax, scanner, copier and printing machine.

Bought it on Wednesday night, tried to set it up in the study last night.  Cleared a space (no mean feat), ran telephone extension from the bedroom next door, unpacked the entire thing from its massive box and diligently read the instructions.

Step 1: plug it in.  So we plugged it in.  Nothing.  Pressed the power button.  Nothing.  Checked the connections, changed the fuse, wiggled cables around.  Nothing.

I checked the troubleshooting section in the manual.  Problem: My machine has no power.  Answer: Make sure it’s plugged into a plug socket.  No, really!

In the end we packed it back in its box and took it back to the shop.  It was quite late and the bloke behind the counter had clearly had a bad day.  “Oh,” he said, when we told him it wouldn’t work, “Just get another one, I don’t care.”

Resisted the urge to 'accidentally' get a more expensive machine, picked up replacement, took it home, plugged it in and voila, we had power. 

Our lives are complete.

[On the subject of computers, I wanted to plug some footpedals into my laptop and emailed Middle Son for details.

“It’s got a headphone type adapter thingy,” I told him.

“You're not trying to plug a set of normal transcriber pedals into your soundcard are you?” he asked.

“Of course not!” I replied, unplugging the footpedals from my soundcard. 

“You need to buy pedals with a USB connector,” he declared, adding, “You do know the CDROM player isn’t a coffee cup holder, right?”

Cheek!

His last email declared, “I’ll be down next weekend to stop you plugging the sandwich toaster into the VCR.”

Tsk.]

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!  What have I done?

Yesterday I rang my bank to increase my overdraft facility (which I’ve never used), ‘just in case’.  Done. 

I rang my building society and asked if I could have a two month holiday from paying my mortgage, ‘just in case’.  Done.

I went onto my online bank account and … cancelled the direct debit for my travel card.  It was a big moment – I hovered over the Cancel button for 10 minutes before Hubby said, “Just do it.  Free yourself.  Severe your passport to the city.”

Click.  Done.  Argh!

I’ve forked out for a scan/fax machine and USB foot pedals.  I’ve checked my software, checked my equipment, checked my work area and stocked up on Nescafe cappuccino (special offer at Sommerfield).

Today I did some local advertising and found a shop who said there was definitely a market for my service (encouraging), left them some leaflets.

I’m ready.  Gulp.  On Monday I start working for an outsourcing company who provide a digital typing service for businesses, the same typing service that I, as an office secretary, have used myself.

On Monday I won’t have to put on a suit, I can lounge around in my comfy clothes.  I won’t have to rush around like a maniac to catch the 7.30 bus or sit in traffic for almost an hour twice a day.  I won’t have to eat clingfilmed sandwiches or pay an arm and a leg for bought lunch.  And I won’t have to put up with The Miserable People (oh bliss).

I am now, officially, a home-worker.

Will I miss girly lunches?  Nah, not really.  Will I miss the office banter?  God, no.  Will I miss the routine of going out to work every day?  Absolutely not.  I’ve worked at home before when the boys were growing up (as a freelance writer, selling short stories to national magazines), and I loved it. 

So, here we go …

[There are quite a few people from universities and colleges around the world who read Brummie Blogs.  If you need any digital audio or copy typing (faxed or scanned and emailed), or know somebody who does (or if you’re willing to set up some advertising on campus), get in touch for details.  I'm good :-)]

Monday 23

Right, here we go, first day of working at home for an outsourcing company.  Dead keen, dead enthusiastic.  Have visions of me typing away in the garden amongst a plethora of blooming plants, or in the study overlooking the garden listening to birds as I merrily tap away on my keyboard.  All bliss, all joy, no pressure, no stress.

PAH!  No stress?  I nearly had a stroke!

Today was an utter nightmare!  Did a 52 second dictation which was easy enough, then I had to download a ‘special’ file for a company.  Not a straightforward file, mind, but a file that opened the company templates, all of them.

I followed the instructions diligently.  Download.  Open.  Enable macros.  Add file as template.  Open file.  System crash.

Oh.  My.  God.

Spent the entire day running up and down the stairs from one computer to the other messing around with VBA thingies and macros trying to get the damn thing to work.  Word is now corrupted on the Big Muttha computer in the study. 

G-reat.

After 6 whole hours of wailing frustration (and a couple of calls to their IT bloke who was, frankly, berluddy useless) I threw in the towel – or rather, I screwed up the instructions with extreme vigour and threw the damn thing across the room screaming my entire repertoire of expletives (God knows what the neighbours must think). 

“It won’t work for me and I don’t want to mess up my computer any further,” I told the outsourcing people.

“Oh, we have quite a few people who can’t get it to work,” came the reply.

What?  I’ve screwed up my computer for something that clearly doesn’t work properly?

*&%$£*)(*&^!!!!!

Nearly jacked it all in then and there, but figured first days are always crap.  Perseverance is the word.  And determination.  And hope, desperately clinging onto hope. 

Total earned: 40p.

Tuesday 24

Another day, another dollar – hopefully!

Actually felt quite nervous starting up the computer this morning, firstly because I wasn't sure if it would start up at all and secondly because I was worried that today would be a repeat of yesterday's nightmare.  I just want to type, not mess around with system files and muck up my computers.  I’m a secretary not an IT guru.

Managed to patch up Word (well okay, did a system restore and let the computer fix itself) and decided to use Big Muttha in the study today.  Except the earphones won’t stretch to the connection at the back of the computer, and I have to crawl under the desk with a torch to plug in the footpedals.

Oh it’s all going swimmingly well.

Spent most of day on the sofa with my laptop, transcribing dictations (using emailed templates) and being divebombed by the budgies who were after attention.  One dictator was so quiet and mumbled so much I swear he actually left the room at one point and continued dictating.  Every time I struggled to hear what he said, the budgies squawked and scrapped – I eventually threw the blanket over them to shut them up (they must have thought ‘Bit of a short day, that’).

Five solid hours with a 30 second break for the loo and sandwiches thrown together at the speed of light for lunch.

Total earned: £23.  That’s less than minimum wage.

Not sure if this homeworking thang is going to work.  But hope springs eternal, along with sheer bloody-minded desperation.  I’ll soon learn shortcuts and stuff … she says, nervously.

[Considering sending a text message to all three sons along the lines of ‘After years of supporting you and putting you through uni and lending you vast amounts of money, it’s now payback time.  Feel free to transfer funds into my bank account any time.  Love, mom x’.]

Wednesday 25

Bit of a better day on the work front, all straightforward stuff.  Made £28!   Also made a rather important business contact who might be interested in offering my services in their shops, but I can’t tell you about that yet (cruel, I know)

Anyway, listening to these outsource dictations today made me think of other ‘dictators’ I’ve listened to over the years.   There are quite a few varieties: mumblers and superfastspeakers and so-bored-I-can-barely-move-my-lips and heavy sighers and long pausers and those that like to suck on toffees as they speak (ugh).   I’ve had ones that spoke so posh I could barely understand a single word, and ones who say things like “Oh I don’t know, just tell him to stop bugging me or something, but put it in a nice way.”

The good ones speak clearly and spell out names and, most importantly, say thank you at the end.  The crap ones are many, oooooooooh so many.

I once had a boss who dictated in ‘real time’ … he’d just leave the machine running while he had a bit of a think, a bit of a cough, a bit of a sneeze (yuk) and a bit of a chat to friends on the phone.  I heard every agonising second in my headphones.  Sometimes he’d actually dictate something for me to type up, I’d just have to sit there and wait for it.

Some bosses like to walk up and down the office with their dictating machines, having a think and then, in mid think, they’ll sometimes go to the loo.  Occasionally they leave their machines running and I hear the whole thing.  Nice.

Dictations done at home are full of screaming children in the background and the dictator yelling, “Daddy’s trying to work!” or “Yes, I’ll be down for dinner in a minute!” 

I’ve had quite a few accidentally leave their machines on while they take a phonecall.  The things I’ve heard!  Arguments with spouses/girlfriends, some really yukky lovey stuff, discussions about personal finances, and once I heard one boss slagging off another boss so bad I actually blushed when I played back the tape (he was such a quiet bloke too).

One boss I had was chronically vague.  He’s say stuff like, “I can’t remember the title of the book, but it’s a red one on the third floor somewhere, could you just type out pages 137 to 295.”  Or, “I’m pretty sure there’s some legislation about that, could you find it and summarise in the document.”  Or his favourite was, “Could you print that out and give it to someone.”  Someone?  Who?  No, really, just give me clues!

The good ones are like gold dust.  In a building department one surveyor had a voice to Die For, like warm syrup, just listening to it made you go all gooey.  All the secretaries loved his work (and him, he was very good looking) and quite a few times the scramble for his dictations almost ended up in a fight in the middle of the office.  Ah, those were the days.

My most memorable dictation was for a lovely boss I worked for who was always incredibly busy.  He had a meeting one afternoon and spent most of the morning dictating his speaker notes.  The meeting was suddenly brought forward and he rushed down to my desk.

“I’ve just sent you a 90 minute dictation!” he gasped, panic stricken, “And I’m leaving in an hour!  Can you do it?”

I’m calm in a crisis.  I just go numb.  “No problem,” I said, and increased the speed on my playback machine until he sounded like Mickey Mouse.  My fingers flew over the keyboard.  I didn’t pause or rewind once, I didn’t have time, I just kept the pedal to the metal. 

After 30 minutes the panic stricken boss came up to me to ask how it was going.  “Go away,” I said, not pausing.  After 45 minutes he asked, “Do you think you’ll get it done?”  “Not if you keep interrupting me,” I snapped.

After 55 minutes he came up with his coat, ready to leave, at the exact same moment I was typing his name at the end of the document.  He breathed a huge sigh of relief as I printed it off, and then ran for it.

Job satisfaction, that’s what it’s all about.  But cash bonuses would be nice too … not that I have much to do with cash at the moment, bonus or otherwise.

But then there is this business contact I’ve made …    J

Thursday 26

Er, excuse me, I’ve just noticed that nobody is clicking on my begging letter … well, okay, ONE person has clicked on my begging letter.  I’m sorry but it’s just not good enough!  Do you know how long it took me to create that special page, to make it aesthetically pleasing, to search for the background music and compose the heart-tugging text?  Whole minutes!  Tsk.

Okay, work-front news.  Or rather, not much work at all as it happens.  A mere two dictations.  I can’t build an empire on two dictations!  One downloaded as 223 minutes long … blimey!  Quickly worked out how much I’d earn doing it and got going.  11 minutes in, the dictator wandered off from his desk, leaving his machine switched on … for over 3 hours! 

Bored, I wandered off across the road to my dad’s house in search of sympathy.  Sis was there, complaining how she’s completely lost the plot (nothing new there then), whilst I complained about failed enterprises.  Dad showed us around his thriving garden and we all felt better.

Invigorated by gardening fever, I shut myself in the greenhouse potting up seedlings and making up 3 of the zillion hanging baskets I appear to have accumulated over the years.  Very therapeutic.

“How much you earned today then?” Hubby asked when he got home and found me covered in compost.

“Don’t ask,” I said, slamming a geranium into a faux terracotta pot (can’t afford the real thing, sniff … see begging letter J).

Friday 27

Okay, on a roll now, dictations coming in thick and fast, fingers flying over the keyboard at the speed of light.  This is more like it.

And then, suddenly, inexplicably, in the middle of all this feverish activity, my broadband connection died on my laptop.  Internet pages all went blank.  I couldn’t access the dictations!

What?  I mean, WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

Raced upstairs to Muttha computer to check the broadband box thingy, it was still flashing a good connection.  There was another box next to it, no idea what that is but that was flashing too.  Clambered under desk to check cables but it was like a jungle down there, got tangled up in all the wiring and almost didn’t make it out again.

Restarted laptop.  Waited.  Impatient.  Could start up be any slower?

Still no internet connection.

The thought patterns at this point went something like this: Oh that’s berluddy great that is, my first week as a homeworker, totally dependent on the internet, and the berluddy thing goes and dies on me for the first time in years!  Why now?  Why me? Argh!  And again, ARGH!  What’s the matter with it?  Should I phone blueyonder?  Is it still blueyonder or has Richard Branson taken over the entire world yet?  Damn thing!  Flipping bogging crapping piece of … Oh hang on, what’s this? 

There’s a teeny weeny button at the front of my laptop.  For some oblique reason the Toshiba designers decided to put a button at the front that, when pressed (intentionally or accidentally), disconnects the internet.  Stupid place to put it!

Pressed it back on.

Carried on typing. 

Saturday 28

Well, that was certainly a week and a half.  My first proper week as a homeworker.  I have officially and most determinedly Left The Rat Race (yay!).

I am living the dream … or at least I will be once the screaming panic dies down.  I think I’m going to like it.  Its nice to step off the hamster wheel and take a deep breath and think,  Ah real life – no rushing around, no chasing after the bigger salary, no getting caught up in corporate crap, and no scouring the shops for work clothes that might make me look vaguely smart (oh the relief). 

Time to stand and stare for a change.  The world is my oyster – well, perhaps not an oyster as they’re quite expensive, maybe a shiny plastic bead.

West Midlands Travel aren’t happy about it, though.  Received a letter from them this morning along the lines of ‘You’ve cancelled your direct debit!  How dare you!  Please cut your travelcard into 4 pieces [specifically four!] and return to us immediately in the envelope provided.’  The hell!  They can go sing for it.  That travel pass is part of my life, part of my history.  I want to look at that battered leather cover in years to come and remember the old days when I was a knackered corporate slave …

… or wistfully remember the time when I actually earned a decent living.

Anyway, on the home-front, Middle Son came down for the weekend.  He has to visit  periodically to clear up the messes we’ve made of our computers, the house alarm and any electrical items.  We pay him in food, which seems a fair exchange to me.

Sunday 29

In payment for services rendered, went to Wing Wah’s on the Wolverhampton Road last night (Chinese buffet).  Because Small Son didn't want to come, and in the eternal quest to save pennies, asked him to give us a lift there instead.  In his red Metro.  His souped up, leaking petrol, doesn’t have second gear, sounds like a jet engine, giant bass speakers in the boot Metro.

Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.  In hindsight I should have worn earplugs and taken several dozen Kalms tablets first.

It’s a two door, so I had to coil myself into the back like a contortionist getting into a plastic box, and sat squashed behind the driver’s seat mere inches from the back of Small Son’s head.  Two minutes into the journey I was slapping the back of that head yelling, “Put your bloody seatbelt on!”

God it was loud.  We were all yelling and still couldn’t hear each other above the roar of the engine.  Then SS put some music on to entertain us.  Eminem.  The bass pounded through my body and made my heart beat to a different rhythm.  Trying to ignore the lyrics (he sure don’t like his mom does he!) took my mind off the toe curling speed of the outside world.  But we arrived in one piece and I uncoiled myself from the back seat, resisting the urge to kiss the ground.

Caught a taxi home after we had stuffed ourselves to the gills (groaning, “Oh I’m so full!”) – it seemed the safest option.

Monday 30

Last day of April?  Already?  So when, exactly, does life start to slow down when you’re working at home then?

Decided to do a full day with the outsourcing company because I won’t earn a penny tomorrow.  Positively leapt out of bed, raced to get ready, was at my computer and raring to go at 8.30.

9.30, just as I was getting into the swing of the first dictation, a migraine.  Fab.  Popped tablets and sort of lounged around waiting for them to kick in, slumping across an armchair and sighing, then slumping across the dining table and sighing.  45 minutes it took for the world to slide back into focus again without all the Aztec shimmering (I’d look for an Aztec pic to illustrate, but it would probably induce a migraine).

Back at computer.  But migraine tablets work by reducing your brain to porridge.  My typing speed dropped to about 10 words per minute, and concentration had completely done a bunk.  This doesn’t matter so much when you’re working in an office, you can go dribble in a quiet corner somewhere, but it’s hugely frustrating when you’re trying to work at home.

Plodded endlessly to finish the first dictation, backspaced and rewound my way through the second.  It wasn’t until 2 o’clock in the afternoon that I felt vaguely human again.  Then dad and his wife arrived. 

Dad is the epitome of a retired gardener, very laid back, always quoting stuff about staring at cows and things.  Exactly what you don’t need when you have deadlines to meet.

Hurried them round the garden (“Yeah, that’s the frog, those are Angels Trumpets, stop pulling those up it’s my wildlife patch, thanks for dropping by.”)  I almost pushed them out the front door and raced back to my computer, where I was immediately overwhelmed by guilt.

Isn’t the whole point of working at home to quit the frenzy?

Went over to dad’s house later armed with tomato plants as a peace offering.  The West Midlands is going to have the biggest tomato crop in history this year - which is good because we'll probably end up living on them.

                                             

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DISCLAIMER: This is a personal weblog.  The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer(s), work colleagues or family.  My experiences are written purely from my point of view and are intended to be a humorous depiction of my somewhat chaotic life.  No malice is intended in any way, it's not in my nature. The names of real people and companies have not been used (for which I'm sure they're eternally grateful).

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