In the office

 In the office

My first proper job was working for a bank in the city. I worked with two or three other people; Ian, Helen and a temp. The temp was forever changing, so I don’t remember their names  - but one of a number of changeable temps. Ian had very long hair, tied back in a ponytail. his hair was quite greasy and it was slicked back. He was  29 and had hoped to be a pop-star. but now, like me, he was working as an office clerk in the bank, sorting the correspondence For The stocks and shares. For me it’s the job I was doing after school and before I found a place at university and for Ian it was what he was doing before he went to get a real job as a failed pop-star, unless of course one day he did become a great star. I guess I’ll never know. Helen only had one kidney and she always had a cushion on her chair. she like to smoke very strong cigarettes Rothmans. and at that time in 1990 smoking was allowed inside office buildings, inside your place of work. there was a pregnant girl in the office too. And she objected to the girl sat next to her smoking sat next to her she said to her that she is pregnant and she didn’t want to girl smoking that sat next to her smoking Girl told her where to shove it as the pregnant woman was only 10 weeks pregnant and 10 weeks pregnant barely count does it. there was a man in the office it was loud and brash and I remember him yelling across the office ‘most women like me with my trousers down!!!’, and the man whose mother had taken thalidomide while she was pregnant with him, so he had very short arms with hands at the points where most of us have our elbows. He had a tall and blonde girlfriend from France. she was impossibly glamorous especially compared to him with his disabled arms. One of the women working there used to have a market stall in Camden market so she was a bit of a hippy really and she like to learn and try out dance routines in the office she sent one day out to vote for a shareholder in a cab from the office but he didn’t make it on time I guess the shareholder will never know there is a bark off the fiasco that was setting her out together and place to vote for the investor I wonder if they still bank with Barclays. I went out after work to play darts in a local pub in the city I was terrible at darts but very good at eating the chips and people seemed grateful that I put in the effort to go along. but then of course it was easy to go out after work before going home because I catch the train home and all it was was a couple of hours delay in catching the train as the pub is near work, it being the city, and then just walking on to the train station as normal. In the city I was earning £4.75 an hour and it was many years, possibly more than a decade,  before aId match that salary ever again, even once I had a degree. The Vegetarian option in the canteen was 90p. I was always offered gravy with it and I always asked if it was vegetarian gravy only to be met with a look of confusion. these days even with a salary that barely matches but I had 30 years later the works canteen will charge you three or £4 and it’s simply not as good and the other thing I really liked about doing that job was that I could get paid in cash on a Friday night.