I've realised what a cushty number I've got...

Posted by Katy Regan at 11:28 on 16 Jul 2010

• Print
• Share
• Comment

If you can allow me to delay my details of date three (it’s worth the wait, believe me) to tell you about this week….

So, this was the week I went into an office for the first time in almost three years. The last time I was in an office was September 2007 when I was commissioning editor at Marie Claire. Then I got a two-book deal with Harper Collins and the rest, as they say, is history.  At last, after two gruelling years of getting up at 6am to write and working weekends and evenings, I was able to pay my own mortgage (on my own flat where I lived with Fergus) AND leave my office job to work at home, finishing my novel and writing a second, which meant I could see him whenever I wanted.

So working an office was a shock to the system to say the last but boy, I’m so glad I did it because besides many things I learned  - that I am now physically unable to sit still for more than eight minutes for example; that I am in fact the reverse of institutionalised,  (feral, then)   I also learned that that ability to support oneself AND be able to pick one’s kid up from school / spend time with them is THE golden ticket awarded to a modern woman. Or at least I think so. It’s taken three days in an office to truly realise how lucky I am.   

Don’t get me wrong, I was so grateful for the work (‘supporting oneself’ had become rather hazy of late, since after finishing my second book I am now out of contract. I sincerely hope this is a temporary thing!) And it was great for a few days.  I’d certainly do it again. You get colleagues for a start. How cool are they? I’d forgotten. There’s something about working with people (I think it’s a girl thing. Maybe it’s a women’s magazine thing, I don’t know. .Let’s face it, you’re interviewing women about their affairs, their sex lives, how they feel about their breasts, all the time.. ) that breaks down barriers, that wastes no time.

Within hours, you’re telling the virtual stranger on your desk your life story, your past secrets, your biggest fears until they don’t feel like a stranger at all. I love that about working in an office and about working with women: I love the banter, the conversations that you have to pull yourself from to get on with some work, the discussions about the stories in the news, about our love lives and our careers. I love the characters you get – I’d forgotten that too. Offices are a fantastic place for a novelist. There was one woman who talked of nothing but Weight Watchers for the entire three days. “Now if I have this, it’ll be three points, which means no glass of wine when I get home. OMG, this is only TWO POINTS can you believe it?! An ice-cream? Two points?!” You’d hear her shriek from the other side of the office.  Etcetera, etcetera.

This brings me to the issue of free  food in a magazine office – Christ, it’s a good job it was a very short contract since I’d be twenty stone in no time. In three days, I kid you not,  there were free Magnum ice-creams, an entire wedding cake, a life’s supply of Activia yoghurts and a mountain of chocolate brownies. I helped myself to all of them of course. No freelance shyness for me!

So, there were plus points. (in fact come to think of it free Magnum ice-creams could probably pull me back in no time..) But in three days, I didn’t get to see my son once. I left before he went to school and got back after his bed-time.  In fact, the only time I got to see him, was day two, when missing him so much, I got back to Berko, rushed round to his dad’s and got in his bunk bed with him whilst he was asleep.

Utterly pathetic, I know. Even I didn’t know how spoiled I’d been just being able to spend those after-school hours with him. I’d not realised how precious they are. Whilst I was living it up, stuffing my face full of Magnums and wandering the office complex at lunch-time (OMG, Sushi / Mexican / Tapas  restaurants, a gym, spa and more to the point an M&S foodhall! ) I missed his parents’ evening, his school disco,  the chance to meet his new teacher and his year’s folder of work.

 “Mum you know the really, really sad thing?” he said, when he came into my bed this morning (Bear in mind Fergus is five and therefore has a habit of assigning great tragedy to say, the fact you have no matching socks for him, or that there’s no tomato ketchup….) “You didn’t get to see my red school folder on Thursday and now you’ll never see it.”
“Well, I’m very sorry but I had to go to work so that we can have food and pay to live in this house” I said. (I refrained from my usual ‘you know there are children starving in Africa, young man!”  line… )
He thought about this for a second.
“Mmm, I suppose not being able to see my folder is better than not being ALIVE” he reasoned, very sensibly.  
The thing is, I’d forgotten how lucky I have been to have both. How, in a funny way,   being able to do the former makes me feel more of the latter.

 

• Next entry
• Previous entry