Wednesday, 16th July, 2008

I have had a lot of jobs in my life. No, not always because I got canned sorry, 'downsized' or in my most recent experience 'restructured', but rather because for years when my children were little I worked for temp agencies.

I got a gig at a factory that made heavy equipment. They were transferring their personnel records to a computer system and because the data covered everyone from the shop floor to senior management, they wanted someone outside of the company to set it up.

Monday morning: Enter Carolyn in a skirt, not a micro mini but definitely well above the knee. The place was huge, a vast cavernous space and the offices were located at the very far end, upstairs. To get there I had to climb a staircase and then walk along a gantry, a catwalk, you know those metal type things that have holes in them so that you can see down to the floor below. Guess what? It also means the people below can see up. It was a very long walk.

Having entertained the shop floor I was introduced to everyone in the office. One of the managers warned me that I would probably meet 'Roger' and told me to be really careful, as he was the Union Shop Steward. Apparently Roger wielded a lot of power. Sure enough he came along to see the girl that the guys downstairs were talking about.

'What's your name?'
'Carolyn.'
'Hello Caroline.'
'It's Carolyn but that's OK.'
'Ridiculous, how do you spell it?'
'c a r o l y n'
'You're spelling it wrong'

And then he left. Aside: The reason I am called Carolyn is because three days before I was born my dad joined an American company and he wanted me to have an American name. In the UK back in those days the more usual spelling and pronunciation was Caroline.

Next morning Roger said 'Hello Caroline'.
I replied "Hello Robert.'
'It's Roger.'
'Mmmmm.'

Day after that: 'Hello Caroline.'
'Morning Reg.'
'It's Roger.'
I just smiled.

This went on every day for almost two weeks; I actually had to look in baby name books to keep coming up with yet another male name beginning with R. It was quite an amusing game. Well I thought it was, meanwhile the people in the office were just keeping their heads down. Finally when I called him Rupert he said 'It's Roger!'
'How do you spell that?'
'r o g e r!'
'You're spelling it wrong.'

You could hear a pin drop in the office. They he just grinned and said
'I like you. Carolyn.'
'Thank you Roger, I like you too.'

He was lovely to me for the rest of the contract, I wonder if he remembers...... I haven't changed much, still haven't learned to keep my big mouth shut - grin..