10 posts tagged “work”

How I long for the halcyon days when I had time to roll blu-tak on my desk as though mad. I'm so busy, I might break. But as I was saying to my sister (who has finished her degree! Hurrah!) earlier, two things which sometimes annoy me about blogs are a) people going on about how tired and busy and stressed they are (guilty, moi), and b) people showing off about their fabulous weekends/lives. As my life has latterly consisted of a) tiring busy stressfulness and b) a fabulous weekend on the North East coast with friends (and icecream), I am spent. I have nothing for you. Get out.

But how about my new photo? Brilliantly grotesque, no? No arms-length, big-eyed myspace posing for me. But also it's first full photographic view of Betty in all her glory. If you're thinking of getting a clear brace, have a recce of Betty. Enlarge the photo at will and gag at my icecream tache as you do so.

Would it not be reasonable for a director to consult with me, or at least give me some advance warning, before turning off all the lights in this part of the office, plunging my working environment into pitch darkness (almost), then turning on a huge, mega-watt lighting rig which is shining directly into my eyes and conducting an interview with their presenter at my desk cluster?

Would normal people not, as a bare minimum, acknowledge that they were about to start filming at my desk cluster, or perhaps apologise for the pitch dark/horrendous migraine-inducing blast of light combo, if they can't actually bring themselves to ask if I am happy, nay, able to work in these conditions?

They might, I would hazard a guess, at least grimace a sorry kind of face in my direction.

But no! This is television! Where manners and convenience and regard for others do not apply!

I cannot see my notebook! I cannot see the numbers on my phone! All I can see is aforementioned blinding light in my face.

Am tempted to do a silly dance in the background of their shot. Or pop up periodically yelling "hi mum!" or alternatively "I'm blind!".

This does not befit my status! I demand a recount! My head will explode! My eyes! My eeeeeyeees!

* I feel they are warranted!

My university experience was pretty generic. I went to a good university in a big Northern city. I studied English and Art History. I lived in a string of mediocre houses, in a fairly high level of squalor. I loved learning, and was more studious than any of my friends, because that's just me. But aside from the geekiness, I whiled away the three years in much the same way as my peers. I got intoxicated, I smoked too much, I had nights out which started at the kind of hour at which I start thinking of my bed, these days. I made lifelong friendships, some of which are in need of rekindling. We were silly, and young. We made up games to pass the time, and huddled in hungover lumps under duvets watching MTV. I lost far too much weight, and money, and had fun.

Now, five years later oh my god,  I think I am where I hoped I would be, career-wise. I took the gruelling route into television: starting out as a trainee researcher/runner/dogsbody at a small independent company, and I am working my way very slowly and steadily through the different levels of production. I'm not going to be one of these whizzkid young producers who are younger than the team they manage. Maybe by the time I'm 30 I'll be a producer. Maybe. Assistant producer is fine by me for now. I've never really questioned the path I took to get here, apart from wishing I had had some time off at some point, instead of crashing from school to uni to work with nary a breathing space betwixt them.

Then I went filming in Cambridge this week. I applied to Cambridge University whilst at sixth form college, purely because I thought I should, and because I was "encouraged" to do so by my teachers and family; it was expected of me. In myself, I was vehemently opposed to actually going to the university. Everything about it seemed dull and elitist. I didn't want to mix with loads of other geeks- for the first time in my life I wanted to perhaps be cool, or at least, I didn't want to perpetuate my swot status.  I went to an interview at Clare College, and I was way out of my depth, and I didn't get a place, and I didn't care, and I went to Leeds, and had fun, and got my degree, and that was that.

I remember the night before my interview at Cambridge, I stayed with a friend's sister who was in her first year there. I slept in the student accomodation in the beautiful, historic college building. Like living in a stately home. Stuffy, I thought. We drank pints in the union bar, where students wore scarves to declare their college allegiance, and talked about drama productions which were sponsored by top London theatres, and student journalists who had placements at the Times over the summer. The conversation flew over my head at some points, and the people I was mixing with clearly revelled in their Oxbridge status. At one point, a glossy-haired, pashmina-swathed Sloaney type declared: "Isn't it hilarious? These people, in this bar, will one day be the top editors, and politicians, and executives, in the world!". I rolled my eyes and drank my beer, and got it over and done with.

Whilst filming in Cambridge this week, I saw this world of undeniable privelege through different eyes. The older eyes of someone who has worked damn hard over the last five years, who has left their university days far behind them and can't get them back. I saw the students whizzing down old, ornate streets on bicycles, so many bicycles, like swarms of insects buzzing through the city. I watched them strolling through the famous lawns of the grand colleges and disappearing through huge oak doors into their leaded-windowed accomodation where somebody would make their bed each day. Most of them seemed animated, talking and gesturing to their friends, or alone, their gigantic brains whirring with some conceptual notion; and not with the logistics of getting a TV crew from one location to the next, and how to feed them. I felt sneery, and kind of jealous, and weird inside.

I'm not saying that I wish I had got into Cambridge. Undoubtedly I wouldn't have gone anyway, so the fact that I was rejected has saved me a potential regret in turning down a place. And I still think it's elitist, and probably a lot of the people there are unbearable. Probably I would have suffered under the pressure of the workload, and the academic demands.

But on the other hand, perhaps I would have pursued my love of academia (and I do love it), and now I might be a rosy-cheeked postgrad living in a turreted listed building, riding my bike over the cobbles wearing a woollen skirt and a vintage brooch and the open smile of someone living in a bubble of privelege. Not that I am not priveleged- I know that I am. But.

Or, I might have swanned into a trainee post at the BBC upon graduating, instead of being turned down when I applied in my final year of university. I may have been in the same job now, but perhaps I could have worked less hard to get here and taken a faster route, and perhaps my Oxbridge connections would mean that ten years from now, I could be several layers higher than I will be, having not been to Cambridge. Maybe I'll hit a glass ceiling which I wouldn't hit as an Oxbridge alumni.

Most of all, my time in Cambridge this week showed me, in the brief time I was there, that Oxbridge is at the very least a very unique university experience, with more beauty and tradition than most of us find at our "normal" universities. And it opens doors. Who can deny that?

Writing this down, getting it out of my system, I realise that I still feel dubious about the whole Oxbridge thing. It's a double-edged sword, perhaps. On balance, it did me good to dodge firework-throwing youths during the dark winter walk from university to my student house in a run-down part of Leeds. My childhood was sheltered in many ways- we didn't have tons of money but we were comfortable, protected, encouraged, stimulated, and steered down a safe path by our parents. I'm sure if I had been to Cambridge, I would not have let loose to quite the extent that I did at Leeds. I needed those all-nighters and experimentation, and to live off spaghetti hoops when I ran out of money. Dinner ladies serving me dinner in grand halls would not have done me good. Mixing with people even more sheltered and priveleged than myself would probably not have been a good thing.

I felt envious this week, I suppose, of the idealised picture that I saw/created in my head. I am just so tired at the moment, I am working so hard and what's more, I've got some kind of virus so I'm under the weather.  I think I just found it galling to see carefree, cossetted genius children who really will be the top editors, politicians, writers in the country, swanning around a world far removed from the grind of "real life". A world which, somewhere in a parrallel universe far far away, a different version of me inhabits. Perhaps she's happy; perhaps she's depressed and insane and wishes she could have just been normal. Perhaps she's a wildly successful published author and world-reknowned Genius Queen of the World. Perhaps she caved under the pressure and dropped out of university, and went to Goa, and lives in a tent. Perhaps she never got a job in TV because the producers she came across made assumptions about Oxbridge types. Perhaps she lost all her social skills and only talks to books.

On balance, I don't regret the fateful moment in my interview at Clare College, which surely sealed my fate, when the professor asked me to paraphrase a passage of Chaucer, and I had to admit that I didn't know what "paraphrase" means.

On balance, perhaps it wasn't for me after all.

What did you dream about last night?  

Tiny Indian children with monster-faces, who swarmed around me as I ran down the cobbled road which leads to the "meadows" (a local green belt which I have blogged about before). They snapped at my shins with their monster-teeth, and one of them stuck a needle into my back, containing blood and some diseases.

(The scary thing is, this is a recurring dream)

I also dreamed about renting a swanky apartment in Milan which had a gorgeous glass atrium/dining room on the roof. But I forgot to take my family up there until the end of our holiday, at which point I found it filled with teenagers having a food fight, and one of them fell off the roof.

Hi, I'm insane.

**********************************************************************************************************************************

In other news: bloody hell.

I have slept in a different bed each night for the last six nights (outrageous wench that I am). I have dragged my wheely suitcase around like a annoyingly dependent dog or Indian monster-child, from city to city. I have sipped red wine in a hotel bar overlooking a snow-topped Tower Bridge, and laughed at my director falling over on the ice on a (much smaller) bridge in Birmingham, and had whole filming days cancelled due to "severe weather". And by the way, come on Britain, it's a dusting of powdery snow, get a grip, will you... One million children were off school yesterday due to school closures. I mean really? One million children who really had to miss school, did the headteachers make the right decision when they considered that their staff couldn't make it into work? Could they not struggle through the two inches of snow, like all the other essential workers did- police officers, nurses, supermarket employees...? Have they never heard of wellington boots? And what do people do in places like Canada and Russia, where the current "severe weather" we're experiencing would count as a mild spring day?

Anyway, it's all about me you know. So back to me and my madcap adventures...

We have grappled with ethical issues related to our programme and worried about how we're going to get the damn thing filmed in time. I I haven't been home for nearly seven days and whilst I realise that I am priveleged to have a wanky pointless "creative" job where I swan around the country and sip wine overlooking the Tower Bridge, I am also envious of those people who work regular hours and never until midnight, who sleep in their own bed every night and speak to their families and don't have under-eyes bags so pronounced that soon they will surely morph into wheelie-under-eye--bags which I'll have to drag from city to city on my endless television oddysey.

I am spent, and wrung dry, and overdramatic and irritating.

So tonight I'm going to wheel my eye bags home and give my boyfriend a cuddle; wash the crazy week away in a hot bath; revel in the comfortable and familiar sights and textures of our home: our soft leather sofa, our weathered wooden floors, our DVDs and home-made curtains, our kitchen with an actual oven and a fridge, real life not rent-a-room unreality. I'll celebrate the fact that I can open the door with a real live key instead of a swipe card, that my room does not feature a trouser press, that I don't have to search endless draws to find the hairdryer, that shampoo comes in proper big bottles and I don't have to carry a notebook to dinner to plan the following day. 

Hurrah for the weekend, hurrah for playing in the snow, snuggling on the sofa, for writing until words burst from the computer and slip between the floorboards. Hooray and hurrah for home.

For someone who "wants to be a writer", I'm doing a great job of neglecting the only two outlets I have: this blog, and The Novel.

I have thoughts and themes, sentences and paragraphs and excessive punctuation marks, and a quip or two, swilling around in my head. I will bash them out soon. I promise (myself).

In the mean time I'm back in that state of being and doing which knocks me off my feet every couple of months: it's filming time again. Life has been a whirl of freezing my toes off in Northern cities; understanding the meaning of wanting the ground to swallow one up whilst being bawled out by an angry mid-tantrum presenter; feeling like I might throw up with the hilarity at the comic talents of another presenter; shoving my way through nightclubs, camera in hand; fending off pissed Geordies shrieking "TV! TV!" and diving into shot; lying prone on couches in hotel bars, shell-shocked from 13 hour filming days; running on adrenaline and also copious amounts of unsuitable food which I have crammed into my gob whilst on the run between shooting locations.

And across in the more meaningful spectrum of life, I've been missing my boyfriend, family and friends as I dash all over the country (and kind of forgetting what they look like); rejoicing at news of a new baby in the extended family- news which I haven't officially been told yet; and feeling like chucking bricks through the windows of a large organisation which has, outrageously, not given a graduate job to my fantastically talented, interpersonally gifted genius of a sister. I shouldn't feel like crying about this- but I do, goddamit! I feel like wringing their necks- have they no sense?!

And worst, worst of all! I am away filming next week and will miss the first rehearsal of "Whiter Shade of Pale" at the gay chorus! I ask you, is there NO JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD?

****************************************************************************************************************************************

(Obviously that last thing is not actually worse than the bastards turning down my brilliant sister, or indeed worse than me not seeing anyone I love for days on end. Just in case my totally unsubtle sarcasm passed you by...)

I weave my way through the school run, dodging the "chelsea tractors"- aka totally unecessary 4x4s, aka you live in Cheshire, for god's sake woman, you don't need an offroader!- to pick up my director from deepest surburbia.
It's yesterday, when the last gleams of this beautiful British Summer 2006 glowed their last. Today I can see my breath.. but I like it (you know that already).

For three hours we sit in traffic jams and chat, on our way to our filming destination. My director thinks about the shots he needs and how he will conduct the interviews. I think mostly about M&S Magicwear dresses, which all the other women of Manchester and the internet have snapped up already, thus there are none left (probably bought by the same ladies who drive the chelsea tractors). But I need one, yes I do.

On arrival at our destination city, we film a nervous police officer who is working on the case we are looking at. Amazing how someone can confidently arrest a murderer or step into a viscious brawl, but loses all their confidence when a camera is turned on them... Anyway, she is fine and does the job, without all of her make-up sliding of her face with the heat and the nerves and for god's sake horrid TV people, stop making me walk up and down this street 12 hundred times!

Onwards, onwards to revolting Walkabout for lunch (at 3pm. I nearly imploded). I knaw on a very tough chicken breast with a jacket potato (I decline to eat chips, people! I am dragging myself out of Not The Zone!).

Come late afternoon I am humbled by the lovely couple who are our main contributors on this shoot. I'm always nervy about writing too specifically about my job (we have had actual e-mails about "web logging" about work ie: dont do it, bitches). But I think I can say that we are filming with them because their son, a handsome young man, has simply vanished. It is unutterably sad. But they are dignified, and tolerate our questions and speak eloquently. When we get some shots of them walking in the countryside, they hold hands, and laugh softly at private jokes- and if you can be with someone for 20 years and survive one of the hardest things imaginable and still hold hands... forget Britney, that's my role model right there.

10.30pm and we collapse into the hotel bar- the director, the cameraman, the soundman and I- and have a moderately fun time having a couple of drinks before winding our way through the hallways of the surprisingly grand, manor house (ooh!) hotel to our rooms. As usual, my total inability to sleep alone gets the better of me and I lie awake in my rather posh room, with its complimentary sparkling water, too scared to turn off the light in case ye olde ghostes get me. The crew had entertained themselves during our post-work drinks with wondering out loud how many ghosts haunt the hotel. At one point they even rope in the waiter to talk about the rumours of hauntings. At this point I consider it socially acceptable to stick my fingers in my ears and shout "la la la". It has to be done, and I don't even do it in jest.

Then suddenly, slightly hungover-ly, it's today, and my bedside lamp is still on, and I'm still holding my book. I have been asleep though, if fitfully. I eat much more than everyone else at breakfast (they are men, but they work in TV, so are almost not men), then we spend another day with the lovely couple. I hope this programme will help them.

It's one of those days where emotions are just out there... and I feel compelled to tell them about H, as I sometimes do in work situations, and know that I shouldn't. But I want them to know that I kind of understand what they are going through. One of our crew shares his tragedy too- it's that kind of a day. As we sit in the glare of the lights, interviewing this brave mother, I think: her son is gone; my sister drowned; his brother died of an overdose. Those who don't experience tragedy are the lucky minority.

(I realise that I mention H in every other blog posting I write. That is because she is every other thought I think, at least.)

At 3pm the beautiful granddaughter (aged nearly 2) of our contributors arrives.She is blonde and cheeky and loud. She immediately snuggles into my neck. I am chuffed, because children normally have to be cajoled into even saying hello, don't they. We dance to "Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag" which is her Grandpa's mobile phone ringtone, and I think, as I sometimes do, this is better than working for a living. We are fed ham sandwiches and poured endless cups of tea. The little girl loves the camera, and despite a day of gruelling interviews for the family, the joy on their faces as she toddles about and grins and kicks off a bit when she gets over-excited makes me think that they are going to be alright this evening, once we, and all our whirring machines and wires, are out of their lives. The bottle of wine we give them might help.

Then it's back on the road, and finally it's 11pm on Friday, and I'm home, and knackered, and can't face joining The G at the party we were supposed to go to. It's for a work friend of his... and I am not good at large groups of strangers at the best of times, and especially not tonight. A glass of red wine and a handful of chickpea noodles for my dinner will do for me. He's staying at the party for a couple of hours, then coming home to see me, in all my zombiefied, post-filming "glory".

Weekend.

Exhale.

The end of September is drawing closer (which means it's nearly my birthday, woo! October 2nd- if I have any stalkers, I would like some diamonds please), and it's still unusually warm here in Blighty. My chilli plants are heavy with fruit, my tomato plants are still bursting with crimson. My lavender plants- I've decided to collect lavender, for the information of aforementioned stalkers who might buy me birthday presents- are poking their flowery arms in all directions with no sense of decorum.

But it's getting darker earlier, the sun is lower when I walk to the bus stop in the mornings. And I sit here, in the glow of the Lamps of Delight, wrapped in a snuggly blanket as I blog. Yes, autumn is coming (isn't "autumn" so much evocative a word than "fall"?), and after the hot hot hot summer we have had, I have to say I am looking forward to it.

I am looking forward to cracking open my Nigella cookbooks and baking some spicy, steaming cakes and buns on a chilly Sunday. I am looking forward to showcasing my patent mary janes (much too sweaty for summer) with a pencil skirt, tights and a cashmere jumper, without melting. I am looking forward to snuggling my face into my scarf against the cold, and slipping my fingers into my soft brown leather gloves again. I want to curl up by candlelight deep in the sofa, drawing thick curtains against inky, freezing skies; and pull the goose feather duvet around me in bed, instead of kicking it off in boiling frustration.

I can't wait to finish this project- the Project of Despair (much blogged about)- only four weeks left!- and maybe having a week off to visit lovely friend Ben, who will finish his PHD at roughly the same time. I wonder what programme I will be working on next, and I hope it will be less sad.

I want autumn TV schedules full of stay-at-home dramas (already kicking off with the excellent Spooks, which actually I am currently not watching, because I have attention span difficulties), winter clothes in the shops and nights in the pub... maybe we'll even rediscover the pub quiz!

I want to find out what happens to plants in the winter, to cut back summer foliage and push hopeful bulbs into the cold earth with numb fingertips. I want to discover a whole new level of Gardening Patience, as I watch my "babies" shrivel and freeze, knowing, hoping they will sprout again in the spring.

I want to stash Christmas presents in the spare room and think hopefully of a  Christmas which might be less pain-filled than the last; to celebrate New Year without breaking into sobs because H is not here.. another year without her in it. I want to look at the new university freshers, striding boofusly down Oxford Rd with their brand new rucksacks, without getting a lump in my throat because it should be her.

Some things I can't have this autumn. But many things I can, and I say- bring it on. Enough air conditioning, enough drinking in the evening sun, enough Sundays spent feeling like I ought to be on an adventurous outdoor day trip rather than reading the News of the World and gulping back coffee.

Enough summer. Bring on Autumn.

ps October 2nd, stalkers.

.

Woman from Entertainment dept:  So, how's the world of glam?

Man from Entertainment: Oh, it's not glam now.

Woman: Oh really, is glam finished?

Me (in head): Wha?????

Man: Yes, Polly did glam. I'm not on Glam, I'm Unlikely Hearthrobs

Woman: Oh right, Glam's in the can then.

Man: Yes

My brain: fffzzz

Then I stepped out of the lift, back into the world of doom.

It bothers me that I have been too busy/stressed to update my brand new blog. I really wanted to make it work and write in it every day, and I hoped it wouldn't be end up being another thing to feel guilty about neglecting, along with my family, my fingernails, old friends.... Those three things were not listed in order of priority, I hasten to add.

My God, have I been stressed. As I stumbled to the bus stop this morning at 7.30am (work doesn't officially start until 10am- because people who work in TV are lazy stop-a-bed drunkards, on the whole), I felt the acidic churning begin and an almost feverish, clammy heat taking over from my hands to my face, finally hitting with a thud that point right in the centre of my back where I feel stress the most (anyone else get that?). It's not good, I thought to myself, between panicky gulps of air, to be stressed before you even get to work.

Other highlights of the past few days include:

- Waking up at 3am crying, thinking about the people we are filming with for my current project. Obviously I don't want to give too much away about my actual job or workplace (even though I think all five of my readers are family and friends)- but I'm working on a series which involves dealing with families going through loss and pain, and asking them to dredge up these emotions. It's hard.

- Being pulled in four different directions by four different directors (not literally- although that might be marginally less stressful) who ALL NEED EVERYTHING DOING, YESTERDAY!!

And other stuff, which frankly, is too tiresome and boring to bang on about here. I've whinged enough.

And now, having felt guilty about not updating my blog for the past week, I am sitting in the yawning darkness- because no-one is here and I don't know where the light-switches in this place are- of a huge, empty, open-plan office, with only the roar of the air con for company, feeling guilty because I am updating my blog, instead of setting up the filming for Friday. I treated myself to a skinny latte this morning, because I think I damn well deserve it.

My workplace fairy godmother (scouser, 40s, loud, big gold earrings, yoga-loving, brilliant) said to me yesterday, I need to stop worrying and stressing about things I can't change. She's so right. We also dicussed whether current affairs is the right place for me to be. I really enjoy my job, I do. But working in current affairs means dealing with despair on an almost daily basis. The despair is wearing me down.

Next week, obviously, I will love my job again. Except I won't be at work, because we're off on holiday on Friday. France, here we come! And not a moment too soon.

I went filming today, for the documentary series I'm working on. I haven't been out filming for a few months as I've been working in "development" - thinking up TV programme ideas for a living (sounds like nice work? Actually it kills your soul).

I had forgotten how much I enjoy the rituals of filming: gathering together all the kit the day before; putting together a Rainman-tastic call sheet; testing out tripods and charging batteries; juggling far too many tasks into an overcrowded schedule; the road trip with whichever director I'm working with (I have a league table of my top road trip companions); meeting people and learning things I would never have access to in the "real world".

Today, my director and I spent the entire return leg of the 5 1/2 hour road trip talking about Japan. I love Japan and so does he. He's inching up the league table.

The filming itself was fascinating and heartbreaking. Part of it was with the police, which was very interesting (tip: they know everything about you).

But there's something else I forgot about filming. I missed the Question of the Day yesterday, the one about local dialects. Let me give you a few words from the British vernacular: knackered; shattered; zonked.

I am all of the above.