An unloveable mongrel called shawn

This post is set in the epoque after I returned to the Mother Country (England) from my native Australia, but before I moved to the Old Dog (Paris).

When I was straight off the boat from Australia, my first job was as a Saver.

It sounds glamorous I know. A Saver of Souls. A Saver of Lives. A Saver of cats stuck up trees.

But no, I was a Saver of CVs for a recruitment company located in a pre-gender discrimination law, pre-sexual harrassment in the workplace, time warp.

I got all miu-miu-ed up for the first day of the job, my very first job
in that difficult hotpot we call London. I was dressed in my most spic and span suit but as
it turned out I didn’t need to glam it up, no one even raised an eye when I walked in.

And so, explained my South African trainer in her jolting accent, you check all the potential candidate's details are at the top of the CV and then you save the CV as a word file and then as a text file.

Yes I see, and then?

And…that’s all.

Ok there was SOMETHING fun about saving CVs into text and word files. I got to see
some really creepy CVs. Some were almost love letters to the recruiter, others were borderline begging. Lots of people included their photo (this seems to be the done thing in France but it is definitely not the done thing in Australia and I think it is not so common in England) so I had to let out tiny chuckles when I saw photos of boys (yes, boys!) and girls prancing around in their bikinis. They were applying for jobs in IT.

I am proud to say that I saved a lot of people from
the trash can. We were given strict instructions to delete anyone who came from
anywhere that was not in the European Union who didn’t specify they had a visa to work in the UK. Some of the folks from India wrote such nice, sensible letters about why they should get the job despite their lack of work permit, that with one swoop I saved them (as word and text files). After all, i'm from the ex colonies too, I know exactly what it is like scrounging around for a work permit in unforgiving Old Blighty.

There were about 25 of us on one side of a big room, saving away. Across a river of undesked carpet, on the left bank of the room, were the Bridgers. Their exact role remains
a mystery to me but I guess they were bridging some kind of gap between the savers
and the Almighty Recruiters. All I know is that they considered themselves a cut above us lowly savers, like the girls who dance topless at the Moulin Rouge consider themselves a cut above the girls who tuck their boobs under sequins and dance the cancan.

I was unluckily placed near the unloveable mongrel Shawn, who, unlike me, wasn’t temping and had been working there for five years and miraculously never moved on from Saver to Bridger. His hobbies included (all in a loud voice so all the savers and even the bridgers could hear) – ranking the appearance of all the girls in the room from Very Hot to Very Dog, discussing his sexual escapades with a girl who had worn the same g-string three days in a row, exchanging ideas with his nondescript but shawn-like cronies about why the girl sitting next to me, a quiet philosophy student looking for an easy pound, had worn the same trousers all week (Shawn seemed to have an eye for girl’s fashion faux pas) and talking about who was going to get the old high-ho from the company at the end of the week for not saving enough CVs.

Yep, Shawn was in cahoots with the Manager and in this environment where professionalism had been packed in a little box and chucked out on to Regent Street to be trampled on by heavy heeled londoners, the manager for some ungodly and unprofessional reason confided in Shawn before she fired or hired anyone.

And Shawn was a professional Dobber who told her if someone went to the toilet too many times, took a phone call on their mobile from their dying grandmother or wore the same pants too many days in a row.

Now I can’t even remember her name, but lets just call this manager Susy because that was probably her name, although I was required to call her Miss Susy. Miss Susy's claims to fame were rising from the ranks of company receptionist to Head of Savers, talking loudly on the phone about who she was going to fire that week, telling Shawn whether the new girls she was hiring (after she'd finished firing) were cute or not, and telling anyone who would listen about how many beers she'd put away the night before (I’d like to make it clear now that I have nothing against binge drinking if it is done with style but if you knew Miss Susy you’d know that she was more of a tits on the table, vomit dribbling down the chin kind of binge drinker).

First day on the job (lucky for me Miss Susy started her new role the same week as me) she gave us a list of all the forbiddens – no eating at your desk, can’t be more then one nano second late in the morning, no talking, no whispering, no laughing (except if you are shawn or liked by shawn).

Anyway, you may have guessed by now, but I was one of the people who was getting fired after four weeks of saving. It might have been because I was accused of computer sabotage on my second week of the job. Apparently someone had managed to delete all the CVs in the entire company database that had been saved the previous month and Miss Susy shouted me down about this saying that the sabotage had been activated from my computer. Of course I pleaded innocent and they had to accept that as they had no hard evidence against me (lots of people used my computer at lunchtime) and they have that thing embedded in the common law about letting all those guilty people go free rather than one innocent person being convicted. I wasn't guilty but I couldn’t help thinking I wish I had come up with the idea to sabotage the system and somehow point the finger at Shawn.

I was also a lousy saver. I’d get caught up reading the CVs. All these CVs peopling my inbox with characters from all over the world made fascinating reading. I also spent a fair bit of time correcting spelling and grammar to help the candidates in this cut-throat world of job-hunting. I don’t think I ever made the daily saving quota.

The day I got fired, Miss Susy didn't pull the trigger. She passed the buck by putting me on the phone to my temping agency who said “it is nothing personal, shawn just doesn’t think you are hot enough” or something like that.

I was a little shaken up about this. I was back to no money in London as opposed to some money. But I also left that chamber for the last time letting out tiny whoops of joy. No more sexism in the workplace, no more gender specific language, no more school mama caning me for being a nano second late and no more oppressive office air. I was out on the street with the Hari Krishnas now. I used to hear them singing when I was stuck up on the sixth floor breathing Shawn's fumes, but now I was with them.

When I still lived in London I sometimes used to go back to that same street. I'd look up at that sixth floor window and think about Shawn up there fashion policing the girls and winning prizes for being Saver of the Year. He must be nearing long service leave for Saving now. His name is probably spelt more fancily, like Sean, or maybe Shaun, but for me he will always be Shawn.