A Bold Move

I’ve said this sentence a lot ^

When you move, it’s likely you’ve either got a new job or you need to get one to afford to stay where you have moved to. Sometimes it’s easy to find one, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes you want a new job to just serve a purpose and sometimes you are more driven and have your eyes on something particular. Whichever it is, it’s part of the move. I’m going spill the beans on some of the jobs in my catalog of a CV.

Taking it back to my first ever job, ever. I was aged 14/15 and my school mate Ruby got me a job by putting a good word in to the owner of Dafnas Cheesecake Factory. This was necessary as every other job I had applied for (popcorn picker at Allerton road cinema) needed loads of experience and I was just a young grasshopper. I got a trial shift which consisted of me cleaning a kitchen, it being inspected, and then me being given the green light to clean the kitchens going forward on a Saturday morning for the foreseeable. I worked there up until I was about 17 and in that time spent many hungover Saturday mornings begging my dad for a lift (even though I lived about half a mile away), and trying not to throw up in my apron pocket. I listened to Radio 1 through my JVC gumy headphones and scrubbed those kitchens till they were spotless, and when the job was done me and Ruby would go and spend £5.00 of the £17.00 earned on a Subway and then a further £3/4 in Home n Bargain (I know the real name is Home Bargains, but real scousers call it Home n Bargain so don’t @ me) on lip balms and shit we didn’t need. This left with us about a tenner to go and try and buy Glens Vodka, and try and get into ANY club in Liverpool.

From Dafnas, I ended up having a few other jobs in my hometown while I was finishing school and then college, and all of them gave me the best stories and memories and most importantly the simple ability to know how to act in a bar or restaurant 👌 .

Skipping forward to moving to London for uni, I needed to find a job quick because if you didn’t know, it costs to breathe in London. I quickly noticed that not knowing anyone down here, and having many other students looking for a job in hospitality too, meant that even though I had enough experience in putting liquids in vessels and carrying loads of plates on my arm, wasn’t enough. I needed to do something to stand out. So I applied to work as a server in my favourite bar in East London, Satan’s Whiskers. I printed off my CV in the uni library and used a teabag to stain the page like when you made a treasure map at school. I tied the little red ribbon from my Easter Lindt bunny round my CV to make it look like a scroll and I addressed my CV to Satan. Now I don’t know if the general manager felt sorry for me or if he actually thought my efforts were good, but I got a trial shift and ended up working there for a good while! It was perfect. Boss bevs, boss tunes and boss people. It did come with some hiccups in the sense that not everyone understood my accent, or my humour, but they did understand that I worked my ass off and was good at queuing tunes on the iPad.

I had other jobs while I was in London the first time round. I was a Nanny for a bit, and I worked in retail and then when I left uni I applied for Camp America. Doing CA didn’t frighten me at all because I wanted it so bad, it felt like fate if you believe in that stuff. In a way, it was like moving because I did leave my home and go and live somewhere else for three months, but the beauty of it was that everyone else that went was new too so I didn’t feel out of place at all. CA was the exception really because all other jobs I’ve started I’ve had that fear of ‘Will people like me?’ ‘What if I fuck everything up?’ ‘I feel like a tit for asking to go for lunch with someone’ . I’ve had these same exact feelings when moving cities and to be honest I’m bored of the nerves of living my own life. Hence why I’m writing it all down in hopes of this resonating with others who have experienced the same.

After CA I moved back to Liverpool and started working in a bar called Aloha. A tiki haven which gave me some of my best mates. Work bezzies are a different breed I swear. There is nothing like bonding over a 12 hour shift consisting of limbo, pina coladas, all looking 🔥 in Hawaiian shirts, and living off meal deals and pizzas from Botan Kebab house. I worked in Aloha and had a day time job and then could no longer hack not sleeping so stuck to day time work to try and un-familiarise myself with the smell of bins full of discarded pineapples.(You can’t do this, it’s a signature tiki scent)

I suppose the next time I felt overcome with anxiety because of a new job was when I moved up to Edinburgh to start a Business Development position for a chain of wine bars. I felt I was the right fit for it, but it turned out to be a shit show and unfortunately a very sexist environment to work in, so I quit. Approximately 1 month after starting. As damaging as it may have been to my CV at the time, it was more damaging to accept what was happening. So there was a strongly worded email and I left. I then went and bagged myself a job in Lush as a stepping stone while I looked for something else and ended up staying for 8 months and became totally part of the furniture. I fell in love with working right opposite Edinburgh Castle and chatting away to all the lovely Scottish folk that called (I was a receptionist) who were as surprised as me that a scouser was answering the phone in a Scottish Lush store. People would always say ‘Hi Hen , so sorry, have I called the Liverpool store?’ It defo took a while to settle in though because I don’t think people could put their finger on why I was there. Not that they needed to, but I was quite coy about sharing what had happened in the last job, and also wanted to make friends as I was new to the city but wanted a perfect balance of not being too much of a keen bean but also still making an effort. Eventually I made some class mates there and even got voted ‘Most Hilarious’ at the Christmas party 😉. Which, considering Scots are pretty funny, I was very proud of. See pride below.

The Lush life came to an end when I fancied less shift work and more Dolly Parton vibes of a 9-5. I signed up to a recruitment agency and got a job in an office that sold photocopiers. I honestly don’t know why I craved the 9-5 life so much, I think it was just because I wanted structure and weekends off, and it defo provided that along with the pleasure of working with some of the best women I’ve ever met. I think it’s fair to say I was the youngest in the office and definitely felt taken under the wing of some of the ladies I worked with. Particularly Lynne. She reminded me so much of my own Mum, and the pair of us would be in tears of laughter everyday. Being in Edinburgh meant not many visits to Liverpool so I felt well looked after by her. Working in this office gave me the most unlikely friendships and for this I am so grateful. I loved having a desk neighbour, my lovely gal Sam. Sam would always have the best snacks and when we discovered we could use Microsoft teams to send IM’s and GIFs we would sit there not speaking so it looked like we were concentrating dead hard but in fact we were usually typing about office drama 😏.

I struggled settling into this job a lot because I sort of had to have my cake and eat it. I wanted a 9-5, which I got, but I wanted a 9-5 that gave me a busy social calendar and this one didn’t because most people where 20-30 years my senior and had family lives to crack on with. So top tip – if you are looking for a job, and something like the social culture of the place is important to you, tell your recruiter or ask about it in your interviews! Moving somewhere new, a lot of people tend to rely on making mates at work which is completely understandable, but when it’s not always what you anticipated, it can be a tough pill to swallow.

Before getting myself down to London last year I needed a job. Which I managed to get pretty quickly. It wasn’t exactly the one I wanted, but I needed one fast to let my future landlord know I was employed. The job I got ended up being remote working on a full time basis. Great for making friends when you have moved. NOT. Anyway, I took pride in the fact I must be quite employable considering all the jobs I have done but each one I’ve had, a part from CA, has just been serving a purpose rather than being fulfilling work that I love doing. I always had a bit of a self destruct button when it comes to applying for jobs I actually want. I’ll constantly think I’m not qualified enough etc but I’m at a point now where I’m just going for it. Worst thing that happens is I don’t get it and I’m in the same position I started in. I’d love my full time job to involve writing. I’ll write that down now so I can do one of them ‘this aged well‘ posts in the future 😉

For now, I’m just grateful to even have a job. I know the search can be tough at the best of times, so if you are currently looking and perhaps a bit worried about settling in again and all that comes with it, give me a shout. I’d love to help if I can. I’m going to end this with a photo of me aged 9 (I think) doing the job I thought I would be doing when I got older. I wanted to be a DJ.