Quarter Life Crisis?

Here is a piece wot I did wrote a few years ago. It was meant to try and demonstrate the frustrations of your average recent graduate, so while I definitely had conversations like this, we all know I'm not really a white dress kind of gal. I did have a tiered thingummy though. It just happened to be made of cheese, not cake.


Article appeared in Graduate Recruiter, Feb/March 2008

“I thought you said Boxing Day,”

“I asked if you could work New Year’s Day, and you said yes.” Me flying solo on a wing and a prayer, trying to restore order to the chaos of Christmas in retail. “I heard Boxing Day.”

“I definitely said New Year’s Day.”

“I thought you meant Boxing Day.”

“And when everyone kept asking you what time you were working on New Year’s Day, it didn’t occur to you to check?”

“I thought they meant Boxing Day too.”

I’ve committed to a flat; bills; the running costs of a car, and a Virgin Media contract. I want babies when I’m 30, a wedding before that. I want disposable income, and savings to pay for white dresses, tiered cakes, and a six-week honeymoon. The crux is this: I’m twenty-five and I feel like time’s running out. I have to make decisions. I made one a year ago, when I decided taking a job, any job, in exchange for life as an independent grown-up was worth it.

I am, specifically, an English-Literature-with-Creative-Writing-Journalism-Theatre-Poetry-and-Film graduate. The title does not include ‘Team Manager at well known High Street chemist’, but after four years of student filth in Wales, a mere ten months back in the parental fold in Yorkshire, up popped this position, 200 miles south. Why not? Pays the rent.

A year on. The time I spend being sprayed with angry spittle over exchange policy, or the time I spend explaining to staff why it’s important to put the right prices in front of the corresponding products - these are the times I ponder the value of that 2:1, but my university-fresh, world/oyster enthusiasm certainly contributed to the successful interview, and it helped to be articulate. Articulation though deserts me when a customer levels a blow so stunning, I am dumb-struck. “Your face could be so nice,” she trilled, benign grandma-like, “It’s a shame the spots spoil it. Tell me,” continued Satan’s Nana, “Is it your diet, or just time of the month?”

Touching moments aside, recently, I’ve trumpeted what my superiors now refer to as my ‘background in journalism’. Is this because I’m trying to make the most of the job I’ve landed in, or am I just trying to make the job I’ve landed in bearable short term? Whichever, I’ve been gifted the task of a newsletter for our group of stores, and though possibly a mere sticking plaster for my job dissatisfaction, the project has revived that struggling flame of enthusiasm.

My options seem few at this juncture; continue management path recklessly embarked upon to pay rent, or craft my own choices: force my creativity upon this chemist, or flounce away with no idea what comes next, or how I’ll ever afford that white dress.

“So in conclusion, trains weren’t running, buses were late, the driver crashed in the station, the replacement bus broke down, you walked three miles the wrong way, your mother rang about your dog, and in your confusion you found a pub thinking it was a bus, and you would have rang the store as per procedure, only your battery died and anyway, you thought I meant Boxing Day.”

“Yes. And I’m off now ‘cos the other day I didn’t take my break so I’ll just go home early, okay?”

New Year’s Day. Resolutions. Decisions, decisions.