Growing up, for a while at least
Sunday, October 27, 2013 at 04:46AM You know that thing kids do, where they ask you where something is or how to do something else when they could just as easily work the answer out for themselves? That’s me. I’m the grown up version.
I’ve been reminded of this over the past six weeks and more when my colleague, Robyn, has been swanning around the UK and Europe. (The fact that I did exactly the same last year is not relevant here.) Robyn and I share an office. And although we have quite distinctive jobs, we cover for each other when one is not around for some reason.
Robyn happens to be a little older than me. She also happens to be infinitely more experienced in the world of fairly high-level administration in which we work. She knows all kinds of ways of organising and backing up and looking after a boss that I try to pick up as I work across a small room from her. She is a whiz at formatting, a skill I find infinitely frustrating. She just all-round knows an awful lot more than me about the work we both do and she shares her knowledge without ever making me feel an idiot. To say I’ve learnt a lot from her is an understatement.
The only problem with this is, I tend to go straight into ask-Robyn mode when I can’t remember how to create a particularly complex numbering format in a set of minutes, where to find a certain file, which committee a person is on and does she by any chance know where I’d find not just their phone and email but their postal address?
When she is out of the country, as she will be for two more sleeps now, I just have to work these things out for myself. Like a kid recently moved out of home for the first time, I can’t go bleating to mama when I forget how the washing machine works.
The thing is that not only do I work it out for myself, nine times out of ten, but also I remember it next time, because I’ve had to do the groundwork of finding out the answer. For the ten per cent of other times, I have other willing and capable colleagues; they’re just not quite as close and handy. And sometimes, I realise that I can’t work out the answer and it will just have to wait, or I’ll have to work out my own way of doing a task, which will have to suffice.
The other surprising thing is that there’s a part of me that enjoys this state of affairs. Like the kid newly moved into their own place, I feel a profound sense of achievement that I worked out how to wash the clothes without running to a parent. I learn not individual facts so much as the patience to sit with a tricky problem without panicking, steadily trying to work out how I can tackle it. There’s satisfaction in knowing that I can cope, one way or another, with whatever task or tricky phone call lands on my desk.
So, have I turned into superwoman in the almost seven weeks she has been away? I’d say I’ve become a little more capable, a bit more trusting in my own abilities to work stuff out. And a lot more weary. You can keep trying to do jobs only so long, and I am hanging out for a few days off over Cup Weekend, not to mention the return of my four-day week so I can get back to my second novel. In short, I can’t wait till Robyn returns from her trip. I wonder how long it’ll be before the first time she hears the words, ‘How do you do that tricky formatting thing again?’
Reader Comments (1)
What a gift to have such a colleague and a relationship that seems to be without competitiveness -the bane of so many workplaces. A lovely tribute to you both Clare.