The eternal optimism of the midlife job seeker

Or how to navigate work without losing your marbles

I’m happiest just before I start a new role. It’s like spring. Lambs. Daffodils. Possibility in the air. The zooms haven’t started up. The team are unknown. In that time it’s like you’ve approached someone you really fancy, have set up a date and haven’t seen them eat spare ribs with their hands. There’s chemistry. You haven’t yet been confronted by the things that don’t work, the processes that are so shonky that they drive everyone mad. The people who annoy everyone but nobody does anything about it.

You also haven’t heard the stories of the people who’ve left. They only contact you once they see from your LinkedIn status that you’ve moved on too. Than you commiserate together. You have that kind of kinship of a job that you both didn’t enjoy one bit.

At the start there’s a familiar pattern. The new laptop arrives. You hope it’s an Apple because you’re not familiar with PCs. Then the onboarding which often consists of someone who is roughly labelled ‘the IT expert’ and is a guy who has found himself with this label, and is Googling stuff as you speak to him on the phone. This bit is painful but you try and remain patient. It’s not indicative of anything serious! They obviously just don’t care enough about IT and that’s fine!

‘Your password is %$£@*&(DDDfff1458,’ he says down the phone.

You have him on speaker but still type it in wrong.

‘Try it with no spaces,’ he repeats when it doesn’t work.

‘Try it with a space,’ he says when it doesn't work again.

‘It says I’m locked out now.’

‘Try it with capitals,’ he says.

‘It’s not working.’

‘Okay I’m going to get in touch with our own IT experts and they should ring you in 3 days,’ he says.

You think that he is possibly going to Google some more and then wait 3 days to ring you back.

‘But I need to access all my stuff today,’ I say.

‘I’ve raised a ticket with them and they’ll ring on your mobile.’

He’s gone. You try and see if you can find a solution and yearn for the days of the guy at your long term agency (the one you worked at for 18 years) who was brilliant and knew everything and just fixed it for you there and then. He is now working for Victoria Beckham (you checked his LinkedIn update a few days back and thought about asking him to help).

This is what happened quite recently to me. I lunged for my phone at every opportunity in case it was the person who could give me access to my laptop. I wanted to get into work folders. See the projects. Familiarise myself with the approaches. Each company has a different style you see. Especially when it comes to writing presentations. Freelancing has taught me this. Different templates. Different platforms. Different buzz words.

If you can get your head around these quickly you will be fine. It’s market research. It’s not actually rocket science but it feels like it is at times.

The people can be more challenging. It takes a while to understand the different dynamics at play. The ones who are pretending to be competent but aren’t. The ones who are super talented but don’t have enough opportunities. The ones who have morphed into robots through too much time spent with a headset on. The fun ones. The ones who want a balance. The ones who leave just when you arrive and you wish they'd warned you before they made their move.

Anyway with this most recent company I ended up not having access to the work laptop for 2 weeks. Each time I asked I was told there was a ticket that would be issued. I wasn’t sure why this was relevant but got on with my work on my personal laptop instead. It wasn’t the end of the world. A few days later and I got a mug with the agency name on the side and a pen.

I put it in the cupboard and tried not to notice the mug with the other agency I’d worked for recently still in there. And the travel cup with a different agency and water bottle for the start up I’d worked in for over a year. All these work accessories building up.

The one with the mug, well that company had used PC’s and was run by a woman who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her eyes were full of fear. I thought she was scared of me but realised there was something else going on. It was nothing to do with work. My work was fine apparently. More than fine. Nonetheless she used to get into the powerpoint documents whilst I was in them and hover over the words I was typing. That one only lasted 7 weeks. I couldn’t work with so much fear in my life.

‘Do you want me to return the mug you sent?’ I felt like asking.

A few weeks later and someone on LinkedIn contacted me and said that the woman was a sociopath.

‘She gave me an eating disorder,’ she said, ‘She kept telling me I looked fat.’

I thought about the mug in the cupboard. I thought about taking it to the charity shop now I had this information about my old employer. I had already taken one mug there. And a mouse mat.

Anyway you get into the laptop and you start working. The people are nice. Family and friends ask you about it and you say - ‘Yeah it seems to be going well. Don't want to jinx it though!’ They laugh as you have moved a bit since you left that big agency a few years ago. Is this because you’re fussy? Well there was Covid of course which played a part. Furlough. Two children. Freelancing. Writing books. Trying to find that sweet spot between earning an income and still keeping a hand in with the creativity. Then I had launched myself into the start up world with renewed energy. It was interesting as there was so much going on but it was also cut throat. There was a veritable conveyer belt of people entering and exiting. The people exiting often had red eyes like they’d be crying for many days on the trot.

‘New laptop again?’ I thought I could see the courier with a glint in his eyes, always delivering laptops to this woman who started new jobs.

‘It’s good for you,’ my mum said, ‘It’s making you more resilient,’ she added, ‘This is the modern way. Your sisters are constantly moving jobs too.’

This was true but they were also younger and had more energy. The moving can feel draining. The arc of optimism to neutral to jaded and sapped of all life.

Was I too fussy?

I thought about all the other company mugs sitting in charity shops. The optimism they represented. The way that companies thought that sending you a mug was enough. That it was generous even. That with the mug they were telling you everything you needed to know.

That you should run for the hills.

‘Do you want the back support pillow I ordered off of Amazon?’ I asked the HR woman last week.

‘No you can keep it if you like,’ she said as if she was doing me a favour.

This back support and the mug.

I did another charity shop run. Both stuffed into a Tote bag bearing the name of another agency I’d briefly worked in.

The next company would be better. They would be deserving of my talents. They would have proper onboarding. I was pragmatic.

‘Another mug?’ the woman in the Oxfam shop asked.

I nodded and put it down on the counter.

‘I’ll get there,’ I said.

‘Of course you will,’ she replied, ‘You just need to find a home.’

We both smiled at the same time. It felt good.