The joy of work?

The sixth anniversary of my retirement has recently passed. If I were the celebrating sort, I would have had a party, or at least raised a glass or two. As it happened, I was too busy to do either!

I find myself in the odd situation of being employed again. Although most of my busy life goes unremunerated, with rewards counted in Brownie points or my own personal satisfaction, one of the following positions actually comes with a salary! So here is what I’m currently up to. I’m not entirely sure why I feel the need to publicise this – as a lame excuse for not publishing a blog in ages maybe? – but writing it all down helps me to justify the levels of occasional frustration which I may have voiced to various friends and colleagues.

• I am the publicity officer for my ‘big’ choir, Twickenham Choral. This takes far more time than even my most pessimistic pessimism anticipated. It involves me being on the committee – something I particularly dislike, although the people – in all fairness – are absolutely fine. Of course, I devote quite a bit of time to learning the music for our concerts and attending rehearsals, so maybe this feels more all-consuming than it actually is. But then each time they add another task to my role which was not originally ‘in scope’ (old habits die hard – in a former employment one of the key skills required was to coax more fees from clients whenever they asked us to do anything outside the scope of our contract with them which they had undoubtedly only awarded after a bare-knuckle fee-and-scope-reducing negotiation – you see, I still shudder at this and no wonder I haven’t forgotten) I seethe a little – mostly at myself for agreeing to take this on against my better judgment. I’ve described here in this blog the horror of making a very visible error on the first posters and programmes I produced – a stress I could do without – but second time round the only error of which I am so far aware (3 days after the most recent concert) is one of omission and I am hopeful that few people will have realised. So, there is a satisfaction of a job, that no-one else wants to do, reasonably well-done. And I have a meeting this week to refine the ‘scope’ and develop some tools to assist with what remains.

  

• I am the Honorary Treasurer for my folk choir.  In stark contrast to the above, this one takes almost no time at all and is something that plays to my strengths (ooh, another spreadsheet, ooh some more money-counting!). I’m including it in my list because, however small, it is an extra thing to remember to do from time to time.
• I am a regular volunteer for local charity RBKares, where my main role seems to have settled into chief purveyor of domestic gas/electric vouchers to clients at a monthly well-being day in a nearby community hall. AThis work is fairly predictable and time-framed and whilst it involves a fair bit of swearing at the cumbersome way I create and print the vouchers (no doubt through my general tech-incompetence), and an often cold three hours trying to avoid my papers blowing away whilst I’m issuing them outdoors, there is also a growing camaraderie and a satisfaction that what I am doing is truly helpful to some very life-unfortunate people. I also run errands for this charity as and when needed – on-foot deliveries, often carrying cakes for NHS consumption or Sim-cards to foodbanks – and am happy to be a small cog in what is an ever-growing organisation.
• As chronicled here from time to time, I am signed up as a background/supporting artist, formerly known as an ‘Extra’ in the film and TV industry. Currently my main job in this regard is to sign up online for multiple opportunities and then read the ‘thanks but no thanks’ emails as the proposed dates approach. I recently spent the best part of an afternoon disporting my aged self against blank walls around our house, trying to self-photograph the various poses required in the Current Look section of my profile page on the casting website.

  

  Relatively pleased with what I eventually achieved – with what, after all, is never going to be premium material – I was almost immediately crushed by yet another polite ‘not this time’ response to my application to be yet another passer-by in a ‘very exciting new production’. It is almost a year now since the last time I could be observed marching purposefully towards an A-lister in the street with the strict instructions (in my silly head) not to fall over, bump into him, trip him up, or stick out my tongue in some ludicrous attempt to make him laugh. I’m not entirely sure why I don’t just give up now. After all, I’ve had the experience of doing it, the hours are always awful and the pay inconsequential (unless you do loads). But, my agency membership is free, I’ve had some good laughs and I never did it for the £££s anyway – and you just never know where the next daft blog-story might come from. (See previous ridiculous episodes )
• As a short-term only endeavour, I have agreed to help organise the first UK-based performance by the lovely choir who have allowed me to sing with them for the past two summers on their annual Italian tour. This has been rumbling on in the background of my Publicity role recently. It is satisfying in this case to have produced the concert flyer myself rather than paying someone else to do it. I’ve also performed a vaguely amusing juggling act to fit 24 people into a varied selection of village accommodation. So far, this is all on a spreadsheet and via a series of WhatsApp groups, but with less than three weeks to go now, the heat is on to turn it all into reality. And of course I’m frantically learning the music now that the latest Twickenham Choral concert is done and dusted.
• And – drumroll – on top of all these voluntary roles, I am now a Trustee Director of an Employee Ownership Trust company. This involves overseeing the sale of a specialist vet practice to its staff and then managing the subsequent performance of that business. This is a non-executive director type role, something I was told I should probably do as an early retiree from the sort of career I previously had, but had largely dismissed because I just wanted to get away from everything remotely corporate. I was asked by a friend completely out of the blue last year and to my own surprise said yes. I have already mentioned in this blog how professionally I perform this work – in particular including the conducting of conference calls with lawyers whilst in beachside hotels in damp swimwear – but more recently I have trawled the depths of my accountancy knowledge (obviously very deep depths – former colleagues reading this, please do not laugh!) to provide an overview of accounting principles for my fellow Trustees and participate in our inaugural business review. I suppose I should not be so surprised at the level of enjoyment I experience in being part of this – learning about a completely new business (new to me, at least), helping ensure that this vet-practice at least will not be swallowed up by big-corporate world, having colleagues again – and being paid! Remarkable. 

It was, I guess, inevitable that I would not shy away from responsibility for ever. I’m determined not to let this busyness stop me from travelling more in the next couple of years though. Time management Mrs J, time management!

Perhaps I should go one step further and start looking for even more jobs. Perhaps there’s something to be done in global tariff management right now… Hmm, now that’s just silly!