Part I

Writing here to tell my story… the story of someone who won it and lost it at the same time. My name is … and here is what I remember:

I was approached by a recruiter after 5 months of trying to find a job, of experiencing furlough, redundancy, uncertainty about what would be the case of next, doubts, ups and down, being put in a lot of new situations, having my world turned upside down and my dreams put on pause. I was self-isolating during that period of time, I was missing oxygen, people, connections, my health, my brain and myself at the same time. I knew I needed a job so I took the plunge with the thought that maybe this may work out, finally. I don’t remember the conversation we had, but he secured me an interview with the founder of the company he was working for. I had the interview right the following day.

I remember talking a lot about myself, about how come I switched careers, why I was made redundant. The interviewer wanted to know quite few things about me and he did find out. The time passed by and we ended up the interview with no time for me to ask any questions about the role, what it implies as day to day expectations. I left it that way as my mindset was ‘it’s for him to like me… he has the cards in hands’. I received a call later that day and I was told that I was offered a two weeks paid trial and we would go from there.

Next day I was in, it was a Friday. First thing first, a call with the man who hired me — ‘You did well in the interview, well done!’ I didn’t know what that meant, I went with the flow… Few minutes after, a call with the members of the team I was supposed to be part of — there was another guy in the same situation like me — just hired, probably going through a trial period… my first thought was: ‘Is this a competition I entered? Who is this guy?’ I checked him up, it was someone with so much more experience than myself. I saw myself with no chances to win this.

I felt bad, the whole period of time, I felt I was performing bad, I was slow, things were taking too long, I was not understanding what was required from me, I was asking silly question… so I started to work overtime to compensate for the all these weaknesses I was seeing in myself. It was a lot, to the point of working the whole night and going back to work right after for another 7 hours shift. I didn’t know what I was going into, but for me that turned into a question mark that made it all eventually fall apart.

I was almost everyday asked how I was doing — I was saying ‘I am happy. Things are busy here, that’s good.’ Partially in me I knew that was true, I was enjoying the perspectives of various work, remote work, shorter week work schedule, the people… the work itself was nice… it’s just I didn’t know if they would be ok with my current rhythm, with the fact that I was slow. I was told after a week of working that the team was happy with me, but I still wondered… as I did work those extra hours. That work they were happy with was not done in the number of hours I was supposed to do it and this raised the question even further… have I raised their expectations too high?

When I was at Waitrose, it was one moment that made all things fall apart there:

• ‘I cannot do overtime anymore, I am sorry’. (I am exhausted)
• ‘If you don’t work hard you will not get anywhere’, was the reply.

I found out that I got the job on the basis of a question that felt to me like a test question: ‘are you interested in getting a job here?’ I knew there was only one right answer, but I went along with myself: ‘Do you want to offer me one?’ ‘Yes’, I was told. I asked further: ‘What are the terms… and when do you need an answer from me?’ (Note: I don’t remember in which order I asked these two questions and if something happened in between) … ‘Let me speak with the recruiting company and I will get back to you after.’

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