Saturday, 22nd January 2022
The title of this post might be starting to make little sense. We are three weeks gone from “the day that began the year”, and I am about to jump right back into talking about the middle of two years ago. So, I can understand if it all starts to seem somewhat confusing.
It might be useful therefore to start here with a small reminder of what story I am telling and why.
In January 2019 (interestingly, on exactly this date, 22nd of January), I started a job that I hated. A few days before that, Lu had lost his own job—the job that brought in the majority of our income. The story I have been telling in Part 1 and Part 2 begins there, and in this post, I will try to explain what those events have to do with the gratitude and wonder with which I surveyed our circumstances at the beginning of this year.
***
A reminder from Part 2
May 2020
…I responded and booked a few shifts. As it turns out, it was really good that I did. And not just because, soon after, Lu was made redundant. Again.
***
2020, Spring
Soon after we got the news that Lu was to be made redundant, I panicked, wondering what it would do to him. But he took it remarkably well.
I think it helped that he was one of hundreds in the company (and likely thousands across the country) who had lost his job due to the pandemic. Also, given that we were surrounded by so much else that was much more tragic, it was hard to feel sorry for oneself.
Rather than that, he began to strategize. He decided that he was wasn’t going to return to wandering through the job search maze he had been stuck in for all of 2019. It had been hard enough to find a job in a ‘normal’ year—trying to do so in the middle of a pandemic just seemed like too much.
He would do a master’s degree instead.
“Maybe it will improve my employability.”
So, he threw himself into that while I busied myself with becoming numb.
Once again, the rug had been pulled out from beneath us. And while it seemed selfish to complain, it also seemed as if feelings of hope and positivity required too much energy—and carried too high a risk.
Sure, I knew that I needed to praise God in all circumstances. But that didn’t mean that I needed to be jumping for joy at every exact moment. I was free to just want to be quiet for some time.
Thankfully, isolation and lockdown provided a wonderful opportunity for just that.
***
2020, Summer
In the meantime, I was back to working the phones.
When it became clear that I needed to go back, I allowed self-pity to have free reign and then acted like a martyr up until my first shift. But as soon as I started, I was confronted, not for the first time, with my own spoiled attitude.
I was doing much better at the job, but I still couldn’t quite get over the unpleasantness of feeling insignificant (“Please, I have better things to do.”) or like a nuisance (“How many times? Can you please stop calling!”). These were two things I absolutely hated to feel, but I had to ask myself why I took it so personally when no one else seemed to.
The explanation, if I wanted to be honest, was obvious. And clearly, there was more work to be done in me. Perhaps, I reasoned, God’s plan was for me to continue on that particular road until I got to the point where I no longer felt like the journey was beneath me.
So, I fixed my attitude and faced the work.
And a good thing too! After about six weeks of working (and chipping away at my silly pride), the company came back to say that there were no more shifts available and that actually, I was to be placed on furlough.
I could hardly believe it. Because I had returned to work for those few weeks, I suddenly qualified for furlough where I hadn’t before. This meant that for the following three months, I had that income coming in without having to actually work the phones.
It was a very good summer.
***
2020, Autumn
Furlough ended with summer, and I had to go back.
So, while Lu mastered his course in the day, I dialled in the evenings.
And it was actually OK. I found that I wasn’t as bothered by the dismissive and the suspicious. And as for the swearers and hanger-uppers, they often made me laugh.
Also, I wasn’t always on the phones. There were the odd team leader shifts, yes, but then there was something else.
My boss messaged me one day to say that the research team needed someone to help with some admin work, and would I be interested in something like that. I had no idea what it entailed but I didn’t care. All I saw was an opportunity to work a non-phone shift, and I grabbed it.
All team leaders were desperate for a chance to get off the phones but during these quieter times, non-phone tasks or shifts were scarce and really only offered to Senior Team Leaders.
I’m not actually sure why he approached me, especially as I had never interacted with the research team. It may have had something to do with my occasional desperate messages to him asking if there was any other type of work available that I could do. Anything, I’ll do anything. Maybe that’s why I was on his mind when this came up.
Whatever the reason, I will always be grateful that he asked me.
***
The Research Team
‘The Research Team’ was, for me, this mysterious force that existed behind a thick velvet curtain. They weren’t often referred to on our side of the business, and I hardly ever considered them. That part of the company may as well not have existed.
I suppose, somewhere in my head, I was aware that there was a department that generated the survey questions I had to ask over the phone, and that when I completed a survey, someone somewhere received the information and did something with it. But because I was a remote worker who only ever interacted with the Interviewing Services team online, and for whom accessing a survey and sending off the answers simply required a series of passwords and mouse clicks, well, to me the Research Team were irrelevant.
Not to Lu though. For some reason, a long time before, he’d caught on to the significance of that part of the company and had said many times: “You know, you could be a researcher too…”
There was nothing I didn’t tell him. I would hike up my wrapper (figuratively, of course) and sharpen the edge in my voice to make my irritation clear.
What was his obsession with suggesting career paths for me? What didn’t he understand about me wanting to be a stay-at-home-mum! Kilode? Besides, even if I needed to work, did I look like the kind of person that wanted to be programming silly surveys into a computer? Abeg!
How little I knew.
***
2020, Winter
I started doing some admin tasks for the researchers and the first thing I realised, to my surprise, was that they weren’t just some boring survey creators who had nothing better to do than to come up with questions that no one wanted to answer.
The more work I did for them, the more fascinated I became with this group of people. They were intelligent and thoughtful and really seemed to care about the information they were working to get.
And gradually, I did too. Through them, I was brought closer to the impact of the data I was gathering over the phones. And in them, I saw analytical thinking that both impressed and intrigued me. Before I became conscious of it, I was drawn in and there was no going back.
Every time I worked a research admin shift, I went above and beyond what I was paid to do. In my eagerness, I would often forget to clock in before I started, or, to avoid costing the company more than the agreed daily wage, I would deliberately clock off and continue working.
It wasn’t particularly complex work (transcribing, notetaking, that sort of thing), but with dedication never before shown in this job, I gave it my all. The feedback I was getting from the researchers was extremely positive, and I was determined to continue to please them.
You want notes? I’ll give you notes. In fact, I’ll take down every single word and make it into a script.
Oh, and also, I’ll highlight what I think are the key points.
You want them before 10am? I’ll stay up past midnight and get them to you before dawn.
Before long, my boss was emailing me to tell me that his boss’s boss had heard about how well I was doing and wanted him to pass on a “well done” to me. My feet didn’t touch the ground much that day.
I should pause and say here that most of this wasn’t really a reflection of any awesomeness on my part. The tasks I was doing were new (necessitated by COVID changes) and they came with little expectation, so blowing the research team away was always going to be easy—especially because I was bordering on desperation. Basically, my longing for “something more” just found a really timely springboard to jump off.
***
2021, January
One year ago, when I wrote this post. I ended it with these words:
“…new year, same old life, same old struggle, same old me. The good thing is, it’s also the same old God, so deep, deep down, I am looking forward to something. I hope you are too. Happy New Year.”
The New Year had met me with a very ‘meh’ feeling towards start-of-the-year hoping and dreaming. We’d floated into 2019 unprepared for how hard a year it would be. We then went into 2020 with great expectations, which, needless to say, it did not fulfil. So, at the start of 2021, I was close to jaded.
Nothing much had changed. Lu still didn’t have a job (he was in the middle of his master’s), I was still working the phones and we were still living on a combination of garri, grace and gifts.
Of course, in reality a lot had changed and there was much to be thankful for. Over the previous two years, the boys had remained happy, healthy and were developing beautifully. Lu and I had drawn closer and were both learning much about each other and ourselves. And most of all, we were finding (or re-discovering) and enjoying a wonderful support system of family and friends. In that regard, we were incredibly wealthy and there was no mistaking that.
Yes, there was a lot to be grateful for, but it wasn’t always easy to look away from the areas where I felt lack.
And for me, it was just as existential as it was material.
Throughout this time, underneath my awareness, I had travelled slowly from a position where I had no desire for a career (and in fact, I was convinced that that was the right and noble path for all mothers), through a position where I conceded that jobs were sometimes a necessary short-term evil and that I needed to just get on with it, and had finally landed in a place where I realised that work was a beautiful thing created by God, and not a curse placed on us after Eden-fruit-gate.
Where I had originally been worried that the pull to do any work outside the house was some sort of evil temptation, after the events of the previous two years, I began to see it as a call to invest in the capacities and opportunities I had been given, laying aside fear, pride, and laziness (this might seem harsh but it’s the truth.)
At the beginning of 2021, these realisations began to swim up from under the surface of my consciousness and after many weeks of philosophising and overthinking (some of which is recorded in this post), I decided to take intentional steps towards building a career.
***
2021, March
“…It’s been a slow journey of discovering a slow-burning desire to do more and to learn more. And to accept that that desire comes from God. I am worried though about whether I am applying that desire the right way and what this change will do to us…” Me, then.
I had at first toyed with the idea of pursuing a master’s. Lu was having so much fun with his, and as I watched him with his pens and notebooks, course discussions and research reports, I envied him. I too wanted to learn something new. And evidently, I too, needed to.
I started to search, within me and without, for exactly what I could and wanted to study. This had always been a big unanswered question and possibly part of the reason I quickly embraced motherhood as my whole and final pursuit.
In the middle of endless internet searches and conversations about possible courses and their career implications, I got a mass email, sent by my boss in the telephone interviewing team: Anyone interested in applying to join the research team as Trainee Research Executive?
***
One of the other major reasons for my January 2021 blues was the fact that the admin tasks I had been so enthusiastically helping out with had died down towards the end of 2020, and so had my interactions with the researchers. They slipped back behind their velvet curtain, and I was left wondering when I would see them again.
From time to time, I would message my boss to ask if there were any more requests for research admin help and would be really disappointed when his I’m afraid not response would light up my screen.
I know I sound like an awestruck teenager, and while I wasn’t silly about it, it probably wasn’t that different. I was in awe of these “cool kids”—analytical, sharp, interesting and interested—and I wanted to be like them.
After my exasperation the first few times he mentioned it, Lu had stopped suggesting that I could be a researcher too. But secretly, I had started to wonder.
And then came my boss’s email.
***
For probably the first time in my entire life, I made an instant decision to do something and then did it immediately after.
I still didn’t fully understand what the researchers did, but I knew that I wanted to work with them, and here was not only an opportunity to be shown how to do it, but to also be paid as I learned. This was much better than a master’s.
I didn’t stop to think about it being an office-based role in a London-based company when I live in Crewe. Or about it being a full-time job on a new career path when I have three small boys. I just closed my mind (or opened it, whatever) and applied.
***
2021, November
It was late November. I had just had my six-month review at work, and it had gone very well. The feedback I got was overwhelmingly positive and I was floating.
I couldn’t believe (and still really can’t) how happy I was at my job. Without having a proper idea of what I was heading into, I had applied for and gotten accepted to do the absolute perfect work for me. The more I learned about and did my job, the clearer it became that it entailed a beautiful combination of almost every interest and skill I have or have developed over time.
As for my colleagues, the “cool kids”—
—you know how something looks really good from afar, but up close, when you can see all the imperfections, you’re not quite so enamoured?
Well, it wasn’t like that. I would often ask Lu in wonder, “How have they just gone and gathered the nicest, most supportive people in industry and put them in this company?”
I was bowled over by how good I had it, and I was immensely grateful to God for every time I had been “pulled back in” to working the phones. Without being forced to stick with, appreciate, and work hard at the job I had hated, I never would have found the one I loved.
And Lu, who tried and failed to hold back his I told you so, was thrilled for me
As for him, he had completed his master’s two months before, and had done a really good job on it, but he still didn’t have a permanent job offer—just a temporary internship. He was being very positive about it all, talking about maybe starting his own business instead. I wasn’t really sure what to feel and so chose to ignore all feelings.
And then two days after that six-month review I had, he got an unexpected message.
It was from a manager in that company that had made him redundant in 2020, the one that had offered him a fantastic opportunity just before the pandemic hit. He wanted to know if Lu was available: they were looking for someone.
***
2021, December
The last month of 2021 was a whirlwind. December often is, but for us, there was hardly time to stop and breathe.
Lu was offered the job and they wanted him to start immediately. It was a slightly better role, with slightly better pay, and to make it even better, because of his master’s, he felt as if he understood the job even more.
“It’s actually so good that I was made redundant—I would have never done that master’s otherwise.”
(Oh, and he then got the news that he’d been awarded a Distinction for said master’s).
But we didn’t have the time to properly rejoice over any of that. There were arrangements to be made.
You see, when I was offered the job as a researcher, back in May 2021, we knew then that we would have to move closer to London (I was ecstatic). But we had to wait for Lu to finish his course and to get a job—there was no way of knowing where to move to until then.
Once he was offered this job therefore, we were able to make proper decisions. Now, because of school places (and complex rules and deadlines I won’t bore you with), we had to make said decisions quickly. All of December was spent trawling through websites and apps; driving back and forth between cities and villages; making endless phone calls to strangers, friends, and family; calculating and recalculating our options.
And then, on the 31st of December 2021, just before most businesses were set to close their operations for the long weekend, we got a phone call.
It was a nice man (Alan, calling on Sylvester’s behalf), and he just wanted to let us know that we—who had started the year on an annual household income that was less than a third of the UK average—had just been offered a mortgage to buy our first home.
***
2022, January
“When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.” The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.” Psalm 126: 1-3
We are not Israel, and the Bible story is not our story. It is God’s. However, Lu and I can relate to the feeling expressed in this psalm.
I remember reading it in 2019 and imagining us in a position where we too could say that our joy was dreamlike. I’d shared the thought with Lu, but it was on a particularly bad day when he had been in no mood to dream. I didn’t blame him. I’d had many days like that.
But on the day that began this year, we were indeed like dreamers. And we weren’t sure which part of our December dream was hardest to believe.
Was it the speed with which Lu went from “You know, I think I might have to admit that I am unemployable” to being handed a laptop, ID card and building pass?
Or was it the timely advice of an incredible friend who made it his business to challenge us to get out of “the rent trap”?
Was it the unexpected promotion and pay rise I got that, combined with Lu’s new job, suddenly made buying a house within the realms of possibility?
Or was it the willing spirit with which our family showed us that they would do anything they could to help us reach our goal?
(Including insisting and ensuring that we were and would remain free of crippling debt?)
And the fact that with all that support, we were in a position that had for so long seemed about as obtainable as the thing you reach for in desperate hope, just before you wake up from a lovely dream.
It was all too much to take in, and if I am honest, I haven’t fully accepted that it’s happening.
***
Today, 22nd January 2022
You might be asking yourself what all this was a story of. Was it my journey of self-discovery and of a fulfilling career? Lu’s difficult tread through the dark forest of job loss? Our family’s slow climb to financial stability?
Well, whatever it was, it’s not over yet. And that fact is in equal parts exciting and terrifying.
Lu and I played Ludo with the boys today, and it was really good fun. There was shouting, laughing, a little crying, and lots of cheering. At some point, as I waited for my turn, it occurred to me how like life the game is. You all start off somewhere but very quickly you could be left behind. Everyone will go ahead of you, easily rolling their sixes and starting to make moves towards their goal. But you could stay stuck, rolling twos and threes, over and over, missing chances to even start the journey.
And even when you finally get a chance to start, and you find that you’re making some headway towards the goal, you could, through no fault of your own, get kicked right back to base, with all of your progress erased as if it had never been made.
Or, as Timi gleefully discovered, things could just as easily, change dramatically in your favour, and even if you spent dozens of turns stuck at base, watching everyone move much too far ahead, you could still end up winning the game.
The point is life, like Ludo, can be unequal and unpredictable.
Does that therefore leave me worrying that everything could be toppled over yet again, or that we could be sent back to where we were at the start of this story? Yes, absolutely. I worry about that every day.
But then I am comforted by the knowledge that on top of anything else that this story was about, it was chiefly the story of God’s constant and unending sovereignty and grace. And unlike the dice that determines your Ludo progress, God’s good and perfect will can always be trusted.
And so even if you’re “winning” or “losing”, you always win.
***
Photo by Folu Eludire on Unsplash
Lu Me & Them 