“Thank you, Sandra,” I said to the woman at the supermarket checkout yesterday. Sandra had just rung up my groceries, and processed my card.
Sandra looked up at me in surprise as I finished packing my bag. “Thank you,” she replied, smiling. “Nobody ever usually says my name.”
Sandra’s name was on her staff badge. I always look to see what a staff member’s name is and address them by it. This is the most basic courtesy you can offer to anyone, especially people who are more than likely earning less money an hour than you are.
I remember what it felt like to work a minimum-wage job. My former temping jobs as receptionist or secretary took place at a low time in my life. I was living in the north of England, and the relationship that had brought me there was imploding.
‘When you say co-ed, do you mean there’s going to be, like, girls going to Castlerock?’
Rosita Boland: I was only locked out of my hotel. Imagine being locked out of your country
Rosita Boland: When the email went unanswered I felt a rising dread
Prisoner literacy: ‘I wrote to my girlfriend. She wrote back and I could read it’
My fiance and I were discovering we did not, actually, want to spend the rest of our lives together. Meantime, rent still had to be paid, as did our household bills, while we figured out what to do. I had to contribute my part to the bills, and so I took whatever jobs I could.
My first name is a little uncommon, and I’m often asked to repeat it. For whatever reason, nobody I worked for during those months bothered to remember my name in any form. I was, variously, “You” or, “The temp” or, “Hey, you”.
The week my fiance and I decided to split up was the week I got the nastiest of all my temping jobs. It was to fill in for a receptionist on holiday for a week. The office was a small architect’s practice, of some seven people. I was the sole woman there. The office was both small and open plan.
My tasks that week were to answer, and transfer phonecalls from the switch; type up letters (this was a pre-email era); and make the morning and afternoon teas and coffees. My desk was in the middle of the room.
The job itself was no more or less depressing than any of the others I had had that winter. Nobody remembered my name. The work was repetitive and dull. The men who worked there mostly ignored me, although once when I arrived back after lunch, I had the distinct impression I had walked in on some discussion that involved me. There was a suppressed laugh when I opened the door, and heads went down suspiciously fast.
On the Thursday afternoon of that week, a call came in for the head of the practice. I put it through as usual. His desk was about two metres away from mine. The ensuing conversation on his side, the part that I and the rest of the entire office could clearly hear, went like this.
“Hi James.”
“No, that wasn’t Mandy on reception just now. She’s away this week.”
“Who’s on the desk with the strange accent? That’s the temp who put you through. She’s Irish, and she’s really stupid.”
He continued on with his call, while the other staff members sniggered loudly, and shuffled their papers. I sat at the desk in silence, my face burning, and a sensation of rage and shame coursing through me. Even at the time, I remember thinking: this is a nadir in my life that I will always recall. My wedding had just been cancelled. I did not have a proper job. I had just been publicly humiliated in the terrible, badly-paid job I was currently doing. In those moments, I felt so worthless; that I had utterly failed in both my personal and professional life.
If I had got up and walked out, I would not have got paid for the days I had already worked. That’s what was going though my head. It would have been my word in the employment agency where I was a disposable nonentity against those of these odious men. Right then in my life, I did not have the energy or spirit to go there; to complain, to react, to challenge. All I wanted was to get paid the following day and vanish from their lives forever. So I said nothing. Did nothing.
The following day was Friday; my final day. All day, I carried out my tasks as usual. Answered calls. Typed letters. Made teas. Made coffees. Towards the end of the day, I carried the dirty mugs into the little kitchenette with its adjoining toilet. There was a door to the kitchenette, which I closed and locked.
One by one, I washed the mugs in the toilet, and left them to drain by the kitchenette sink. On Monday, all the men in the office would be drinking their teas and coffees out of these mugs. These mugs washed in water from the toilet. The man who had insulted me had a mug with the word ‘Boss” on it. I paid special attention to that one.
I unlocked the kitchenette door and left the office forever without a word.
It’s a long time since I worked as a temp, but I have never forgotten what it was like to be made feel like nothing, just for doing my job. Addressing someone by their name who is performing a service for you, and thanking them for it, makes that person feel less invisible. Please remember that next time you see someone wearing a name badge.