It was very important that during the first few months in Oxford I
should prove myself capable, and find a job. Any job. We all know
that jobs are not easy to acquire even if you possess a degree, are
under thirty, and have at least 8 O levels and three As. With few
qualifications, being over forty and out of the job market for twenty
years, my chances of landing one seemed slight. But I did get one – in
a University Department. It was for one day a week, sitting in, as it
were, for someone who only wanted to work four days a week. The
title of this job escapes me know but the duties were as follows. I
was in charge of petty cash, I had to type, answer the telephone, try
to find suitable candidates willing to come in to take various tests for
the department’s research work; and I had to water the plants.
The people in this department were very strange, I thought. All the
men looked like academic lumberjacks, resembling the cast from the
film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. They wore tartan shirts, jeans,
or corduroy trousers, and had brown lace-up boots. They all had
beards, John Lennon spectacles, and read The Guardian during the
lunch hour. Left wing intellectuals, mainly, of a very familiar type in
Oxford. I discovered later this breed shouts loudly about their
distaste of capitalism, their dislike of conservatism, their distrust, and
disdain at the way the government governs, while at the same time
enjoying the very things they profess to condemn. Many of them live
in large, detached houses in North Oxford, possess large cars,
employ au pair girls to look after their children, and go on extensive
and expensive holidays abroad in the summer, eulogizing the virtues
of Marxism the while.
The only faintly exciting thing about this job was getting the
payslip. I felt that I had joined the workers of the world and because
of this enjoyed new confidence, and it was encouraging to know I
had got a job within three months of being single. I soon saw that
one day’s work a week was not going to make me rich quickly.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment