Date Tuesday 7 March Time 1.15pm
My thoughts and reflections:
But then she read, ‘I’m always glad when I get to work with Alice because I know that not only will the work get done, but it will get done quickly and expertly, and that everyone ends up giving more than they usually do yet without feeling like they have – she brings an energy that’s kind of special and makes everyone feel valued. ’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘Here’s another,’ she said. ‘Alice is a born leader when it comes to her projects, and a creative and dynamic and, as of yet, untapped asset to the wider team; I have no doubt that when she chooses to do so, she will rapidly rise in her career and deservedly so.’ Clare stopped at this point and surveyed me over her glasses.
‘There are more comments like these,’ she said, ‘and they were a pleasure to read. I think what surprises me then, is the fact that you’ve mentioned several times that you are in your late thirties—’
‘Well, mid,’ I corrected.
‘And that you are an Editor. And then I looked back through your form and saw that when you started here, you spent six months covering as Senior Editor. Why the backwards move when the fixed term ended? Something doesn’t add up here, Alice.
Why are you settling for a position that doesn’t match your potential?
Are Carsons failing to recognise the worth of certain employees?
Or is it because, for some reason, you don’t recognise your own worth? ’
And I don’t know if it’s because she looked a tiny bit like Granny Carver (not that I could see her thighs because she was wearing a skirt) or whether it was PMT, but I ended up snivelling and snuffling and explaining to her that my older sisters were horrifically successful and that Astrid regularly worked seventy hours a week, and that Arrie had her own business with a million pound turnover by the time she was twenty-five, and that I was quite different to them and that I’d had some awful school reports from St Hilda’s, which was probably why I always ended up having to sleep in the garage when I went home.
She said she’d often had to sleep in the shed when she went home.
Then she asked me what I felt were my greatest weaknesses, and because I was emotional, I forgot to lie and say something that made me sound good like ‘my flaw is I give too much and work too hard’, and just answered, ‘I like having a laugh and I’m lazy,’ and then I clapped my hand over my mouth, because I shouldn’t have said that.
And Clare Atkins adjusted her half-moon glasses and said, ‘Interesting. What you see as laziness, these people you work with’ – she held up the 360 reviews – ‘seem to view as efficiency, and finding effective solutions. And what you call having a laugh, they appear to consider good-humoured and personable leadership. Which is a quality much in need in any business.’
I swallowed.
‘Just something to think about, Alice. You have a lot of influence here. It might be time to adjust your perspective.’ Then she handed me a tissue, said that we’d leave it for today and told me to go and get myself a nice cup of tea.
When I came out, Sales Chloe was walking past and she took one look at me and trotted off, at twice her normal pace.
Yaz told me that it had gone all round the building that I’d been reduced to tears and that Clare Atkins was brutal and that Chloe was having to breathe into a paper bag because she was so nervous.
Another day, I might have left Chloe to her paper bag, but after those nice 360s, which almost suggest I have manifested the respect of some colleagues, I think I’m going to take a trip to Sales and put her out of her misery…
My intention is:
To manifest a free holiday (after I’d calmed Chloe down she was quite sweet and showed me her snaps from skiing in Verbier this Christmas, as well as a new charm she’d got for her bracelet. There are, it transpires, stories behind all her charms, and it’s actually rather touching).
To consider my perspective and maybe get myself some of those half-moon spectacles – I rather like the Alice who Clare Atkins saw.