You should hear about some of the other jobs i've done.

Last week my kids were sick, the oldest one had a nasty virus resulting in a vomiting episode in bed.  As luck would have it he’d slipped in to bed with us so that was convenient! The littlest munchkin had an ear infection following a hideous cold .You couldn’t put him down for two minutes otherwise he would head butt the floor! Yes it was a fun week in our household and it added the additional role of nurse to an ever increasing job description that includes chef, cleaner and upholder of the peace!

I have had a variety of jobs thus far and some of them have been quite memorable.  Like most teenagers I had a couple of babysitting jobs when I was younger, babysitting the children of people who lived on my parents’ caravan park. My first job involved sitting for three children who all had issues with wetting the bed, not a problem I hear you say apart from their parents made them wear black bin liners to bed! I’m not on the shortlist for parent of the year but I can safely say this was wrong on so many levels! It was also very hard to listen to my Sony Walkman with all that rustling going on!

Undeterred by stupid parents, I babysat for a new family a couple of years later. This family comprised of two toddlers and a pair of alcoholic parents. They were partial to the pub so I was watching my Jason Donovan* videos and doing my homework in their caravan between four and five times a week.

The dad worked down the sewers so had no sense of smell; this was evident in the caravan that was a bit on the whiffy side! The little boy who was four liked to jump out of the caravan window so I would have to chase him around the site on a regular basis. Once in the caravan he would throw his dad’s vinyl collection at my head and swear at me! The money was too good so I kept looking after the kids and then one night I caught them both naked attempting to copulate! Yes you read that right; the little boy was on top of his sister thrusting as if there was no tomorrow. Luckily there was no erection but it was a disturbing sight and one that needed further investigation.

I had to break this news to their parents who then got the police involved so I had to have countless interviews with the local constabulary.

The police were concerned that the little boy had witnessed an older child performing the same act on another child. Oh yes there were some lovely families on the caravan park! My theory is that he’d actually seen his parents having drunk sex as they all slept in the main room of the caravan together!

Still I babysat the kids until the little boy urinated on the carpet one night. Again I sat down with the parents to explain the little boy’s actions, to which the mum then fiercely accused me of pissing on the carpet! That signalled the end of my babysitting career.

On the weekends I also worked at the local supermarket as a shelf stacker. During my most memorable shift, I was re-stocking the soft drinks aisle when I accidently sliced through a three-litre bottle of coke. I will never forget the horrified expression of the lady in the shiny bright pink shell suit who just happened to be approaching me at that exact moment! She stood there whilst a torrent of coke sprayed her from head to foot, I was like the little boy with his finger in the dam but it did no good! I would of laughed heartily if I hadn’t been the cause of this sugary shower.

 The supermarket had to pay for her shell suit to be dry-cleaned but they didn’t sack me. The following week they put me on toilet rolls!

Then came my hospitality years where I worked with many Australians in a famous London venue. There was a lot of down time between customers so much time was spent consuming everything the bar had to offer.  Generally by interval I was half cut and it wasn’t unusual to open the wrong bottle of champagne on purpose. Many nights we went to the local pub with a bag full of Grolsch, some of which rolled out of my bag one night as I exited stage door. They were fun times but I was naughty and will not be telling my children these stories!

I don’t want to incriminate myself further but needless to say during this time we always had a bottle of Lanson Black label in the fridge!

The last truly awful job I had was once I left university and it involved working twelve-hour shifts at Heathrow airport.  I lived with five of my good friends from Uni and four of us answered an ad for promotional work. It paid well and you worked three days on and three days off.  We had to wear a Hawaiian shirt, a grass skirt and lei to hand out leaflets to departing passengers.

The outfit had absolutely nothing to do with the information on the leaflets and the lei was accidently left at home after day one!

This job was mind numbingly boring and we had to be cheerful from seven in the morning to seven at night! The first couple of days were awful and we spent most of our time meeting up between terminals three and four. We didn’t have to clock in with anybody and we soon figured this out! Our shifts started later and were finishing increasingly earlier and then those in charge figured it out!

Then we had to sign in on the hour, every hour and it was truly painful.

The writing was on the wall after that and one by one we left.

Then came the sitting down on my backside jobs- telemarketing, market research and call centres. I hated trying to sell people pure crap and calling people at unsociable hours to ask whether they suffered from migraines, colds or incontinence!  I got sacked from two telesales jobs because of poor sales ( read no sales) but I was a good market researcher especially in Australia where people seemed to like my accent or had a relative in London that I might know.

I also worked for Medibank Private for a short time in their call centre but it was very depressing. I remember speaking to one elderly lady who had been on hold for forty minutes. She had fallen down her stairs but didn’t want to call an ambulance in case she wasn’t insured. That job broke my heart a little bit but on the plus side left me very knowledgeable about health insurance.

 All of those jobs taught me so much about myself, people in general and how a good sense of humour can get you through the day.  One particular job also taught me the importance of checking on quiet children, as you never know what they might be getting up to!