I started work, believe it or not, when I was 11 years old, and since then I have had a vast array of jobs across a wide range of sectors. In each and every one, I have learned valuable lessons.
At age 11, I decided I wanted more pocket money but knew my mother didn’t have the resources to provide it. So, as luck would have it, my mother and I were walking down a high street a few miles from where we lived, and I spotted a sign in a florist’s window asking for someone to give some help bringing in the plants that were displayed outside the shop. I went inside, spoke to the owner, and was given the job. It was 15 minutes at the end of each day, bringing the plants etc. inside the shop. The trouble was, it took me the best part of an hour to get to the shop, and another hour to get back home if my mother wasn’t able to give me a lift. My school was in another area altogether, so I couldn’t do it on my way home. Also, I didn’t want to do it in my school uniform because it was quite a messy businesses. I did it for a while, but soon learned that the time spent getting to and from the florist’s was not worth the amount of money I was earning. My mother agreed because it was also impacting on my homework time. I learned then that just earning money wasn’t the only consideration to be made when deciding to take a job.
The next two part-time jobs I had were on a Saturday in hairdresser’s washing people’s hair, sweeping up hair, and making drinks etc., starting this at the age of 12 and lying about my age. It was much easier then! The money was much better than the florist’s, it was one day at the weekend and overall it wasn’t too bad. I learned, though, that I not only did not want to follow my mother into the profession I also had no aptitude for it. After that, I went to work in retail because I had a National Insurance number which meant the chain stores could employ me. I worked in clothes shops, DIY stores, supermarkets…all sorts. And the one thing I learned in those was that people could be really condescending to someone working in retail, especially if you worked in the store’s cafe. I remember one woman asking me if I knew where in Brighton sold designer clothes as I was clearing the table in the budget department store (BHS for British readers). Then she looked me up and down in my (hideous) uniform, and said ‘no, I don’t suppose you would’. I was a student at the time, and just said that the best place for designer gear was Bond Street in London, and I reminded her that she was the one dining in the BHS cafe, not me. I just worked there to fund my Masters degree! I learned how utterly disrespectful people can be of those who work in the service sector, but also how lovely some people could be. I also knew that retail would not be my career after working in it, no matter how much I had enjoyed working for a fashion retailer and getting the discounts on the clothes!
I also worked on the money markets in the City. I started off in the back office, processing the deals for the dealers (this was the late 1980’s, early 1990’s and the process was very far from digital!) so that the money could be moved by my manager to satisfy the deals, and so that the reconciliation could be done at the end of the day, week, month, quarter, and year. Then I graduated to the floor itself. And that was a lesson in misogyny – you had to walk the length of the dealing room where abuse would be shouted at you. If you made it without crying, you were accepted. Somehow, I made it to the toilets before I cried. I was 22 years old. Then, you didn’t need to be a graduate, you just needed to be quick-thinking and have the gift of the gab. You had to be able to weigh up risks, know what was going on in the world enough to know what was going to impact the markets, and act accordingly. It was no shock when we fell out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, it was obvious for at least a week if I recall that Sterling was being targeted. I also learned that I needed to have a purpose to my job, that just turning up every day and taking home the pay was not enough for me, no matter how good the pay was. That, in fact, it was incredibly difficult for me to just turn up every day, and I struggled to get out of bed. It ended when I burst into tears on a plane home from a holiday with friends when I was 23 – I remember thinking, I work 48 weeks a year for this. It was not enough. I stuck it out for another year, but I applied to go to university as soon as I returned from the holiday, and the rest was history. Literally, it’s what I studied at Cardiff.
I had the idea that I was going to enter journalism, I wanted to be the next Kate Adie, the BBC’s first female war correspondent. Doing an internship for the BBC and other media outlets disabused me of that notion, and I loved my degree too much to not do a History Masters degree. I wanted to continue to do a PhD in History, but I spent most of the time at Sussex where I did my Masters regretting being there, and grieving the death of my beloved grandmother. My heart wasn’t in doing more studying at the time, so I decided to take a year out and decide what I wanted to do. The idea was to do temporary work in London offices, which I did for a little while until I got the job of PA to the Marketing Director of English Heritage. I was, in all honesty, the worst PA in the world. He was kind, though, and we rubbed along okay! But it was the entrance I wanted into the world of heritage, and I loved my time there. In total, I spent six years at English Heritage I think, including a secondment to Newcastle. Unfortunately, the pay was rubbish and there’s only so often you can tell yourself you love your job before you decide you want more money.
English Heritage was pseudo-public sector because I worked for the commercial arm of the organisation. I was stunned by the public sector side, inured as I was by the harsh world of the money markets and its approach to life and work. I remember someone telling me they couldn’t get to a meeting because they were working from home (it was the days before Zoom or even Skype), and I remember saying ‘but that’s your problem, not mine’ and being gently reminded that I wasn’t in the private sector anymore. But my private sector background never truly left me, and I went to work for Regional Development Agencies which were half-public, half-private sector, tasked with developing local economies and undertaking regeneration. It was interesting, and I learned a huge amount. I rose through the ranks quickly, gained a reputation for getting things done, for seeing through bad business plans and correcting them, and for being unworried about restructuring organisations that needed it if they were to receive public money. Pretty hard-nosed if I’m honest, thanks to my time on the money markets. What I learned was that just physical regeneration is a waste of time and money if it isn’t supported by investment into innovation, business and skills support. The latter happened, but often not in tandem with the regeneration projects. I learned about productivity, I learned about efficiency, and I learned that I had a natural talent for strategy. With the tasks I was given I didn’t always make friends, but that was fine by me. That wasn’t what I was there to do.
I steadily continued to rise through the ranks, taking on more and more responsibility and more senior roles. I oversaw budgets of millions, and I brought in millions more in terms of public and private funding to support regeneration and physical developments of places. I learned how to blend culture into economic development and growth, how vital it is in turning places into areas where people want to spend their time, their money, and bring their families. The problem, frankly, was the political interference in these places whether local or national. I have always said that I admire anyone who is prepared to stand up and be rejected by voters, because it’s something I am not prepared to do. That said, I increasingly think it takes a particular brand of narcissism to do that which isn’t good for the areas and people they serve. I learned that party doctrine is more important than what is actually good for the area, or even the country. I learned that public money is too often spent in areas to buy votes rather than grow the area, and it isn’t spent in the most efficient or effective way because politicians like to curry favour. And I learned that the most important thing to a politician is re-election no matter the cost to innocent people. It is a truth that no politician has lost their seat because of negligence that has led to the death of a child, but they will lose their seat if potholes aren’t filled in on the roads. So, guess where the investment goes.
That learning bred the cynicism in me, and I became a little too jaded. And I didn’t like that I did. They say you become who you most associate with, and I didn’t want to become like some of the politicians I mixed with (though they aren’t all bad), and I certainly didn’t want to become like some of the civil servants I mixed with (again, not all bad). So, I went to work in a university. My word, that was on a par just for different reasons. The internal politics were more hazardous than anything I’d seen at Westminster, the rampant egos as well. If you didn’t have ‘Dr’ before your name you were not worthy, no matter what you were trying to do. I can honestly say that job did more to destroy my confidence than any I had done before or since. It didn’t help that I was appointed to a role that had no budget attached and absolutely no power, something I didn’t realise until it was too late. It was a job created for the whim of a megalomaniac and his sidekick, both of whom really wanted to do the job but couldn’t be seen to.
It is true that we learn more in difficult times than we do in good. In that job, I learned a huge amount about the innovation process which has, and will continue to be, invaluable to me. But I also learned that the Emperor’s New Clothes is a real thing, that people can sell pie-in-the-sky dreams with no responsibility taken for what happens next. I learned that I am a true and faithful Sagittarian in that I am blunt and honest, which doesn’t sit well with the egomaniacs. At all. I learned, also in the next role I had, that ability and competence are meaningless when people tell you what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear – that even apparently clever people in the highest of positions in an organisation fall prey to the words of people spouting the biggest load of rubbish if it is said with an air of confidence. And that those people are rarely held to account when they fail to deliver. But woe betide the honest person, who tells life as it is, if they have to pick up the projects of the b*********r and realises they are wholly undeliverable. I know I come across as bitter but, really, I’m not. I learned invaluable things about myself and about people whose arrogance writes cheques their ability cannot cash. I see them for who they are much more clearly now, and that’s always a good thing. I don’t know what happened to the people like this I met in my last two roles, I haven’t had the interest to check up on them.
What happened to me? Well, I finally started to do what I have a purpose for – write. And challenge the status quo, think innovatively and say it. I finally have the freedom to say some of the things I didn’t even say in my previous jobs, with all my honesty. And I do say them, unashamedly. To bring in money now, I clean other people’s houses in between writing and, again, I have learned so much. I have met some truly lovely people, people I would want to still see when I give up the cleaning soon. And I have met some less-nice people who show their insecurities by treating me and my colleagues as though we are the paid help. Their servants rather than people who are doing a service.
So, in my long and varied career, I have learned to always treat everyone I encounter with respect regardless of the job they are doing. Everyone is equally deserving of respect in my eyes. I have learned that a lot goes on behind the scenes in politics which is worse than you probably imagine. I have learned how to support businesses, people, and places to be the best they can be. And, I have learned that I can be ruthless when required but overall, I am a thoroughly decent person with a lot of integrity. And I’m happy with that.
Louisa Simpson 