Barista or Barrister?

(And X factor auditions)

To be clear I am neither a Barista or Barrister. For a long time I had been kicking about the idea of taking a ‘jobatical’. (Incidentally, I thought I had made this word up but happily someone had beaten me to it when I searched one day).

But if you have read The Midnight Library you will understand: there are often many lives that we want to live but the career road path that we can find ourselves on rarely offers lay-bys, service stations or u-turns. A few years ago, I asked my then thirteen year old niece what she thought she would like to do when she was older and she said, ‘I would like to be a lawyer but I also think I would love to work in a juice bar’. This stopped me in my tracks: she had been able to sum up in one line what so many of us feel, but all too often we end up picking up the former rather than the latter.

In being made redundant I had been given the opportunity to jump into the jobatical waters with armbands on. I had a bit of panic money and I was living in Marseille where living is cheap. I pulled together a new version of my CV and printed out twenty copies and then sat in my flat for three days procrastinating. I was terrified. It wasn’t just the different language, although that definitely didn’t help, but there is something really hard about doing a CV drop: it’s like doing a 20 second X Factor audition. 

When I did eventually manage to get out of my own way, I was super relieved when a busy café manager or barman just told me to leave my CV on the side because they were busy at that moment. ‘C’est pas un bon moment madam’ I was scolded on one of my earlier occasions as I tried to catch the eye of a rushed waiter; rookie mistake - don’t CV drop in France between the sacred lunch hours of 12 - 2.00 pm.

I went from café to bar dropping off and I sat back and waited for the phone to ring. It didn’t and I kept on hitting the tarmac reluctantly. I thought it was going to get easier to do the patter; introduce myself, what I am looking for whilst pushing my CV into the unsuspecting often uninterested Supervisor. However on a daily basis I had to remind myself of the advice my wonderful old boss had given me prior to any difficult conversation I had to have: ‘just put your big girl pants on’.

There was one job that I kept on seeing being advertised ‘runner’ at the huge and frenetic foodhall in Marseille. I had been to the foodhall a few times and seen how hard those people worked; often carrying large trays of empty glasses and plates, weaving through people and packed tables collecting crockery. It wasn’t how I saw my life as a French Server; I wanted to be the effortlessly cool server pouring kir royales, doing latte art or explaining the plat du jour. I wouldn’t be doing any of that here.

During this time I was working in a café for free to get some experience and improve my French. One day one of the customers told me he was working at the airport: ‘They are hiring 300 people this summer!’ he reported excitedly . My self limiting beliefs around my level of French  kicked in but he assured me that they were desperate for both English and French speakers and with my mix of both I would be a perfect candidate.

Two weeks later, I found myself in front of Magali, Head of Recruitment for Terminal One and the VIP Lounge; she explained how the shifts worked with either a 4am, 8 am or 4pm start time and how she could see me best in the VIP lounge. In this area it was obligatory to wear ‘hauts talons’ and ‘rouge à lèvres rouge’ (high heals and red lipstick). I would have to exchange my feminist credentials for a bumper pack of blister plasters….

….Where did I put that ‘runner’ application form?