Covertly Corporate

It’s rain­ing as I step out of the train and onto a sod­den city cen­tral platform. I mar­vel at how I choose to go cor­po­rate on the very day the heav­ens open in Queensland.

I com­mend myself on my choice of outfit—in essence, my spare wed­ding ensem­ble from my niece’s recent nuptials—the sen­si­ble attire I rejected in favour of a frothy, friv­o­lous dress.

Fash­ion­istas Trinny and Susan­nah would be proud. The ensem­ble con­sists of black pants, black boots, a dove grey chif­fon blouse, match­ing scarf and red trench coat. I can­not help but admire myself in shop win­dows; such is the nov­elty of see­ing self look­ing cor­po­rate and not cud­dly in home office velour and slippers.

A small blot on the oth­er­wise fault­less fash­ion land­scape is a large black and pink Eukanuba golf­ing umbrella. A teensy sac­ri­fice under the tor­ren­tial cir­cum­stances. Am sure T and S would understand. I emerge from the cover of the sta­tion out onto the street, try­ing to find direc­tions with A4 printed out Google map. I walk briskly; deci­sively at first, step­ping grace­fully over streams of water flood­ing gut­ters and drains. I turn my map upside down to get cor­rect bear­ings and com­pli­ment myself again on choice of sen­si­ble boots.

I turn into alley­ways shel­ter­ing skulk­ing early morn­ing smok­ers enjoy­ing their guilty plea­sure. I pass the Tokyo Restau­rant. Up Anne, left into Wharf, right into Tur­bot, left at Bowen, up Mein and then I’m there—Boundary Road. Half an hour early. What a nov­elty to find bear­ings so eas­ily. I con­sid­er­ately place my wet umbrella out­side the entrance to drip on tiles rather than car­pet and breath­lessly announce my arrival.

‘Hello! I’m here for my 10 o’clock appointment—half an hour early but don’t worry, I’ll read.’ The read­ing mat­ter even looks cor­po­rate. Not a New Idea in sight.

I am handed some forms to fill in. I soon become woe­fully aware of my dearth of com­puter skills. It takes me pre­cisely one minute to fill in the appli­ca­tion form as I skip numer­ous boxes—Adobe InDe­sign, Illus­tra­tor, Dreamweaver…and tick the Microsoft Word box. I can­not even deci­pher some of the pos­si­ble skills I could have had in my aca­d­e­mic arsenal.

I am already crest­fallen but decide that expe­ri­ence, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and charm counts far more than a thor­ough knowl­edge of Excel spread­sheets and for my job, I won’t require those anyway. I can’t resist another quick glance at Self in glass win­dow. Red jacket—such a good choice.

I have my chat—a bit too brief for my lik­ing but not all in vain, it seems. There might be some work after all. We’ll see. I thank every­one pro­fusely for see­ing me. Wave good­bye.  Smile at very cor­po­rate client in wait­ing room.

Retrieve soggy Eukanuba umbrella and step briskly into bank of rain. Retrace steps to sta­tion. Pass more skulk­ing smok­ers. Resist shop­ping with poten­tial earn­ings from poten­tial job.

Catch train. Step off train at final des­ti­na­tion. Sta­tion mas­ter makes my day.

‘What a beau­ti­ful red jacket!’ he grins.

‘Thank you!’ I gush, so flat­tered I step off into the wrong direc­tion head­ing for a precipice straight onto the tracks.

I turn around when the train leaves. Head for my car.

Back home, kick off shoes, strip off cor­po­rate gear and climb back into sub­limely com­fort­able velour track­suit and Ugg boots.

Ah the joy of a home office.

Copy­right © 2009 by Lois Nicholls