When I started my new job in the café, I was so grateful to have work, let alone a job that didn’t come home with me like law did, I didn’t even think of having to set boundaries. I was so sure that, from now on, my writing career was my absolute priority, but I hadn’t worked out yet how to defend that priority from the demands of the work that paid my salary.
The thing with café work is that it attracts teenagers looking for their first job, students looking to fill a gap year or a summer holiday, people who can spare a couple of days a week and just need to make some money. So, if you’re willing to work full time and you look like you’re here to stay, you rise fast.
Within a month, I had a promotion, a pay-rise and a strong and enjoyable place within the team. After three months, I had the prospect of becoming assistant manager to the manager I really liked, and a steady 40-45 hour working week that ate up all my time and energy. At best, I spent one day a week writing and, at worst, I didn’t write at all. Progress on my novel was slow and stuttering and I felt a constant sense of guilt for not prioritising it like I said I would and a growing imposter syndrome for having claimed my identity as a writer and then, almost immediately, almost entirely, stopping writing.
In my previous jobs I had worked through every lunchbreak, I’d worked overtime without pay, I’d worked nights and weekends for so long that I didn’t actually know how to stop. I couldn’t even feel the boundaries being crossed anymore so how was I supposed to defend them?
At the café, we would be short-staffed and my manager would ask if I could possibly work 6 days that week? Just as a one off? Yes, ok, I guess, it’s only one week. Then, on my one day off, someone would call in sick and no-one else could cover the shift. Well, ok then, I don’t want the team to struggle.
We stopped getting paid fifteen minutes after the café closed but that wasn’t nearly enough time to clean so, as the shift leader, I’d always end up sending the more junior staff members home when the pay stopped and I would stay late (and unpaid) to make sure the shop would be ready for whoever opened up the next morning (which might well be me). Bleary-eyed, I’d be behind the bar and ready to serve at 6.30am having only locked up the night before at 7.30pm. Days blurred into weeks and weeks into months and I would realise I hadn’t even opened my laptop. The demands of work were right out of control and I had no idea how to stop them.
Why had I left law again? So my job didn’t take over my life right? So I could prioritise writing right? Wasn’t that it? But when had I last written anything?
Eventually, I spoke to my manager and asked if I could go down to a four-day working week. She winced but I knew she would find a way of making it work if I insisted. This was important. I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t important. But I also knew how much she struggled with the rotas each week. I compromised: “I’ll work all the long shifts – I’ll still do a 35 hour week, just condensed within four days.” But I knew I hadn’t timed this well, an experienced team member had just left and her replacement hadn’t even started yet, I hedged: “It doesn’t have to be right away. After the new person starts, after she’s been fully trained.” And so even my big, bold attempt at setting boundaries crumbled away. When the new person had settled in, someone else left and we were short-staffed again. OK, I thought, I’ll cut my hours when their replacement has been trained. But then someone else would leave and the cycle would go on.
Seven months passed and I felt as settled into the situation as if I had been doing it for years. Seven months and I was used to my 40-45 hour week on my feet. Seven months and I was depended on by the team. Seven months and my writing had ground to a halt.
I kept thinking I needed to get myself together, I needed to make a change that would mean I was writing regularly again but, then I’d think, a real writer wouldn’t be in this situation. A real writer would always make time to fit writing in every day, a real writer would always have the energy for it, a real writer wouldn’t sleep in on their one day off but would be up at dawn and tapping away on the keyboard. A real writer would bash out 500 words while her uniform went through the spin cycle. A real writer would say no to meeting her friend for a coffee, or walking with her sister, because she had to focus on the next chapter of her book. If I wasn’t able to do these things, maybe I just wasn’t a real writer.
But then something wildly unpredictable happened.
The pandemic hit.
I was in Germany when northern Italy went into lockdown. It was weird. A little bit scary. But mostly, a problem abroad right? I’d heard a bit about this virus in China but viruses happen all over the world all the time. It was curious it had spread to Italy, but nothing to worry about.
In the UK we have this islander’s viewpoint with no real sense of connection to any of our neighbours. So, when Italy went into lockdown, the Germans I was spending time with were talking of neighbours who had family there, friends who holidayed there, family who worked there but, to me, it all felt like a very distant curiosity. Things that happen in Europe don’t cross the English Channel. Fact.
The next day I happily hopped onto a train in Munich and travelled to Frankfurt, then Brussels, then London, then Gatwick, then home. There were moments when someone coughed and everyone looked at them suspiciously, but it was nothing serious, nothing to really worry about.
The next week two friends of mine had their civil partnership ceremony and I celebrated my 31st birthday. I was out for meals and drinks and then, suddenly, the virus had crossed the border. (Brought over by lackadaisical travellers like me, sorry!)
Pubs and restaurants closed, ceremonies were off, everyone seemed to be working from home or being furloughed (had anyone else in the UK ever even heard that word before!?) but cafés were still going. The government hadn’t specifically said they had to close. They said selling food was an essential service and there was to be no sitting in. So, Head Office gave a thumbs up, we sell toasties, we can do take-away only, we’re staying open!
Everyone was pretty scared, but it was only going to get scarier.