When You Can't Go Forward And You Can't Go Back

Yesterday, I had my first day of 'real' work in ages. By most people's standards I suppose it isn't even a 'real' job. No contract, no regular schedule, no holiday pay or pension. I am casual labour. I am flexible. I am dependable, devoted and disposable.

Be that as it may, it’s surprising the amount of effort that goes into making us feel part of the team. Induction, drills, in-house training with pay in the director's suite at Chelsea Football Stadium. Good coffee, tea and freshly baked cookies from the kitchen.

We're given a slideshow presentation on Excellence in Customer Service. Some weeks later we will receive a certificate in the post, and we all get a little badge to pin on our blazers. When they see me in a few days, the other workers will ask why I am not wearing mine.

The manager, Graham, points at each one of us in turn.

"Wednesday. Saturday?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Yes."

...

Afterwards, the other workers and myself are in the lift, not speaking.

Finally I say "Coffee, tea, cookies, pretty good eh? And the exercises were fun, I liked making a tower out of lollipop sticks. They're treating us well." And I don't recognise who is talking. As if I expect to be treated like a dog, and anything better is sheer grace and mercy.

Everybody smiles a lot and never says anything negative, or anything important enough that someone might disagree or take offence. I notice people straining to keep up this exterior, to hide any fleeting thought of hostility, dislike, boredom, insecurity or loneliness.

I am home to a very wild spirit, and I don't think I am alone in this. Foul-mouthed, loving, perverse, ranting, full of strength and desire. Inspired, messy, disdainful, obsessive, psychotic and compassionate. I am not alone in this; it's what everyone is straining to hide.

On the train ride home, I observe as I do every time the misery and defeat plastered across almost every face. Now I have a little more insight. It’s the same smiling, positive, hopeful, assertive, ambitious faces that now look down, avoiding eye contact.

And I am a little less lifelike now than I was. As if I had used up my reserves of serotonin for the day. They don't pay you for that do they? They don't pay you for the hour on the train, not knowing who you are. They don't pay for the hours of tiredness. What happens now?

I arrive at Fulham Broadway Station between Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday evening. The Portuguese football fans are arriving in droves from the tube and from buses. I go down into the car park by the stadium, the designated meeting area.

We are a mix of stewards and security, supervisors and managers. We are black, white, yellow and brown, Persian, Polish, Welsh, Irish. We are quiet and observing, we are charismatic and loud. We are all holding back. We are bubbling over with personality.

There was an advert on the television recently in which a well heeled man, a model, says "I am not going to be what's expected of me." and then theres the cologne that makes him smell that way.

What follows is 'fun'. You can hardly call it working really, except the overbearing sense of expectation. We're expected to be -fill in the blank-, and we're also supposed to be like that man in the advert. This is why its 'fun' rather than fun.

In groups of 10 we practice placing a cordon, while the other workers play as the crowd. When we hear the command 'cordon on' we step into the crowd put our arms out and ask them to stop. There is some good natured pushing and shoving. I avoid eye contact.