Work Memoir

Two years one day ago, I started my first real job while still in college. Before that, the bulk of what I did every now and then was freelance work and dreaming.

I sent a neat little CV as a response to a newspaper ad for a vacant post. The post was open for online editors. I didn’t believe anything would come out of it, but I sent the required anyway just to lull my sudden desire to find a job.

Five days later while hanging out around the languages center on campus, reading some book, I got a call from my future employers. They wanted to meet me! I could not believe my ears and yet, in a controlled sense of self-importance, I decided I was not available for an interview the day after. I had class, or something.

The interview got shifted to another day that suited me. It was a Monday. I went, there was an exam and I was surprised. I remember the strangest thing about that day; I had recently returned from the states and I kept talking in English for no apparent reason. It was very ridiculous especially since the lady at the office talked to me in Arabic. I must have been nervous underneath it all because I could not stop my linguistic clumsiness.

I also thought that lady was a bitch. But maybe I was projecting.

On Thursday I went again, this time for the interview. According to my Armenian lady boss*, who has since become one of my best friends, I did very well on that sudden exam. I waited for about five minutes for her to arrive, and I remember reading some Greek drama in the meantime. My very decorated “Turkey” bookmark caught her attention, and when she asked if my mother was Turkish I could sense some hostility in her voice. I said no. Of course not.

Several months later, I made the connection that explained the hostility. Armenian, Turkey, I’m slow.

When I reflect on that, I cannot grasp how two whole years have gone by already. Somewhere deep in my mind I am still the over-dressed girl reading a book and waiting for her interviewer to arrive already, still the girl who hated wearing high heels to the office, still the girl who found out how stupidly sensitive people get during the FIFA World Cup. But at the same time, I am not any of these girls anymore. They are gone, and that time has elapsed.

Is this the way I will feel about my life when I am 50? By asking the dumb question of “how did that happen?”

*Not the same lady I mentioned earlier as the “lady at the office.”