Jeannette and I stood frozen to the spot. Neither of us had seen the lunchtime – or evening – news, though we had had a radio on which was tuned to a local station. The prisoner was still on the run and police were yet to get a lead on his whereabouts. But there was something familiar about this guy, I was sure I had seen him before. Although in this job, we got to see quite a few people.
When I got in on Friday, the stress was palpable. An email had been received from the regional office informing the examiners of the month’s targets, and which local office was in the lead on the board. The impression I was receiving was that it was not us. Our numbers were down and results were poor. Our waiting list was long – students were having to wait up to two months for a test date and then up to three months for a retest, in the case of failure.
Before I left for the day, I was issued with a rota– Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning at the Theory Test Centre and Thursday Friday and Saturday morning at the Practical Test Centre. There may be evening or cover work for sickness and holidays if I wanted it.
Friday morning saw me getting everyone ready to leave the house with a certain degree of stress where really there should have been none. After all it was not me taking a driving test, I wasn’t even taking someone else on a driving test! For goodness sake, I kept telling myself, it was work, I wouldn’t be expected to read any number plates or explain where the windscreen washer reservoir was. Or even how to change the oil and water!
I’d done it again! Gone and accepted a job without really knowing what I was going to be doing. At least I knew this time there there was allocated parking space for staff – Vi had given me a token for a car park around the corner from the office. So no tiny spaces to reverse into.
