With the lofty title of Team Leader I took this job far too seriously.
I was ‘supervising’ a group of very young people giving out cheese samples on the South Bank.
The central location made it a risky shift: people I’ve worked with might see me in a branded T-shirt and yellow hat, cheerily wielding a plate of cheese. (Doesn’t shout, “Made It”.)
It was a very real fear.
And so was the prospect of under-delivering as Team Leader.
It had already been a tense morning with THE CLIENT watching us from a bench, insisting that none of the staff spoke to one another and that no member of the public made it past us un-accosted by free cheese.
My panicked means of implementing their requests was to immediately shoo the team apart as if I were scattering pigeons, and take it upon myself to single-handedly accost every member of the public. I didn’t look like a well person.
We ran into further trouble when the samples were flying off the plates faster than the team were preparing them.
I marched round to find out why the cheese-rolling team was not keeping pace. I had my suspicions they were slacking.
These were the lucky few who got to remain out of sight, preparing the samples in the back of a van behind the National Theatre. Note, it wasn’t a kitchen van – it was a van you couldn’t actually stand up in.
They had the task of rolling each cheese slice into a cheese cigar before piercing it with a cocktail stick. Like a sorry little canapé. Anyway – they were having a very leisurely time showing complete disregard for the IMPORTANCE OF THE DELIVERY OF THE CHEESE CANAPÉS.
Ever effective in my management style, I looked very cross and asked them to hurry up please now. The situation out front looked very bad and I feared I would go down in history as the worst Team Leader ever.
I really don’t know why I cared. This promotion was for one day only. It’s not like I would lose my job the next day – the job didn’t even exist the next day.
It then rained, a lot.
We all had to shelter inside another small van with the cheese, while a lot of other cheese got wet.
By this point my stress levels were very high, I felt like I’d lost complete control of the activity and the team and my entire life.
I made it to the end of the 15 hour shift with no new friends and a few key learnings:
- I never had any control over the situation to begin with.
- I never want to supervise students rolling up cheese again.
- As Team Leader I could have gone home after 2 hours and got away with it
I was paid my fee and never got hired by that agency as a Team Leader again. Good. I never want to be.
Average Brunette 