Section 2.
Task 1. How do others think of my job?
When I was at university, I was, I was horrified by what had happened to a lot of my friends by the time they reached the end of the course.
Having spent their university careers being all the things one is at university, clever, artistic, very noisy,
at the end of that time, they all seemed to take entry exams for the... the Civil Service,
and there were some of them who went, huh, went as low as to go into the Tax office,
huh, how grey, how grey, I thought.
But now, huh, well, look at me.
The circular letters I get drive me absolutely mad, from American Express. etc.
They're sent to my work address and they're all addressed to Mr S Andrews.
Obviously, they found the name on some published list and assumed that anybody who wasn't a secretary must of course be a man.
It's stupid really, because the Company does put Mr or Mrs in front of the names on its departmental lists,
but perhaps because they naturally assume it's man,
they're just blind to the woman's names amongst the heads of the departments.
I work in London at...er...a large hospital as a nursing officer.
It's...erm...it's what a lot of people call a male nurse, which I think is the most ridiculous term I've ever come across.
It...sort of implies that a nurse ought to be female and that by being male, I'm different, but er...the idea still carries on...
The other thing is that people always say, I suppose you really wanted to be a doctor' just because I'm a man.
They can't imagine that I really wanted to be a nurse and that er...erm...it wasn't just that I failed to be a doctor.
And...what they don't realize is the work's completely different, you know as a...a male nurse,
you've much more contact with the er...patients and you know, a long term responsibility for their...their welfare, huh.
There's no way I'd want to be a doctor.
Well, except for the money of course.
Whenever I say I'm a bank manager, half the time, people tend to laugh.
I've never understood why.
I suppose bank managers do have a rather stuffy bourgeois image, but I can't see why it's funny.
I'm a sales representative, what used to be called a travelling salesman, and for some reason,
there's lots of dirty jokes about travelling salesmen.
Can't think why.
Well, I suppose it's because they tend to travel a lot, you know, a night here, a night there.
Well, people get the idea they're not particularly dependable, sort of fly by nights I suppose, you know, wife in every port.
But it aint true. I promise you.
I'm an apprentice hairdresser.
I enjoy the work very much.
I'm learning a lot, not just about hair, but how to get along with people.
I'm gaining confidence 'cos I never had that at school.
I left as soon as I could.
I hated it, I remember teachers used to look down on jobs like hairdressing.
They were ever so stuck up.
They thought that only girls who were a bit dim went in for hairdressing, but I'm not dim at all.
If I work hard in the salon and get all my certificates, if I save hard, in a few years,
I could start my own business, and I'd be earning five times as much as those old bags at school.