My first day at work

[annwfyn]

"If you are ever shipwrecked, my dearest Laura - do contrive to get the catastrophe conducted by the Peninsular and Oriental Company. I believe other companies drown you sometimes; and drowning is a very prosaic arrangement fit only for seafaring people and second-class passengers. I have just been shipwrecked under the auspices of P&O and I assure you that it is the pleasantest thing imaginable. It has its little hardships to be sure, but so has a picnic, and the wreck was one of the most agreeable picnics you can imagine."

Mrs Dulcimer's Shipwreck, 1863

This, by the way, is the quote emblazoned across the front of the first display case that one sees as one enters the offices of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, better known as P&O, who are my new employers.

It’s been a really interesting day. I’ve started work. I’ve discovered what I will be doing, which is primarily cataloging, and then re-housing P&Os photographic archive, consisting of many many photographs (over seven thousand) of ships, spanning 150 years. I’ve seen their offices, discovered that I may be paid minimum wage, but I do get a free lunch of sandwiches, fruit juice and fresh fruit, and I’ve also learned far more about the history of passenger navigation and P&O in particular than I ever thought I should know.

I’ve also been quietly amused at the fact that I picked out the other conservators waiting in reception so easily. I swear to god – there is a visual ‘type’ that goes into conservation. We play the plain sister to the manicured and glamorous curator girls (curator girls are always beautifully groomed) and we play the podgy sisters to the very slim and slightly mousy archive girls, who always look like the kind of girl who played lacrosse once. We are the kind of girls who may well own a barber jacket, and do so quite unselfconsciously. We’re a bit too boho for corporate culture, but a bit too scruffy for the real art world. We also never (for some odd reason) wear high heels. Swear to god – I’ve never met a conservator in heels!

Or maybe this is just the Camberwell conservators. This will be a matter of mild curiosity to me when I venture out into the big wide world…