What The Butler Saw

I must admit that I wrote the last post about bolshiness when I was having one of those 'powerless' days most freelancers experience. But, of course, 24 hours later things were going well again - and when you're feeling reasonably successful, bolshiness becomes so yesterday.

This weekend I learned:
-that Dave is a better and faster cleaner than me. He did the top floor and all the stairs of our flat (scrubbing, hoovering, dusting) within a single hour, while it took me three hours to cover the same cleaning distance last time. Unable to believe he could have done a good job in this time, I ran my fingers along the skirting boards and found them sparking. I admit defeat.

-that there is a world outside London and the rat-race. I saw a friend from Cambridge for the first time in three years. She has spent those years surfing and busking all over Europe, writing a novel and being taken skiing by sexy doctors in the Alps. Out of everyone I went to university with, she was the only one to defy London's gravitational pull - and she rocks.

-that I am very scared of violent people. This sweltering Saturday afternoon, a friend and I were strolling innocently up Regent Street, dodging naked cyclists and remarking how pleasant London was with all the usual yobbish types safely indoors watching the World Cup. Then behind us we heard the unmistakable sound of pub doors opening, and then the all-too-familiar shouts and cheers of the fans getting closer and closer. As a group of three teenage bare-chested hooligans chanting (nay, screaming) aggressively at the crowds came past us, my friend, who does not suffer fools gladly, said to them authoritatively, 'Shhh!' They then turned on us, dancing around us very close and screaming in our ears. My friend was entirely unpeturbed and just laughed at them, but I was convinced they were about to assault us. We ran into Habitat where it took me a full twenty minutes of browsing among the picnicware and taffeta curtains to regain my calm. I am still feeling slightly shell-shocked.

-Zara Home - wow! The best shop I have been in in ages. All Spanish and embroidered. I have resolved to have my wedding list there (when I get proposed to, that is.)

I am by nature a bolshy person, not politically, but in the way I always find myself getting indignant about any kind of injustice. Translated into a professional, office-bound middle-class life in London, this meant I spent my first working years in a state of perpetual fury with my employers at the kind of rubbish their workers were having to put up with. Fury at Human Resources dictating how people dressed, fury at bosses who wouldn't let people talk or eat at their desks, fury at the absurd hierarchies that meant if a graduate trainee dared to smile at an editor, they would be met with blank, frosty indifference.

It took about four years of working life to stamp my bolshiness out of me. Years in which I learnt the hard way that the employee at the bottom of the ladder can never win against a mean boss. And years in which I found journalism was the ideal profession for someone as indignant as me. By the time I took my last office-based job in 2005, on a women's magazine, I had moved up the ladder enough to be working for a decent employer who treated their staff in a relaxed and mutually respectful way. And by that time, I was a mild-mannered, accommodating employee, so much so the managing director once told me off for being not assertive enough, which shocked me.

These days as a freelance, relationships with editors are paramount and I always do my best to be totally accommodating of their occasional whims (though, to date, the vast majority of editors I've worked with freelance have been truly lovely, and I have never had a serious problem with receiving payment due to me). I would draw the line at not being paid, but I don't think it's worth losing the relationship I have with an editor over a small irritation every now and then - I am sure I make oversights that annoy them, after all.

But I do feel sad that freelancers - and all employees who are as powerless as freelancers - are in this position where they are at an employer's mercy, however nice most of those employers are. As a freelance, you can feel very vulnerable.

And I guess even posting here about all this shows I do actually still have a bolshy streak somewhere.

I've been too busy to post for the last week or so - spent last week working shifts on a women's weekly then rushing home in the evenings to chase up several urgent freelance stories. This week I'm writing five features...freelancing is like waiting for a bus. One week work seems to go quiet, then the next week several contacts suddenly want stories written for a deadline of yesterday.

One of the stories I've been working on was that of Marie Fatayi Williams, who lost her son Anthony in the 7/7 bombings. She's written a very moving book about the need for peace, For the Love of Anthony, which is coming out soon. I interviewed her yesterday for a women's magazine and felt terrible at times asking her questions which must have been painful. She has the passion and potential to really change the world, I think. An amazing woman.