Education Department

When I first left school I got a job at the Department of Education.  I was so excited about having a job but soon found out how boring it was.  I was a typist but the kind of typist that cannot really type.  I had to plough  on and on typing up lists of their paid work force.  The lists took forever to type and were brain numbingly BORING.

The other part of my job was to type out cheques for all the teachers in all the schools in the whole state.  One might think that this was preferable to the incredibly long lists, however, that would be an error.  Error being of course the operative word.  If one mistake was made on the cheque it could be signed by the 'Overseer' (she was of course of real joy to work for.)  If two mistakes were made the cheque had to be cancelled.  The idea was that one mistake in one hundred was passable but in my case it was one cancellation in every ten.  The more the 'Overseer' told me off the worse my typing got.  She used to fan the mistakes out of the main body of all the cheques and take them in to the 'Uber Overseer' who truly loathed me.

Although I loved working with the other women in the typing pool I was just not suited to being a typist.  Eventually I was advised by the 'Uber Overseer' that I had to either resign or they would sack me.  I was upset but so so so relieved.  Within a couple of weeks I managed to get a job with the Woodville Council as a typist but didn't take that job because I got a job at Customs and Excise as a clerical assistant.  This folks meant no more typing.

To be fair to the Education Department they were kind enough to keep me on there for about four months and put up with my atrocious typing.  I think it was a steep learning curve for them and for me.  I only wish that we had had computers back then.  I wouldn't have needed carbon paper and white out and erasers.  I could have typed along on my merry way making mistake after mistake and fix them using the cursor.  How I love cursors.

The best thing about the Education Department I found was to not actually work there!