A day in the life of – Paula Askew

Paula is a Recruitment Consultant based in our Ripley office. Paula (AKA Momma P) is the Queen of innuendos and is the branch clown so to speak.

The first thing “P” hears in a morning is the alarm ringing at 5.45am, so she has enough time to pause it before she actually has to wake up. She’ll do her bathroom duties of a “S***, Shave and a Shampoo” (Isn’t she pleasant) and begin getting ready for her big day ahead. She’ll pick out her usual combo of black trousers, black top and a black cardigan.. Perhaps she’s trialing for a role in “Men In Black”, but it’s ok, she’ll accessorise her look with a black scarf…
Her first big task of the day is straightening her hair, it can take anywhere between 5-25 minutes for P, all dependent on if she actually remembers to turn the straighteners on… The second big task of the day is waking up her 16 year old Daughter… P can be greeted at the door by an onslaught of clothes on the floor, or the previous 7 nights dinner stacked up on the side. P wondered where all her China had gone…

P prepares her bag ready for the day, she’ll put her strawberries in, crack open her first Ultra Violet Monster energy drink, open a bag of crisps and place an extra one in her bag just in case she gets peckish. Her journey to work is full of mixed emotions. At one moment she could be chirpy listening to Green Day’s American Idiot, the next it could be pride as she remembers to indicate coming out of a junction, another could be anger as she gets overtaken on the bypass by a Senior Citizen, but the final one is happiness as the AA man comes out to reattach the wheels that fell off half way round the roundabout.

Momma P is the first to arrive at the office today as she’s got a few loose ends to tie up… (Is she some kind of Ukrainian Mob Hitter?) but before all that P must navigate the weird box thingy that sits on her desk, more formally known as a computer. Logging into the computer for P is that difficult sometimes she has to wait until another member of staff comes in to operate it for her… after the enigma is solved it’s time to make a brew. P loves cups of tea, but cannot stand builders tea and always knows how it’s been made, it’s like she has a sixth sense about brew making (or perhaps she just keeps an eagle eye on the maker at all times). Branch Manager Lauren walks in and this is one of P’s favourite times of days. No, it’s not because they’re friends, it’s because she’ll bring in a Hot Chocolate from Costa as a little morning present. This Hot Chocolate gives P all the motivation she needs to get cracking with some work…

Working in the Ripley office is a busy day in itself. The day consists of many tasks, but before all that the team have their morning meeting. This is a chance to plan the day’s activities, get tasks ticked off from yesterday and have a natter about what everyone is up to at the weekend. After the meeting P gets stuck in, checking in all her workers, AKA “friends” (as she puts it!), planning availability for the weekend and informing temps whether they’re required into work next week. All of this goes hand in hand with a brew, a biscuit and the emergency bag of crisps she bundled in her bag earlier.
Unfortunately the next task is the dreaded updating of the plan. P hates two things: One is when someone is stingy with the sugar on brew duty, and the other is updating the plan!

P will as she says “Proceed to do her duties” so in other words have a good chin wag about last nights “moment” Consultant Beth had. They had a Three Way, and no not quite in the way you’re thinking…  Beth intended to call P about some issues whilst on-call and actually ended up calling Lauren, she then tried calling P and ending up hosting a group call, all facetiming each other at 10.30pm at night so as you can imagine probably not the best time to call! All jokes aside, the Ripley office have had a busy week so far, today included. She’ll sort out new starters and payment penalty forms, whilst preparing herself mentally for the big long brown sub she’s destroying for lunch.

After lunch it’s the long slug to home time. This is usually made easier by the second Monster UV being popped. The problem with the Ripley branch now is, after Consultant Shannon has moved offices to Long Eaton the team have no one to direct banter towards, so as you can imagine the chat in office is pretty dry… P suffers from a condition we in recruitment called “Brain Loseia Capacitya” – she’s actually losing brain cells daily, her brain is frazzled, she’s exhausted and she called up Marketing earlier to place a Domino’s order…

The clock strikes 5 and P’s face lights up. She gets into her car and begins her journey home. P’s a solo act at the moment so tasks like pumping up your car tires or changing the oil become 50% more difficult. She actually set a new world record yesterday – it took her 45 minutes to locate where she puts windscreen wash in, if that’s even possible… She arrives home to a kitchen full of pots and washing to do. She’ll slave away until the chores of the house are done, before blobbing on the sofa to regenerate her brain for the next day.