Hello.
You start on Monday. You have ironed something. You have looked up the bus twice and the parking once, and you have read your induction pack without taking in a word of it.
You are wondering whether they have made a mistake.
They have not.
The first week
You will be given a lanyard, a login that does not work, and a desk with somebody else’s crumbs in the keyboard. You will be introduced to fourteen people and remember one name, and it will be the wrong one.
Somebody will say “Have you met the family yet?” about a family you have never heard of.
You will hear twelve acronyms before lunch. Nod, write them down, and look them up in the toilets. We all did. I still do.
The first visit
You will stand on a doorstep and your mouth will go dry. The person who opens the door is more frightened than you are. They are better at hiding it, because they have had more practice.
Say who you are. Say why you have come. Say it plainly, in words you would use to your nan. Then be quiet for longer than is comfortable.
Look at the child. Not the room, not the parent, not your form. The child.
The first thing you get wrong
It is coming. I cannot tell you what it will be. Mine was small, and I lay awake over it for a week.
When it happens, tell somebody that day. Not because you will be in trouble. Because a mistake you have told somebody about is a problem, and a mistake you are carrying on your own is a secret, and this is no job for secrets.
Things I wish I had been told
You are allowed to say “I don’t know. I’ll find out.” It is the most professional sentence there is.
Write it down the same day.
The family in front of you have been let down by somebody before you got there. You will pay for that. It is not fair, and it is not personal.
You cannot care about a child more than you can look after yourself. I tried. It looks like dedication and it is a slow kind of leaving.
Find the person in the team who makes you laugh. Sit near them.
The day you want to leave
There will be one. It might be in the first month. It will probably be a Tuesday, for no reason, in a car park.
Do not decide anything in the car park.
Go back in. Eat something. Tell your supervisor the truth when they ask how you are. If it is still there in a fortnight, that is a conversation. If it has gone by Thursday, that was a Tuesday.
Why it is worth it
Because one day a child who would not look at you will show you a drawing.
A mother who called you every name there is will ring you, months later, to tell you she got the flat. She will not say thank you. She will say, “I thought you’d want to know,” which is better.
Nobody will give you a parade. You will drive home with the radio off, and find at the lights that you have been smiling for a mile and a half.
See you Monday. Bring biscuits.
Maisie x
Next in the notebook: Why I use a pen name