Undercover Actress

Dear readers,

My last post detailed the life (and death) of the shopgirl, so, naturally, this piece is about my rebirth, my new era: office girl. As a phoenix rises from the ashes, I have ascended from the depths of sweaty stockrooms and rude customers and have landed in the realm of ‘work phones’ and lumbar-support swivel chairs. It’s not quite the Olivier stage, but it’s a step up in any case.

I’ve been in the job for about a month now, even though I still feel like I’m doing work experience. I have my cocky moments when I think I know what I’m doing, which are usually followed by a flap and a panicked call to a kind colleague, then I relax again. This is my first salaried job, my first time in an office, my first position with some real responsibility, and I haven’t cried yet — which I’m taking as a win.

I’m not quite used to the commute yet. I don’t know which carriage to aim for to get the best exit for my change; I don’t remember on which side the tube doors open; and I haven’t formed a bond with a commuter twin yet. I’m also not used to Bond Street. Why are there so many exits?

My lovely friend Molly, who gave me this job, left an excellent handover document before she went off to be Juliet, and I treat it like a Bible. Instructions, passwords and an estate agency lingo thesaurus to aid my course. Without it, I would be lost. But I’m learning that there’s a lot of instinct involved in this job, too. I have to vet clients and set up security checks, and when one address doesn’t match a phone bill, or a passport scan is particularly blurry, I feel like an investigator with a hunch — Nancy Drew with her satchel. I don’t really know what to do with this hunch. I simply forward the emails to someone higher up, but it still feels like a cutaway scene in an ITV police drama.

Unlike the shop, I have regular hours with guaranteed weekends and bank holidays. With this new routine, I planned to write more, join an acting class, get in shape and join a gym. So far, I’ve been to lots of parties and rewatched a lot of my favourite television, which also feels nice (Chernobyl, Say Nothing, The Pitt, Motherland and Amandaland). Many close friends have their birthdays in April/May, crucially, both of my flatmates/sisters, Tansy and Niamh. For Tansy’s birthday, we went to a great pub on the canal, and I hung out with my old comedy gang. I drank one pint over my two-pint limit and snogged a dear friend. It was platonic, but god, it felt great. It may have been the booze, but a wave of flirtatious freedom came over me that I would usually suppress, but this time I dove in. Head first, unshaven legs second. And nothing bad happened, and everything was okay.

I’m not trying to say that leaving the shop and getting an office job led me straight to sexual liberty and psychological serenity — I am an actor, and hope to be, long to be, crave to be, working as such — but I can’t deny it has cheered me up a lot. Nobody is snooting at me as I stand behind a till, nobody is angry that bags cost 20p.

To the corporates on the tube, I look like one of them. One of thousands of mid-twenties women with blonde bobs, tan car coats and a battered Rains backpack. Although it’s not where I want to be, it’s a more respected and better-paid pit-stop on my journey. The people I interacted with at the shop assumed I was more stupid than I am; people I interact with at my new job assume I am more capable than I am. It’s a bit of a catch-22 (or catch-25). Before, I would have preferred to have been underestimated. It would provide the opportunity to show up and prove everyone wrong. But I’ve realised that the adult world is based on overestimating everybody. That’s how promotions work, that’s how people climb the corporate ladder. It actually means more to prove everyone right. Yes, I am able to do that thing. Yes, you did make the right decision in hiring me. Yes, I will have the dressing on the side.

The way I’m approaching the real estate business (a sentence I never thought I’d type) is fake it until you make it. And that seems to be what everyone else is doing, too. This inadvertently makes being an undercover actress easier. Deep undercover, I’m not scared to pick up my work phone and dial the number for a foreign embassy and demand that a passport be checked. I don’t bat an eyelid as I type out a contract for an eye-watering sum of money for a poorly decorated and expensive pied-à-terre in Knightsbridge. It’s all a performance. Everyone is doing it. And while I’d much rather be rolling around in leggings learning lines in Stratford Upon Avon, or sleeping badly in hotel rooms on a national tour of a dusty old play I studied at school, for now I earn a comfortable wage and am thought of as capable.

Capable. A funny word. A word I had not thought of much before I interviewed for this job, where I found myself saying it over and over. I realise it’s been a common thread for me, a desire to be thought of as capable. I don’t need a boyfriend, I don’t need you to proofread my essay, I don’t need help. This extends to casual DIY, crafts, and my mental health. I didn’t seek therapy or medication for ages, even when I knew I wasn’t myself. Nobody worried about me too much after a big breakup — It’s Daisy, she’ll be fine. And I was. And I am.

However, when you look into the etymology of the word capable, it stems from the idea of sufficiency and ability, but it also reminds me of coping: “I am capable, I can cope”.

Can I cope? Can I cope with the new job? Can I cope with my life turning out differently from how I wanted, how I planned? Can I cope with being an ‘undercover actress’ forever?

Maybe I’m just luteal and dramatic. Maybe someone else feels this way, too.

I don’t even know what I’m complaining about. I had an in-person audition last week, and my boss let me take an extended lunch to do it.

I’m not even that undercover.

And I guess I never will be.

Until next time, friends

KTF x