When things go wrong
Jodie ran to the bus, she was late, she was always late.
She had finished the first job of today,now onto the second.
The good news was she only worked one job on Saturday and Sunday.
The bad news was that both days were a ten hour shift.
She had stopped looking in the mirror,some ghost stared back at her.
People laughed when she told them how many jobs she had,how many hours she worked.
"You must be rich."
No, in fact she was poor.
The only saving grace was that she was healthy,she had the constitution of an ox.
"Why don't you?"
And then they suggested impossible things.
She had a basic education.
She had no qualifications.
She had ideas, dozens of them.
But you needed money to develop ideas.
She did have money,but it was pennies nowhere enough.
The bus was late,so she was late,so she would get shouted at and threatened with the sack.
That was one thing she never worried about, all the jobs she did were the ones nobody else wanted and there was always a new one waiting
In fact the jobs were more frequent than the buses.
When you do the shit jobs you don't have a lot of competition,there are no queues waiting to snatch what she did. She was irreplaceable.
But fuck, was she tired of all this.
She hurled herself onto the bus and into a seat. She took out her sign.
It told the other passengers where she had to get off.
They would wake her up.
She rushed to the side door, throwing it open and running in.
"You're late."
"Blame the bus driver."
She signed in and stormed off to work.
"Oh hello, sorry I didn't know anybody was still here."
The woman sitting at her computer turned.
"Hello, come in. I am trying to solve a problem."
"Shall I make you a drink? By the way I am Jodie, cleaning superstar."
The woman laughed.
"Yes please, coffee, milk, no sugar. I am Yvonne."
Jodie made two coffees and brought them back.
She looked at the computer screen.
"I can see your problem."
Yvonne almost dropped her coffee. Surely this was a joke?
Jodie pointed at some figures on the screen.
"Too many figures."
Yvonne sat, it must be a joke. The screen was full of figures. But she looked anyway.
"Gracious, you are right. How did you do it?"
"I don't know, it simply looked wrong compared to the other groups of numbers."
Yvonne stood and hugged her.
"I have been looking for ages. I am hugely impressed. Are you studying?"
Jodie laughed. She had left school when she ran away from home.
Yvonne asked about her and was horrified at the hours she worked and the fact she had no free time.
She offered to give Jodie a lift home when she was finished.
Yvonnepulled out her handbag, searched in her purse and pulled out a hundred and ten pounds.
"I will get you more in the morning."
Jodie stood, lost for words.
"I will get someone to test you and see if we can train you."
Jodie nodded and got on with cleaning.
She didn't believe this would go anywhere.
Jodie finished and Yvonne was still there.
"Let me give you a lift home."
"I am sorry, but I would be embarrassed for you to see where I live. I will get the bus."
