THE SECRET DIARY OF A SOCIAL WORKER ON CHRISTMAS EVE
C
hristmas Eve is a Friday this year so, once again, I’ll be working it.
Being a (relatively) young, single, and childless woman there’s always this assumption that I’ll be fine working Christmas Eve because I don’t have anything better to do. I mean I could see my friends for pre-Christmas prosecco, do some last minute shopping, visit my niece and nephew, or go on a date with a Jude Law-type, sipping on mulled wine as we walk hand-in-hand through a snowy Christmas market…
But, no, I’m single and I don’t have kids, so I work in order to give the mothers in the team the chance to spend Christmas Eve with their little ones.
Do you sit there, crying inside as you drink a pint of Baileys hidden in your coffee?
And I’m only a little bit bitter about it.
The truth is, Christmas Eve is pretty much the same every year:
THIS YEAR, MY SEVENTH WORKING CHRISTMAS EVE IN A ROW, WILL BE SPENT IN ROOM 215 OF MY LOCAL AUTHORITY’S SPECTACULARLY BRUTALIST SIXTIES CONCRETE BEHEMOTH OF A HEADQUARTERS.
7am: Wake up and check your email on your work mobile. Notice that four of your colleagues have kindly asked you to do a ‘quick check in’ on a family they apparently haven’t had time to visit before taking two weeks off.
What’s it like? I hear you ask.
8am: Breakfast is coffee and a cereal bar on the drive in, while listening to ‘All I want for Christmas ’ on the radio for the 789th time this season.
Do you rescue children from grisly fates like the plot of a Hallmark movie? Do you flirt with the handsome Colin Firth-lookalike in the mail room?
8:25am: Arrive in the office to another three emails relating to ‘quick visits.’ If this continues you’ll be seeing more
