Friends would show off my new title to people they’d introduced me to, and the reaction would be as if I worked for a celebrity. The job itself didn’t matter, that it was at an embassy, though, meant I was set for life. I could easily get a US visa with a job letter from an embassy; I’d have access to opulent residences, where many embassy events take place; I’d meet people with privileges that might extend to me if I could be consistently likeable enough by not always speaking my mind, and, everyone knew the word ’embassy’ meant ‘well-paid’.
The status associated with my position was undeniable when I made calls to business places. I did not mind this because it facilitated getting things done. So, although I was seated at a desk in Accounts, I would smile and inhale deeply as if I’d reached a mountain top after a long hike. The air was different there. I’d experienced smiling or always helpful and humble attitudes at a workplace before. It was the first time, however, I’d seen it radiate from the wholehearted joy of people being where they’d chosen to be: in this leather-seated, mahogany-floored castle that was open for four hours a day, five days a week (excluding local and its country’s holidays), on a sun-drenched island in the Caribbean.
Although I’d fallen in love with the young ambassador-couple who not only matched each other in good looks, but were perfect diplomats, there was another first. It was my first time realising that the extent of my dislike for anything related to accounting, to sitting indoors in a suit and tie, wouldn’t be nullified even by a four-hour workday.
I was finishing a classroom management course, when I overheard a conversation about working in Japan as an English teacher. Pushing my nose into the conversation, I got the site information. The application deadline was in one week and I applied.
Comments