Week 10 Impressions by Leah Wyllie

Life in the British Workplace

I have the most wonderful internship in all of London: I am lucky enough to work at The Kid’s Cookery School. At “KCS,” we work to encourage children--and their parents--to make healthier food choices. We work with children from all economic backgrounds and of varying degrees of mental and physical abilities. Some classes are held in the KCS building, while others occur on location. The Kid’s Cookery School has a cargo van that carries two ovens, a sink, a hand washing station, and a demonstration table to various schools and learning centers. I have been able to meet new people and have traveled to many different places that the average London tourist never gets to see.

A typical day starts on the tube. The Kid’s Cookery School is a 15-minute tube ride westbound on the Piccadilly line. As our home base at Gloucester Road is just west of the hustle and bustle of Central London, it is usually pretty quiet. The train is always littered with newspapers that have been abandoned by businessmen and women who rode the train from the eastern suburbs and alighted in the center of the city. I am not quite sure what to make of this, but have brainstormed a few of theories. The first is that Londoners do not actually read these newspapers in depth, but use them as a protective shield from conversation and eye contact with strangers. The second is that they only buy newspapers and pretend to read them in order to look more informed and posh than they actually are. The third is that they find the articles completely compelling and want to be sure that their neighbors get the opportunity to read them too. The fourth, and most likely, is that they just read as much as possible and do not want to carry the paper around with them all day. My theories do not have extreme importance, but I had fun coming up with them. Either way, I have never paid for a newspaper.

Once I get to work, there is usually a little list made up especially for me. Sometimes I prep for classes, and sometimes I get to test recipes. I really enjoy testing the recipes. I now can make tiramisu, Welsh rarebit, muffins, flapjacks (oat bars), rolls, pizza, oat biscuits, and chocolate chip cookies (from memory). The best part of testing recipes is definitely the part where I get to eat my creation.

When teaching lessons, I am assigned a table of children (usually 4 or 5) to work with. In the beginning weeks, they would ask, “Is this what it is supposed to look like?” or “Is this done?” and I would panic and think to myself, “I have no idea!” Because I am now much more confident with my cooking abilities and am more familiar with the KCS recipes, I can say, “That needs more flour,” or “Stir it a bit more.” The children have all been wonderful. Their excitement and energy bounces off of the walls. They usually have lots of questions about my accent and where I am from. They mostly want to know if I am from California or how many times I have been there. I have also been asked if I like Justin Beiber.

I have picked up two British habits because of the amount of time I spend with my British co-workers and “clients.” The first is the habit of tea drinking. I have never been a coffee fiend and have always enjoyed a cup of tea from time to time, but at work, I almost always have a cup of tea at my reach. My colleagues and supervisors have taught me how to prepare a perfect cup of tea: let it steep a bit, add in sugar (1 teaspoon for me) and a splash of milk, take out the teabag, and enjoy. Tea drinking one of the British stereotypes that I have found to be true. The second trait I have inherited from my time in England is a bit of a British accent. It is actually less of an accent and more of an issue of enunciation, but it sounds very British. Since beginning work, I have started to ask questions with the British inflection. It is the strangest thing. My roommates first pointed it out to me, and when my family came to visit, my “accent” was one of the first things they noticed. Since realizing this phenomenon, I have tried to revert back to my West Coast American ways because I always teased Madonna for having a “fake” British accent, but I really cannot help it.

Leaving London in three weeks will be one of the most difficult goodbyes that I have ever encountered. It is hard to imagine life away from London and the mostly wonderful people who live and work here. I will always have a soft spot for London.