Guest Blogger- Other Karen

Hi I’m Karen and I work with Natalie,

If I was going to put a heading to this blog it would be “Au Pair, Really!” and to explain I would have to go back to when I first met Natalie.

I don’t know if she has ever mentioned that she comes from north of Watford and therefore has this strange way of pronouncing her vowels, that is what I remember of the “new girl” that joined four years ago, and that she spoke very loudly (sorry Nat but you do!)

After a few months we sat opposite each other and found that even though there is a huge age gap between us, we just somehow clicked. I don’t know why, perhaps it’s because we refused to have one of those desk dividers between us so we could talk and throw things at each other, and occasionally work of course.

During our “chats” as we now call them, she told me that after big boy was born she had an au pair. I was shocked, why would she need an au pair when she didn't work? One day when we had been joking around I suddenly said “I can’t believe how lazy you are, you even had an au pair” I cannot remember what she said but I think she just laughed it off.

Natalie had decided to come to work and not let her illness define who she was and wanted to be normal, so she did not let us know how unwell she had been and how she now had a bag. So I was completely unaware that the reason she had an au pair was because she was unable to look after two young children and needed help.

This shows how those Facebook messages we keep getting about “I may look ok on the outside but you never know what is happening underneath” are so true, but life is not like that and we will judge people by what we see and hear.

Unfortunately Natalie became unwell over the past couple of years and I had to sit opposite a young girl who should not have been at work at lot of the time. I watched the pain in her face, the endless tablet taking, and the pushing herself to make sure that her work did not suffer. I used to hope some days that she did not come in so I didn’t have to watch her but she usually turned up, rushing straight into the toilet to change her clothes due to her Stoma bag leaking on the way to work. Thankfully I’d like to think that on the occasions when she collapsed at work and needed an ambulance to be called she timed them so that I was not there!

The last collapse was a year ago and she has not been able to work since. I know Nat worries about what people thin of her taking so much time off work but I can genuinely say that nothing negative has ever been said about her. Just “when is she coming back?" Cause we all miss her. 

Note from NB: at work we call Karen, 'Other Karen'. This is because there is another Karen ('Boss Karen') and she became 'Other Karen' and the name just stuck. Even Big girl and big fella call her that!